Who do you want to be for your patients

Part 1 - Ergonomics and time management

Instructors:

Ms. Rachel Smith, RDH

Ms. Rachel Smith, RDH

Rachel Smith has been a peridontal therapist and passionate dental hygienist for over 20 years.  She currently works in Plano, TX with Dr. Marcus Whitmore. Rachel was one of the first hygienists in the state of TX to incorporate diode lasers in her practice.

Rachel discusses how to take care of yourself and your patient efficiently.

Hi, my name is Rachel Smith and I want to first thank you for taking your time to spend some time on yourself today. I didn't know exactly where you are in your career if you're two days in or twenty years in or you know, ten years in. Any time that you take time for yourself, you're definitely going to put yourself in a position where you're going to be a better hygienist and you know we just want you to be all you can be. We want to motivate you to make the most of your career. My objectives today for everyone who's watching is to have confidence in your position or your role in the practice to have proficiency in time management, to master some key phrases to better communicate which I'm going to share which I'm going to share with you and also to understand the roles of new technology in daily practice and how those also can be a profit center for you. I will also want to help you have some proficiency in the use of diode lasers, hands-free periodontal charting and proper implant care.
The first thing I'm going to ask for you to do is really look at yourself in the mirror. I want you to look at you like a patient will look at you and what do you see? Do you see -- you know, are you excited to go to work every day? Are you just rolling off your mattress and just showing up? You know, what kind of team player are you? What kind of team member are you? So when you go to work and I certainly know from working in the different dental environments that I have that not every dental environment is perfect. You know, certainly there can be certain team members that can maybe bring it down for you. Maybe possibly your dentist is bringing it down. But really we are really in charge of our own situation when we get there to the practice every day and we really should because we are a provider in the practice and I know that we like to have some sense of team, we also need to know that we are a little different than the other team members because we actually do provide for the practice which means we are a profit center for the practice and our patients need to look at us that way as well. And you know, when you see yourself in the mirror, are you going to be wearing the same thing as everyone else in your team? Are you going to put ñ wear something that's going to help you set yourself above where everyone else is, not above necessarily but just let your patients see you as someone a little more professional. As you can see, I actually have well what I wear in the clinical environment on today when I started working for [0:02:27] [Indiscernible] who I work for now in Plano, Texas, he asked for us to wear a white lab jacket and please have our name embroidered on that which is just really lets everyone have their position in the practice. You know, since I started wearing a lab jacket it kind of helped me put my profession on every day. When now I go into spas and those kind of things, you know, anyone who's got a white jacket on just kind of commands a little more attention from the general public. Now I would say that our patients do as well. Since I have been dressing this way, I certainly just feel a little more professional and everyone says you know you look as good as you feel. So if you're going to look at it, you're also going to feel well and hopefully treat your patients well. I'm not asking you to give up on your team and not wear matching scrubs and that kind of thing. I'm just saying that you should really try and look your best every day and just try and you know, give that picture put together for your patients.

The other part of that is taking care of you is really to take care of you and your skeleton. 30% of all dental professionals actually quit early due to musculoskeletal issues. I didn't know if you're aware of this or not but when we hold our self in a static position which as you know we are leaned this way most of the time we have to use 50% of our muscles to actually hold ourselves in that position. So we are kind of in charge of what our site position is so I really will challenge you to invest in some loops that work for you. There are lots of great manufacturers out there. I personally use designs for vision. I know that oroscopic is out there, perioptix, there's lots of different options and most of those manufacturers also have a headlamp and I would challenge you especially hygienists to invest in a lamp. I know from the doctors I've worked for they always have an assistant so for them they're not raising above their head all the time, you know, adjusting the light. We on ourselves actually work by ourselves and have to the a lot of adjusting on our own. So I will just say you know, it's definitely worth it to have a headlamp. We also really rely a lot on indirect vision so by doing that we need to really make sure that we're pointing our light in the ways that our mirror is going to be able to illuminate what we're doing.

Also I will talk to you too about really taking the stress off your arms. By taking the stress off your arms, you want to be using something that's lightweight. You know I've already shared with you I've been a hygienist for a lot of years and the earlier dental instruments that were out there were really skinny and heavy. Our instruments now are actually very ergonomically shaped and have grip on them so we can really hold them steadily with our hands with gloves on and also they're very lightweight. There's also some great manufacturers, American Eagle and also that would be Paradise Dental Technologies. They also have very lightweight ultra-sharp instruments. I know that [0:05:29] [Indiscernible] also has some ultra-sharps that stay sharp for a long amount of time. It's really worth the investment for you or for your doctor. If your doctor is not going to invest in you, that's fine. You can invest in yourself. Certainly my loops and my headlights are something I bought for me. So they get to go with me no matter where I go. They really have made a huge difference.
The other thing that I don't know if we all take into consideration is actually our patient's personal space. As you practice for a long time and you don't have any magnification, you can have a tendency to really get in your patient's business because you're really trying hard to be able to see what you need to see. When you have loops that are made specifically for you, they're going to be measured very specifically so that you keep your body in the proper position and that you are working this far away from your patient or wherever you're working distances. So you're not going to be getting up on your patient's business. I will share with you certainly when we go chair side, I kind of did an impromptu conversation with my patients about what bothers them about having their teeth cleaned. What about their dental hygienist would they like to see possibly changed or what would they like to see different. I heard multiple times from patients either heavy handedness, you know, the dental hygienist that urge is very rough and just really work very aggressively and also patients who get a little too close.

So I really took that into consideration. I kind of always thought that but from talking to my patients, I had a little confirmation on that. So anyway just something to think about.
The other thing too is that because I just shared with you we stay in a static position, really if you can even take a little bit of time every day to exercise. Now Tabitha Tavoc, she's an excellent dental hygienist. She also writes on ergonomics for RDH magazine and there'll be a link for her at the end of this presentation. Certainly she's got some great little exercises to do but even if you can take a little bit of time just to stretch, pull your arms back instead of going forward, you know, just make sure that you are staying in a comfortable position. If you need to take a break say if you're doing a full mouth scaling root planning or periodontal therapy, if you need to take a break, understand and let your patients know that you just need to take a break to make sure that you're really focused on them.

Another thing that I know a lot of you hygienists have come across is patients who are like don't tell me about [0:07:54] [Indiscernible] before, do this for me. So one thing that's worked for me is to get your patients involved to just change your verbiage when you're asking them if you can tilt them back. Just say to them you know, I need to find a position for you and I to both be comfortable. So that they understand that your comfort or our comfort is definitely an important part of their treatment and for them to have a great result at the end of it.
Now one thing that I know has probably been addressed to you, probably starting when you were in school and maybe through some other time, some another time, some other continuing education is your time management. What is expected from you in an hour or less? Well you know I can start right now by saying we have to do a health history update, we have to do oral cancer screening, laser back tool reduction, x-rays, periocharting, restorative charting, photographs both intraoral, extraoral, bite assessment, headaches, TMJ, do they have OSA which is you know, any kind of snoring or they have an obstructive sleep apnea, do they have any risk that way. And then let's go ahead and talk to them about what can we do for you cosmetically. Do you have cosmetic concerns? Do you want to do some whitening? Maybe you talked about [0:09:09] [Indiscernible] line, have you talked about orthodontics and their needs and etc., and I can go on and on and on. There's so many things that we are expected to do in an hour or less and that's very , very tricky.

So in the time that I have been a hygienist, I have definitely had my struggles with that and oh I forgot sometimes we're supposed to have some emotional or less personally get to know our patients too. So somehow in that we're supposed to be able to hey how are you, how's your husband, how's your children, did they graduate from college that kind of thing. So one way that I have really found for myself over the years is to try and keep it simple. The best thing to do is to close your mouth. If you're like me, maybe you're not like me but I am a very outgoing, talking kind of person. I love to talk. A lot of hygienist fall into that personality type but really what we need to learn how to do is be an empathic listener. An empathic listener is different than being a regular listener. An empathic listener is someone who is closing their whole self and opening themselves up to listening to what someone has to say.

If you can take a minute and just listen to what someone is saying to you not thinking about what you're going to respond to them about but listening to them like you need to absolutely say back to them what they just said to you. By doing that you're going to allow yourself to be at detective and then when you're a detective your question is the answer. So if you have someone who's coming into you and they just say well I've got this two that sometimes bothers me, well then you can okay well it sometimes bothers you how many times ñ when does this happen and what is the stimulus that causes that to happen. You can just get yourself down the right path with them.
And then also if you have someone who's coming and they're just you know, we'll just clean my teeth, well you need to really kind of listen to what are they really ñwhat's their body language saying to you. You really just need to use direct concise statements with them just you know what can I do for you today. You need to get over the whole thing of wanting patients to like you all the time. It's not a personality contest, it's not about them being your best friend. We don't need them to necessarily like us. We're there to really actually treat them. So by listening to what they need from us and getting them to hear what we can do for them it's going to be a lot easier for us to then go write down the path where we need to go. Because it's our job to let them know what we find and it's their job to decide what they want to do. So we want you to go ahead and just do not say no for your patient. You need to really ñ then of course I want to get back to what I said earlier is that I want you to be a detective. I want you to really be looking and not necessarily we as hygienists look for gum disease all the time. That's what we went to school for. They totally focused on that the whole entire time. But to be a better team player, to be a better team member and really just understand exactly what your doctor needs from you and then also to help us better explain to the patient what's going on.