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There’s a Dental Spouse in the Dental House
Every year, since dentistry became a cottage profession, dentists have rationalized that age-old question, "Who could be better at working in my office than my spouse?" However, when dentists act on the essence of that question and actually hire (or enslave) their spouses to take on employment within the office, an entire litany of emotions, complex interactions and conflicts of interests begin to affect each and every person in the dental office. Many don't even consciously recognize hostility boiling beneath the surface of the once-happy dental team.
Why Dentists Consider Employing Spouses
There are so many presumptions why dentists consider having a spouse in the dental house. For example:
1) I will save paying a salary to a real employee. Now, that is a real ego booster to the person asked to subject themselves to angry patients, collection problems, terminations, insurance paperwork and staff interaction problems. Any person invited to work in a dental office really earns whatever salary they are paid. Someone asked to perform all their duties, along with taking the abuse that the public often inflicts on healthcare professionals today, deserves to receive an income to compensate for the lost stomach lining that often lays on the floor at the end of a hard day in the dental office (and, the old line used by many dentists, "I sleep with her/him - what more could she/he want?" just doesn't fly). In fact, dentists might seriously consider what happens when the dentist finds out that the spouse doesn't fit into the office staff, and has to terminate the spouse to salvage the dental office.
2) The spouse is always watching what the employees are doing and at night she/he reports all the mistakes to the doctor. I know this sounds paranoid to the doctor, but this is the prevailing disease that we find in the dental staff. When employees feel that they are never fully independent to function in a professional capacity, they will spend as much time looking over their shoulder at the "class monitor" rather than becoming their position. People who are highly motivated no longer think of themselves as a dental assistant, they think of themselves as the embodiment of the position. They give up having to tell themselves that this is their position; rather they think of themselves as being the position. Although this seems like a small distinction, it is not. Call it professional self-esteem if you like, but it is vital for happiness in one's position, especially in such a high-stress profession as dentistry.
3) When a spouse works in the dental office, what do you talk about at night? One of the best reasons not to marry someone in your own profession is the need to talk at night and on weekends about something other than molars, root canals and how the staff thinks they are not being paid what they are worth. It is an illusion to think that we marry people who are just like us. If that were true we would spend lots of time looking in mirrors. I suggest that the opposite is really true. We marry people because of their differences from us for the most part. We may have certain things in common, but if our spouse is just like us, most of us would get sick of seeing ourselves. We may love a juicy steak, teaming with juices and sauces, but have that every night at every meal. I don't think so. Pretty soon we would look for something different.
So, it is probably wise for dentists to consider long and hard before deciding to bring a dental spouse into the dental house. You may save some money in salary expenditures, but you just might destroy the person who gets what is left over after 10 to 12 hours a day of emotional stress at the wonderful daytime arena called, "The Private Practice of ..." Could what's left over be the other half of "For Better or _________?"
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