The Smoldering Pile: Where does this title come from?

The title "the Smoldering Pile" comes from some advice given to me by Harold Eissman DDS, way back in the late 1970's while I was a dental student at UCSF.


Harold said "you should practice dentistry as if God himself were going to return on a random date and inspect the mouths of all who live in your community.  Not just YOUR patients.  Not just people who see any dentist regularly, but ALL of the people who live in your community.  Now, if they aren't healthy, if their mouths are riddled with disease, their teeth decayed, their gums infected, their teeth ugly, misaligned, broken, or missing..... well, in that case, God will smite you with a bolt of lightning, and all that will be left of you will be a SMOLDERING PILE of what USED TO BE A DENTIST. 

This matters to me more and more, as the interceding years have made it clear that organized dentistry, government regulation, and economic reality all conspire to take a dental practitioner off in another another direction entirely.   What does the Board want?   Well, often it enforces the status quo (who has left half the population or more devastated by disease).  What does the Dental Society want?  Well, "don't rock the boat" is the bylaw of all.   What do the CDC, EPA, OSHA, Employment Law, and all the rest want?  Well, they want you to go broke following their laws, so that the cost of dentistry rises so high that few can afford it.   What does economic reality want?  Well, charge as much as you can, rather than as little as you need to. 

So this blog is where I can rant, but also offer good counsel to other (mostly younger or less professionally flexible) dentists on how to effectively compromise the wants and needs of your very many consitituencies (peers, society, board, regulatory agencies, family, ecomonic needs) and STAY FOCUSED ON THE PATIENT, so as not to allow yourself to become a SMOLDERING PILE of WHAT USED TO BE A DENTIST!!!!!