One of the biggest omissions in modern dental school education is the lack of business training.
The vast majority of graduating dentists will become business owners at some point in their careers, yet I think I received maybe 6 to 8 hours of instruction on the business of dentistry during four years of dental school. Because of that gap, many young dentists make a lot of avoidable mistakes. Some of us continue making them for years.
My practice was already very successful when I decided to go back to school, and I had already made and learned from many of those mistakes. So that was not the only reason I pursued an MBA. I was also a little bored, I have always enjoyed school, and I was beginning to think beyond my career in clinical dentistry.
So, four years ago, at the age of 43, I decided to go back to school for my MBA at UMass Amherst. Besides dentistry, my background is immunology/biochemistry and I had never taken a business course. The only MBA course that overlapped with my past schooling was statistics.
To finish the program in four years, I took classes every fall, winter, spring, and summer while continuing to work in and manage my practice, sending two kids to college, and dealing with all the normal life stuff that comes up along the way.
Last Friday, I walked for my degree and finished with a 4.0 GPA and was inducted into two honor societies for being 10% of my class.
I learned a tremendous amount. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It has forever changed how I see my business and business in general. And it was especially meaningful to share the moment with my kids, who have heard all the stories from college, dental school, and residency, but were not there to see those chapters unfold.
Hoping this and my four years of college, four years of dental school, and 3 years of residency shows them there is light at the end of the tunnel! Anyway, I guess this leaves me wondering what's next?
Kid on the left is my 18 year old, kid just to the right of me is my 6'3" 220lbs 16 year old, and to the far right is my 21 year old.
I did pretty well too!
The vast majority of graduating dentists will become business owners at some point in their careers, yet I think I received maybe 6 to 8 hours of instruction on the business of dentistry during four years of dental school. Because of that gap, many young dentists make a lot of avoidable mistakes. Some of us continue making them for years.
My practice was already very successful when I decided to go back to school, and I had already made and learned from many of those mistakes. So that was not the only reason I pursued an MBA. I was also a little bored, I have always enjoyed school, and I was beginning to think beyond my career in clinical dentistry.
So, four years ago, at the age of 43, I decided to go back to school for my MBA at UMass Amherst. Besides dentistry, my background is immunology/biochemistry and I had never taken a business course. The only MBA course that overlapped with my past schooling was statistics.
To finish the program in four years, I took classes every fall, winter, spring, and summer while continuing to work in and manage my practice, sending two kids to college, and dealing with all the normal life stuff that comes up along the way.
Last Friday, I walked for my degree and finished with a 4.0 GPA and was inducted into two honor societies for being 10% of my class.
I learned a tremendous amount. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It has forever changed how I see my business and business in general. And it was especially meaningful to share the moment with my kids, who have heard all the stories from college, dental school, and residency, but were not there to see those chapters unfold.
Hoping this and my four years of college, four years of dental school, and 3 years of residency shows them there is light at the end of the tunnel! Anyway, I guess this leaves me wondering what's next?
Kid on the left is my 18 year old, kid just to the right of me is my 6'3" 220lbs 16 year old, and to the far right is my 21 year old.
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. I admire what you’ve done. I called on Veterinarians for 35 years. Very few had any business knowledge and they were small businesses. I realized that they had no business training. They had studied science in all their schooling. I would expect your business to thrive even more. We used to say veterinarians made money in spite of themselves.
