fresh new faces

back to work after a little break. last few weeks, i felt like i lived at the office. but i was just making up time because of the days i took of last week and the shortened week for the easter holiday. so this week i only work two days and have a three day weekend!

yesterday was an interesting day, full of adventure and excitement. we started out with our "quarterly meeting" with our regional manager. remember, i'm in a private office that's run by a corporation, so they have to do these fiscal meetings 4 times a year to make sure everything's on track. there's percentages, metrics, reviews, clinical audits, and other crap that both me and my colleague who's been there over seven years just roll our eyes at. sometimes i forget that it's even like that, we dentists just "do our thing in the back". i really love my office manager, but she's relatively new to this position as well and she had picked up where the last person had left off (with the office in financial disarray). this was her second Q meeting, so she was a little stressed out about the numbers and stuff. we're definitely improving from where we were before and we're on target to meeting our yearly goals, but the numbers were a little short for her taste, even though our regional manager said that we rocked AND that the revenue from the second doctor (moi) was only generated in February, the last month of Q3. as for me, for a new dentist i'm apparently doing very well, and that's good to know. i could always be doing better, but that will come with time and more new patients.

we got a new assistant yesterday, praise the lord! i like her already, and even though it was her first day and she knew absolutely nothing about where anything was, she was fantastic. she tried to anticipate my every move, she took initiative, and the patients felt comfortable with her. we ran a bit behind, but hey, that always happens, right? we worked through the break but she still hustled, so i bought her an ice-cap from second cup. all-in-all, i think this may work out really nicely.

i've been getting a rash of patients that have been having some post-op sensitivity to bonded resins lately. i just ordered some gluma, a step i'll add in the bonding process that will hopefully take care of it. but i already had to remove one patient's fillings and place a ZOE sedative and wait for things to calm down. i hope i don't have to switch products, since we just ordered two more bottles of the prime-and-bond from 3M. that crap is expensive!