I had an epiphany during the first conference I went to about risk factors. Up until that point, I'd spent my career redoing dentistry that failed that I thought was my fault. After all, in dental school, they taught if my margins were good and I was perfect, then my dentistry would last. When, really, the dentistry was failing because of the different behaviors and risk factors of the individual patients. Yeah, my dentistry was good, but why would I assume it would last if the patient was drinking sugary soda every day?

Most of your patients with failing dentistry are frustrated. They view dentists as mechanics: if you fix my teeth they should stay fixed. As dentists, we spend our entire career in rapport with people giving high fives and telling them they're great. But that's not really helpful in helping patients who are frustrated with failing dentistry. Today we're going to talk about changing the conversation and educating patients about risk factors in a way they will understand.