We all want to be good dentists, but what does this actually mean, and how do we get to good?

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The 'good doctor' concept has been studied, and we know that doctors become 'good' by surrounding themselves with what they perceive to be good practice and then emulating this.1 The same is true for dentistry, not just in how we approach clinical situations but also in relation to how we conduct ourselves, be that with patients, colleagues, or within society. We surround ourselves with mentors and, either intentionally or subconsciously, mimic what we think of as good while avoiding what we consider bad. The more people we interact with, the more skills we can glean and incorporate into our own particular way of doing dentistry.

However, there is no singular template of a 'good dentist' we should all aspire to. What constitutes 'good' is likely to vary dependent on who's making that assessment, the dentist in question, and the context in which the evaluation is being made. As clinicians, we're likely to assess 'good' from a clinical perspective. Does that composite look like a tooth? Are the prep margins crisp? Is that root canal filled to the apex?

Patients, however, can't judge this, so they need to use a proxy to assess what is good. And the proxy they use is based on our non-clinical skills. Patients assess us on our personality, how we talk to them, and if we caused them pain. Most importantly, they want to feel as if we're building a genuine relationship with them. Empathy with patients is vital in being seen as 'good'.

And who is it that judges if we're a good dentist or not? Does the opinion of our peers matter more than that of patients? When we finally get to the day where we take off our mask and gloves for the final time, I think most of us will be more content if our patients felt that we served them well.

Rather than looking at being a 'good' dentist, we should be trying to produce 'good dentistry', which incorporates our clinical skills with the non-clinical skills that support them. Again, this idea has been looked at in medicine but is equally applicable to dentistry.2 To practise 'good dentistry,' we need to nurture the development of our non-clinical skills alongside our clinical ones.

How do we ensure that happens? Choose your mentors wisely. Don't just look at what they're doing clinically, but how they interact with patients. And it's not only dentists who influence us. We can learn just as much from the nurses, hygienists and other team members with whom we interact. And because many of those team members will have picked up tips from a multitude of different sources, you're getting the distilled essence of 'good' being fed right to you.

Good dentistry extends far beyond what we do with our hands and is more about the relationships we make than the fillings we place.