Importance of discipline taking records
Discipline is any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour. Discipline is nothing but point a goal and achieve it through a protocol, discipline is consistency, discipline is hit the stone always in the same place, always with a good guidance of course.
We live in an age where there aren’t dragons to slay or lands to conquer, and where access to resources and opportunities are so abundant that to know what we want and go after it’s the only gap from heroism. Today the (main) problem isn’t that you can’t get what you want, but you don’t want it enough. Most things we want to achieve aren’t difficult, it’s only lack of desire or fear what separate us from it and it’s at that point where discipline plays a key role.
I have always considered myself a very disciplined person, but discipline doesn’t mean success if isn’t focused on the right direction. A high-level athlete needs self-discipline but also a coach to motivate and guide him through the whole process, no one born knowing everything.
Let’s transfer this to dentistry and the topic I want to address, “the importance of discipline taking records“. A long-term success treatment is based on good planning, today we know that this is not applied in everyday dentistry. We diagnose fast and wrong without a good analysis of the situation; in the same way we live fast our live. This is often because of fear of understanding the complexity of the case or because we’re afraid that the patient won’t accept treatment. If we’re at that point, we are doomed to failure.
We have to understand that being in a situation of discomfort is good, it makes us be more aware, it makes us want to investigate and understand what’s out of our control. To be in a discomfort situation makes us progress!
To understand what’s happening in the mouth is essential to design a good treatment plan, it’s critical for long term success, it’s essential to avoid unexpected surprises and is essential to the patient. The first step in all this starts with taking good records, we must be careful, we must be precise, there are too many steps in the process in which we can miss some information, so the closer we are to perfection, the better will be our job.
Understand all this has taken me a while, and it was not until I started working with Dr. Ian Buckle when I started to fit the pieces of the puzzle, “discipline is perfection Pablo, we must be precise!“.
We work in a multidisciplinary team in which excellent records is critical. What for me may not be relevant as endodontist can be critical for the orthodontist or the surgeon, details are perfection.
We can have many years of experience, we can have a lot of knowledge in our field, but if we don’t understand that a good treatment plan begins with good records, we are doomed to be an average dentist.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment“. Jim Rohn.
PhD. MSc. Dr. Pablo Salmeron.