The Dental Road Less Traveled

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two Roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

Success is all about getting. Significance is about giving back. Don’t get me wrong, success is good, profit is good. At some point, at some profit, at some place where we have gotten enough success, our focus is free to change towards significance.

As a nonprofit educational center, The Pankey Institute supplies neither goods nor services as a business would. It does not seek to exert control or provide an orderly societal framework over a population as governments are designed to do.  Instead, it’s desired product is an enlightened human being better able to serve the needs of their fellow human beings. Not-for-profit institutions are human change agents. The Pankey products are critical thinking dentists aspiring to make an impact on their society and cured patients.

Money, status and power may feed our primal and Maslow’s hierarchical needs, but the opportunity to change lives is a powerful form of significance. Ethical and Comprehensive, Relationship-Based Dental Care models help us, as true dental professionals, to yield significance from our work. It is becoming a human change agency, first for us, then for our staffs and ultimately for our patients that gives our practices and our lives a higher purpose. Achievement and the making and spending of money are pleasant to be sure, but the relationships of life are what we will remember long after the transient pleasures of the material wealth are gone. I am not saying money is bad, rather that it alone cannot buy happiness (although it can help you enjoy your misery in some mighty fine places).

Balancing our lives within and outside of dentistry is an important part of being free to develop these relationships. When I first came to The Pankey Institute in search of becoming a better dentist, I sought achievement in the form of a great reputation among my peers.  I sought to make more money by being able to treat more comprehensive cases successfully and with confidence.  I met both of those objectives. But my significance development began to unfold as the faculty challenged not just my clinical skills, but the elusive traits of balance in my life: Work, Love, Worship and Play.

It was when I put a broader view to the measures of success that the significance of relationships began to bubble up to the surface ñ relationships with my staff and my patients, but more importantly with my wife, kids, friends and family. Hobbies that I enjoyed drifted back into this balance, and whatever greater force of nature or being that draws us to worship became more important. These relationships were the significance that brought fulfillment to the practice of my profession of dentistry. These relationships made dentistry a part of my life and not simply a living and materially affected other aspects of my life.

Today, at ages 24 and 21, my kids can articulate the Aristotelian concept of this balanced life and happiness through Work, Love, Worship and Play. They did not study at The Pankey Institute, but they were inculcated with this model through my relationships and me. Their significance, like yours or mine, will be the product of our relationships much more than our successes. We could use the phrase “ethical and comprehensive, relationship-based” to describe most anything, and it would be appropriate. Relationships will ultimately matter most, not achievements and wealth.

When the two planes hit the Twin Towers, the importance of relationships became immediately crystal clear. We asked ourselves, “Where are our family members? Where are our friends?” We wanted to be with the people who matter most in my life. I think no one asked or thought about their wealth or achievements at that moment. They likely thought first and foremost about what really mattered, the people with whom they had meaningful relationships.

Wherever two roads diverge in your dental journey, take the one less traveled, the one which is significant. It will make all the difference. Stand up and project your voice as an advocate for ethical and comprehensive relationship-based care. Refer colleagues to The Pankey Institute. I have no doubt that, as you share your journey and enlightenment, as you achieve success and happiness in your business, you will relish the move to significance as a human change agent.


Do you have a question for Mark Murphy? E-mail jdt@nadl.org.