Transcript
Speaker: where my brain, not that I'm not in there with my patient at all times, focusing on giving them the best work I can absolutely do. what last words, you know, EFTA versus no EFTA and all the things.
Speaker: So there are going to be days where something doesn't go the way we want and I need you just to trust in yourself and to trust me to come tell me, hey, we got to drill this out and try again. ADEC's Smart Start program offers first-time practice owners their deepest discounts on equipment and furniture for two years, plus other savings and complimentary services. Ask your ADEC rep for details and start smart with ADEC.
Speaker: Join Drs. Savannah Craig and Renetta Sartor as we navigate life beyond graduation. Real conversations about forging our own paths in our early years in our careers.
Speaker: There's a reason it's called practicing dentistry. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Graduation. I'm Savannah Craig and with me as always... I'm Renetta Sartor. All right, so it's been a minute, but it's just the two of us talking about whatever we want to talk about. Yes, so today is going to be, um the spotlight is kind going to be more on you because today's discussion is about expanded function dental assistance. And in South Carolina, that means something different than what it means in your world.
Speaker: South Carolina's law pretty much does not allow dental assistants to place fillings and do a lot of the cool stuff that Ohio allows. So can you talk more about what a day in the life of expanded function dental assistant looks like, I guess, from the assistant perspective, as well as like from your perspective as a dentist? Yeah. Yeah. So EFTAs, as we call them, so you have to be a dental assistant, a certified dental assistant for a certain amount of time. And then you can go back to school to be an EFTA.
Speaker: it I believe, is somewhere between a 12 to... 18-month program. And ah my assistant right now is going to be starting her fall semester of EFTA school at the end of the month. So we're very excited. I'll have two EFTAs. That's awesome.
Speaker: It's very exciting. I'm excited for this journey with her. And they, so the, she took a summer semester that was dental anatomy. And then the fall semester will actually, i believe,
Speaker: like dental materials and learning to place composite amalgam g i And are the school that she is going to allows our office to be sort of a satellite component. So once they have passed certain standards, they're allowed to start placing under my supervision in the office. And then from there, they eventually take a board exam that allows them to be licensed as an EFTA. That's great. Yeah. So there's a lot of training that goes into it. ah My perspective, I absolutely love my EFTAs and I cannot imagine how anybody works without them. People can feel some type of way about the dentist giving up their control. But what I've learned and my EFTAs will even tell you when I first came out of residency, I was very hesitant But this is all they do all day long is place fillings, think about fillings where my brain, not that I'm not in there with my patient at all time, focusing on giving them the best work I can absolutely do. But I'm getting up and doing hygiene checks. I'm thinking about, OK, I'm prepping in here and then I'm extracting in there and all of these things where my EFTAs can come in and just poke focus on giving you the most beautiful, functional restorations.
Speaker: And really just hone in on that while I'm doing other things. That's great. So do you have to come at the end of end of the procedure to, you know, check the occlusion or contact or anything like that or? Yeah, so I will come back in and double check those things, you know, run the floss, look around.
Speaker: I think even when I'm doing my own restoration, sometimes it's nice to get up and then come back and you're like, oh, there was a little piece of flash here that I didn't see. Or, you know, the the let the patient sit up for a while and then check the bite can be helpful. So I do go back in and double check some things. my We joke a lot about my EFTA in particular is she believes in her work and there will be times where she's like, this this didn't go well. And I'm like, okay, I'll come in. And if we have to drill it out, no biggie. That happens to me too.
Speaker: and you'll go in and it's a gorgeous restoration that's clinically acceptable. And we'll take it a check bite wing to let her sleep at night, but it's better than I could do. And we're good. We're fine. So i'm I'm honored to work with some really incredible people who take their jobs very seriously. And so, yeah, there are times where they're like, this is terrible and you are going to have to drill it out. And I'm always down to do it. But most of the time I go in there, i'm like, this is great. this is This was a hard situation, you know, and we did the best we could do. And I learned from them. Yeah, I think I like that reciprocity, you know, like you're teaching them and they're teaching you in some aspects as well. What other procedures in your state are your EFTAs able to do? So they can use a handpiece in the mouth on a restoration. So they can adjust occlusion on crowns in the mouth. They can in adjust, they cannot touch enamel. So they can, you know, adjust the bite on their fillings. They most have like coronal polishing sealants, all of those things as well. They can, because they're using composites, they can do Invisalign or clear aligner attachments.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They can assist. ah They can place cord. They can do my temporaries. They do a lot for me. That's awesome. Now imagine in a fast-paced office like the office that you're in it allows you to be able to treat more patients and you know, it's nice to have, maybe be less tired than you would have been if you were expected to do the restoration as well. Yeah, it creates a better flow. And i like I said, it allows my EFTA and myself to be way more efficient and also to focus on those specific tasks because I can jump up and go do a hygiene check or ah denture adjustment or something like that while my EFTA is placing fillings. and And she can take as much time as she needs to get those things right. It makes the day so much easier because honestly, placing fillings is such a like time suck.
Speaker: Can we be honest? It does take a while. It does take a while. What are your thoughts on some of the states in dentistry? Are you looking for a job?
Speaker: But not just any job, a really good job. And by job, we mean in dentistry, of course. And a job in dentistry could be an associateship, starting your own, or acquiring a practice. There's a lot of ways to be a dentist. If you're looking and you've been looking...
Speaker: Ignite DDS coaching is the way to go. Take a look at Ignite DDS dot com. We've got all of the resources to find the perfect dentist job for you. It's out there that are pushing back on things like AFTAs because of the thought process, at least from what I've heard that, you know, if you open a door for that, then it's, you know, mid-level providers next. And then other things like that that might put our profession at jeopardy. i For me, it goes back and forth. I see both sides about protecting the patients and protecting the integrity of the dental profession.
Speaker: But for me, at the end of the day, I'm all about access to care. And my EFTAs, at least mine in particular, have no interest in they love to place their fillings and they do a really good job at it, but they don't want any of these other tasks. I don't know that it's a direct gateway that we think it is. And my hygienists, so in Ohio, my hygienists can give blocks and numb.
Speaker: They have no interest in placing fillings. So I think it allows everybody to live in their own little world and do the best for the patient. Sometimes I get some patient pushback on, well, no, you're the doctor, you should do this. And I can look at them with full honesty and say, no, she's going to do a better job than I could. Because this is this is what she does. She spent an entire justice has been practicing for a while. Shout out. And all of our F does have. But we even have some of our new girls that are just starting. And it's impressive what they did because they spent 12 months just learning to do this. Think about dental school in four years, how much we had to learn. Yes, we learned to place fillings, but we also learned how to prep crowns and we learned how to take out teeth. And imagine if you had just a year of focusing on one aspect of dentistry, how and all of the different ways to do it. I don't know how you were taught in school, but we had basically here's here's this setup.
Speaker: Here's this sectional matrix. This is all you got to work with. and you're like okay, that's all I know, where from my EFTA's experiences, they have gotten to try different matrix setups and Toffelmeyers and different instruments and gives them a lot of time to play compared to what we had. That's a great point. And i I love that it's a different perspective. You know, I love that it's more like leaning into the possibilities of what we could do, you know, by collaboration. yes What is your thought? Because ah South Carolina is very strict on these things and there's a lot of opinions about taking things away from the the doctors. Well, I see both sides, honestly. So i I'm a solo practitioner.
Speaker: So I would love for the opportunity to kind of get up from my chair and go do something else and then allow my awesome assistant to place a restoration process.
Speaker: I think my thought process will be as long as the education was there, you know, as long as they're able to, you know, go and have the training that's necessary. In addition to the training, the same way we have to get community, like um continuing education and stuff.
Speaker: I would want that for them. And, you know, if if I were in a position where i had AFTAs, pretty much I would pay for them to go do continuing education and that sort of thing. So I see both sides. I could see where there could be hesitation in it from just wanting safety of our patients and everything to be.
Speaker: at utmost, but I could also see the benefits from it too, especially if you're a solo prac practitioner. And sometimes I feel like it's not enough hours in the day, especially if you got a schedule packed with patients and then you have others calling for emergencies and stuff. Yeah, I think it's the same no matter what any of us are doing. You have to have the training and the hand skills and the integrity of what your craft is.
Speaker: And I don't know that it matters if it's technically an assistant or technically the doctor doing it. I feel like you're going to find people who are under trained. And I don't think anyone's out there doing intentional harm.
Speaker: I've seen some not good feelings that doctors have put in. Yeah, this is true. You know what I I've told Lauren when she starts up to school that it's going to be a learning curve.
Speaker: I spent my fair share of time in remediation and dental school, relearning how to, you know, pack amalgam or prep things. And so there are going to be days where something doesn't go the way we want. And I need you just to trust in yourself and to trust me to come tell me, hey, we got to drill this out and try again.
Speaker: And I would rather and and I've been talking a lot with the other doctors about this will be my first time having brand new EFTAs and how to communicate that with the patient in a way that builds them up, but also leaves room for if we have to redo things and saying and this is a really hard feeling and we want the best for you no matter how long it takes us or What we got to do and we're going to take a check x-ray to make sure that things are right for you and just setting up that expectation for everybody that it's not it's not punitive. We're all learning. imagine for you it would be similar to in dental school how our our attendings had to check over what we did. Totally. And I don't know about you, but a lot of my patients really appreciated that pretty much not only do I have my dental student doing what I know is probably going be best, but every not every most of the steps of the way, pretty much, there's somebody that's been doing this for a long time that's just confirming you know that everything looks good and reassuring the patient that everything is good. And just like you were saying, i think everything is about perspective.
Speaker: And if your perspective or the perspective you share with your patient is, ugh, so-and-so over here is learning and we're going to blah, bla blah, that's bad. And just like if your perspective is an assistant could never place a feeling as good as me, like that's the world you're going to create for yourself. That's true. Versus...
Speaker: Truly, they they have done some impressive things. And it's so funny because I'll prep out some giant, terrible, you know, just something awful that I would never, ever want to fill.
Speaker: And my FDs will be like, yes, I love this challenge. And I'm like, there's no way that work isn't going to be better. Yeah. You know, if I'm going at it like it's going to be bloody and I'm going to can't see anything versus FDs like, yeah, I'm going to get it. It's going to be a better outcome for the patient. And it also has made me a better ah don't even like my prep's better because I have somebody else's eyes now who says, hey, you left this overhang or hey, I can't fill this because this, this and this. And you're like, oh, I don't know if you get this way where sometimes when I'm looking at something for too long or I can't. We are trying to look at everything, but there's so many dimensions. Just like I said about flash, like I got to leave the room and come back. And then I'm like, that's right here. This little.
Speaker: But you do lose some of that. And so having another set of eyes even on me is huge. Yeah, it's almost like, you know, your first time using a scanner and you really see what your prep looks like. You know, scanners and photography and everything makes your work so much better. And so I could see how just that teamwork would be. It could be a win-win for everyone involved. I could just see how that would empower your assistant, too, to want to learn more. Absolutely.
Speaker: To take, like, more ownership in their position and realize that they're not just an assistant. You know, they are instrumental in helping the patient with their care. Totally.
Speaker: if you're not careful about like your culture, create a different hierarchy, even amongst your assistants. And so I am always very clear of every single person here in this office has an important job to do And none of us can do it without the other one doing their job well, because some assistants feel like EFTAs are better and they can do better. And I'm like, I still need you doing if If everybody here was placing fillings, we would be toast. If everybody here was the doctor, we would be toast. If everybody here was answering phones, we would be toast. Like we need every single piece of this and we're not more important than the other.
Speaker: and what I really like about the way my office is structured is assistance and EFTAs are very interchangeable. Obviously, EFTAs place fillings, but if I've got extractions and a root canal, my EFTA is still expected to do the assisting things versus there are some offices in town where the EFTA is not assigned to a doctor team and they just, whoever's ready, goes in and fills, goes in and fills, goes in and fills. While that could be efficient, I like that we've built this rapport with the patients and that my
Speaker: EFTA is learning my work. I'm learning their work. And we are part of an integral team versus just like plugging, you know, everything's ah everything's a nail if you're the hammer. You know what i mean? Yeah. Different ways to do it. Yeah. It's very interesting insights.
Speaker: So for the people out there that don't know much, what last words do you have on this like debate of, you know, EFTA versus no EFTA and all the things? Yeah, i could not survive my schedule without my EFTAs. I'm very pro EFTA, but I think it's just trying to figure out Why? What is actually your fear of allowing people to help out? Perhaps is is what this boils down to
Speaker: This idea that I'm the dentist and I'm in control and I know all of these things feels at this point today very much like a scarcity thing. And i feel...
Speaker: If you give people, people want growth and they want all of these things. And if you can have them trained and set at a certain level of expectation, why not see what could happen and see how many more, how much more productive you could be, how much more patients could get treatment. If we're willing to to share this load, not saying that there shouldn't be oversights, but why not? What? Yeah, i'm i'm I would love for this to fuel a debate of people who are not as comfortable with it and to know where the downside is, because from my where I'm sitting, it's all it's all upside. So you heard it here before?
Speaker: First, folks, please drop all of your comments, you know, inbox us, you know, let us know how you feel and your take on it. And you might bring up some things that we maybe haven't considered or thought about. Until next time. Thank for joining us for this episode of Beyond Graduation. If you enjoyed this week's episode, be sure to share it with a friend.
Speaker: Connect with us. on social media at Savannah Craig DBS and at Dr. Sartor. And remember, you are not alone on this journey. ADEC certified pre-owned equipment is a sustainable, affordable choice that makes genuine ADEC equipment available to every doctor. Each package is sold on a first-come, first-served basis. So if you see one you like, contact your dealer. For more information, go to www.adec.com backslash findadealer. Thank you for listening to Beyond Graduation brought to you by Ignite DDS and Future Dentists. This episode was sponsored by Ignite DDS Coaching.
Speaker: We build self-determined futures. For more information, please reach out to the Ignite DDS team.
