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Dental Career Goals and Timelines
12 Plays18 days ago
About the Hosts:
Dr. Savanah Craig is a seasoned dentist who hosts the podcast "Beyond Graduation." She offers invaluable insights into the transitional period from dental school to professional practice. Dr. Craig's dedication to educating and supporting new dentists has established her as a prominent figure in the dental community. Dr. Ronnetta Sartor is a highly experienced dentist and co-host of the "Beyond Graduation" podcast. Known for her extensive knowledge in dentistry and leadership, Dr. Sartor aims to guide recent dental graduates through the complexities of their early careers, combining professional pathway discussions with personal growth strategies.
Episode Summary:
In this enthralling episode of "Beyond Graduation," Dr. Savanah Craig and Dr. Ronnetta Sartor dive into the concept of "Time Horizon"—a pivotal aspect for dental professionals transitioning from school to practice. The episode explores the intricate balance between professional goals, personal growth, and the timeline that ties them all together.
Dr. Craig and Dr. Sartor begin by addressing how tightly scheduled their formative years were, transitioning every four years through high school, college, dental school, and residency. As they reflect on moving past these structured timelines, they emphasize the necessity of personal goal-setting without a pre-set system guiding them. Dr. Sartor cites Dr. Rice's book, "Is Everyone Smiling but You? Level Up your Life Practice Now," illustrating its relevance to the topic. The hosts delve into the soul-searching needed to understand what "endgame" looks like at various stages of their lives and careers.
The conversation takes a practical turn as the doctors discuss handling comparisons and competition within the dental field. They recount their experiences with peers and mentors, transforming potential comparisons into motivations for self-improvement. Dr. Craig brings a unique perspective being relatively fresh out of residency, detailing her path and the different comparisons she observes with her peers and colleagues. Both hosts share personal anecdotes and strategies for setting and achieving goals, highlighting the mental shift from perceiving milestones as rigid checkpoints to viewing them as evolving targets.
Key Takeaways:
- Structured to Self-Directed Goals: The transition from highly structured educational timelines to setting self-directed professional and personal goals.
- Competition and Comparison: The importance of transforming comparison and competition into motivation for self-improvement.
- Mentorship: Leveraging experiences and advice from mentors to guide and inspire one's own career path.
- Progress Over Perfection: Emphasizing progress and personal growth over stringent goal deadlines.
- Holistic Goal-Setting: The integration of professional, personal, emotional, and spiritual goals to achieve a balanced life.
Connect with Us:
- Savanah Craig, DDS: @savanahcraigdds
- Ronnetta Sartor, DMD: @dr_sartor
- FutureDentists Beyond Graduation: @futuredentistsbeyondgraduation
- Dental Residency Guide and Beyond Graduation eBooks: https://ignitedds.com/subscription-resources/
- Other Books: The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran, Michael Lennington et al. and Is Everyone Smiling but You? Level Up Your Life Practice Now by Dr. David Rice
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Transcript
Navigating Life and Career Post-Graduation
00:00:00
Speaker
Join Dr. 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. There's a reason it's called practicing dentistry. All right, this week we are talking about time horizon. that the best sort of label we could give this but it's basically talking about you know goal setting and aspirations for our careers and our personal lives but dentists and long-time students we all have this sort of time piece associated with all of these goals and trying to understand maybe what that looks like now that you get to set your own sort of
00:00:45
Speaker
speed and timeline for these goals have spent all of our formative years in these, you know, four years of high school, four years of college, four years of dental school, you know, some people with some sort of flexibility in there, but basically everything was running on this timeline.
Reaching Residency Graduation: What's Next?
00:01:02
Speaker
And I always joke that I had not thought past, you know, residency graduation, you know, I had a plan, get to dental school, graduate dental school, one year residency. And then it was like,
00:01:15
Speaker
What next? Now what?
00:01:20
Speaker
What, what is, what's your thoughts? So as I reflect on what you said, my first thought is, um, Dr. Rice's book is everyone smiling, but you level up your life practice. I think his book sums up this topic beautifully.
Soul Searching for Long-term Life Goals
00:01:40
Speaker
Um, in terms of talking about,
00:01:43
Speaker
you know, where it is you you see yourself and how to make that happen. um And sometimes the how to make it happen is tough. And in addition to that,
00:02:00
Speaker
soul searching and figuring out what end game looks like. As you said, um, it's tough and it's one of those things that we'll likely have to do various times in our lives. Um, as we hit different milestones, we set more goals. Um, I think for me, what has changed is for so long, like you said, we were in school.
00:02:26
Speaker
who So the only real goals I had was, like you said, like professional goals, like, okay, make all A's and undergrads so I can get to dental school. And then once I'm in dental school, do really, really well so that if I want to specialize, I can, but if not, I could do a residency. And then the next thing became, okay, well now I need to find a practice and I need to try to do as well as I could can in that practice so that I can learn as much as I can.
Achieving Practice Ownership and Career Decisions
00:03:00
Speaker
So that if I want to become a practice owner,
00:03:03
Speaker
I have the tools and I have the speed and everything I need to become a practice owner. So we're in different stages of our time horizon, but, um, you know, just earlier this year, I was talking to someone and they're like, okay, well, you know, the goal was practice ownership for you. So like, what's next, you know? that Yeah. It's like, wrap it up. Is it? But then, you know, you I think you you and I both know each other very well. So we're just like, okay, well now from a professional standpoint, the goal is to grow the practice. Um,
00:03:45
Speaker
But I don't know if it's because I'm aging and getting older and all those
Balancing Professional and Personal Aspirations
00:03:51
Speaker
things. But now I just don't look at um goals from a professional standpoint. I think about it from a personal and emotional and spiritual standpoint as well. And so um having all all of those goals coincide just helps propel. I think the
00:04:16
Speaker
did you have Did you have a specific like time horizon, timed goal for practice ownership, or was it just more of when you when it felt right to you?
00:04:29
Speaker
So I did have a time. I had a time limit. I did. I had a time limit. Um, I exceeded, not exceeded. I met it, um, before the time that I had in mind. Um, but initially I didn't, um, a really close friend of mine that has been practicing, you know,
00:04:55
Speaker
maybe 10 plus years more than me. I remember being in my associate ship and just kind of wondering what I wanted to do. And his advice to me was to write down what my goals were and to give it a time limit and just work towards it.
00:05:12
Speaker
And for a long time in my associateship working towards it was reading every leadership book that I could to become the best leader in that position that I could be like as an associate because you know, once you have the basic fundamentals, it can be applied to whether you're the owner or you're an associate just in different ways for sure. Um,
00:05:43
Speaker
How do you feel comparison factors into all of this? Because I think we've definitely talked about in previous episodes, we were born and raised in a competitive environment of, you know, you got to get the grades in undergrad to get into dental school, and then you've got to You know, they're even even doing a GPR, there's some competition, but there's also competition just built into, not competition, comparison built into dental school. um So how how do you think that impacts setting these goals? And obviously you've been out a little bit longer, so has comparison sort of changed or,
00:06:34
Speaker
you know, with your peers, with your friends, with your colleagues, what does that look like for you?
Reflecting on Personal Goals During COVID-19
00:06:39
Speaker
I think the best thing that ever happened to me was COVID happening, and shutting yeah things down. Because that meant that we didn't meet feast face to face for dental meetings and that sort of thing. um And it wasn't until I was not meeting face to face with like some of my friends and colleagues that I had the opportunity to sit back and reflect and realize that subconsciously what I was doing when we would talk to each other at these dental meetings is judging myself and feeling like I should have been further along in some areas or maybe I was further along in areas, but you know, the areas you're further along and you don't pay attention to that. You pay attention to where you feel you're lacking. Yeah. And so, um, when,
00:07:27
Speaker
When dentistry shut down for a couple of months during COVID, I had the opportunity to sit and reflect and reframe the goals that I had for myself. And you know, those goals, I decided to put myself at the forefront and what the path I felt I was going down.
00:07:53
Speaker
and focus on that and not so much focus on what my friends were doing or what other colleagues were doing.
Learning from Mentors Over Competing with Peers
00:08:02
Speaker
um But at the same time, tap into mentors that were where I wanted to be.
00:08:09
Speaker
yeah um But not so much look at it as competition or comparison, but look at it more so as motivation for okay if they did it then I can too and then you know what I love about a lot of the mentors that I have is they share things they wish they'd known or mistakes that they have made in.
00:08:31
Speaker
You know, I just try to pull as much as I can from those um Conversations to help propel myself forward as much as I could go What that's your okay. Oh, I was gonna say I think that's a really good point about there being a fine line between comparison and motivation and You know you can look to others to motivate you, but I think it's maybe more of a, like a mental thing. Like you were saying, like comparison is when you see what someone's doing and you think about like, Oh, I'm not there yet. I'm not doing enough. I'm not, maybe I'm not enough versus, Oh, they're doing that. So I can do that too. And I, do you think it's mostly just like that mental shift?
00:09:21
Speaker
For me, I think that's what it was. Or like just having a conversation and be like, oh, well, that's pretty cool that you're doing it. like how are how are you know How'd you get into that? Would you mind if I asked you more questions? Could we go to lunch and I buy you lunch or yeah go for tea?
00:09:39
Speaker
you um And, um, you know, just kind of pick your brain. And I think it's a way for everyone to win. And yeah, what about you? I think it's, it would be interesting for our listeners to hear from your perspective. So as we're recording this, you are um almost almost a year into your associate ship. Um, and so that, I mean, almost a year out of residency. So what has time horizon and comparison and that look like for you?
Measuring Personal Growth Among Colleagues
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I think, I think there's a couple of different pieces of that for me right now. I think you're
00:10:29
Speaker
There's comparison with my friends and classmates, um you know, where maybe they went into practice right out of dental school and I did a residency. And so it's interesting to see how that played out. you know Obviously, we're big fans of the residency program that we did here, and that's no surprise, but um just looking at like the types of procedures and the comfort level and things that I have had having done a residency. um Obviously, there are people you know happy doing whatever they're doing or took other CE, and we do the same things, but I think that's an interesting
00:11:14
Speaker
frame of reference. um I think the other, you know, then there's comparison with my class my residency co-residents and where we all ended up in, you know, who's doing IV sedation, who's, and I think in those two groups, it's more of a curiosity, not so much a comparison.
00:11:35
Speaker
who and In general, I think there are definitely times where you're like, oh, blah, blah, blah. They, you know, they made money for a year more than me. Um, or, you know, I think it's just interesting to see the skills that we got in residency and what everybody's done with them is really cool. But then the other level of comparison is I'm in a big group practice and I'm the newest.
00:12:03
Speaker
not necessarily the newest doctor at the practice anymore, but I'm the youngest or most recent grad, I guess I should say. um And so there is some comparison that I do with like production numbers and a number of patients we're seeing and those sort of things. um And I'm trying to just use it more as motivation, but there are definitely months from like I'm not you know doing enough or being enough um and just like reminding myself that like they've been doing this at a minimum two years longer than you have. like
00:12:41
Speaker
Even if you're in the ballpark, like that's great. I think back to your question that you asked earlier about what changed. in I definitely said mindset, but more than anything, I started looking at it as an opportunity, yeah like an untapped opportunity. so you know, in residency, we learned, you know, IV sedation and in my associateship, I did that in my, um, practice that I own currently, I'm not doing it. Um, but it is an opportunity for me to incorporate in the future. Yeah.
Turning Challenges into Educational Opportunities
00:13:20
Speaker
Back into, um, the office.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah. So I think just kind of looking at things as an opportunity, like as you stated about, like, you know, almost looking at the production numbers and that sort of thing right now.
00:13:39
Speaker
if you just kind of start looking at missed opportunities that you have to educate patients on certain stuff. Um, and as, and when I say miss miss, um, opportunities is more so ah the more continual education you do, the more you practice, the more you know, and the more you can, um, treatment plan, the more you could diagnose, um,
00:14:09
Speaker
And those are things, like you said, that the the doctors who have been out a little bit longer, they've seen more. Yes. They've learned a little bit more. So, um, you know, they're, like you said, time horizon is a lot different than where yours is right now. And they're just on a different part of, of theirs, but you know, you'll get there too, but all of our paths are different, you know? Yeah. I think the other thing I've been thinking a lot about recently,
00:14:39
Speaker
is um not compared but like reflecting back on like my own self like oh my gosh in dental school this would have taken me six months to do like to do this amount of work that I did today um and so looking at those those types of quote comparison to of like just how far I've come is trying to focus more on that than like You know, that shows my own growth within myself versus like comparing two completely different journeys against, you know, other, my other coworkers or other colleagues. So I've been trying to, to look at that more. So for sure. It's, um, it's you versus you. Yes. Yes. Old you versus evolving Savannah. Yes. How, um,
00:15:40
Speaker
How do you go about, you know, setting, setting goals? You know, I think if you don't put a time on them, I think it can just be like a perpetual, I'll get there someday. So how do you find one, a realistic timeframe in like goals that you're setting now where It's you setting the goals, right? It's not this like system setting the goals anymore. So that's
Setting Specific Goals and Viewing Progress
00:16:14
Speaker
one. And then how, if you know you're not gonna, if you end getting close to that goal and you're not gonna meet it, what does that decision look like to you? How do you extend that goal or what's that sort of thought process to sort of give yourself a little bit of grace there and not beat yourself down of, oh my gosh, I didn't.
00:16:36
Speaker
I didn't hit this checkpoint by whatever random date I selected. So you know, you and I, we love our books. And so another book is like the 12 week year. I don't know if you've read that. I have not, but I'm going to add that to my list right now. And it's, it's pretty, pretty awesome because it breaks down. like If you work towards a goal for three months, it seems more achievable than doing it for a year.
00:17:05
Speaker
So you can set your goals for 12 weeks and say in 12 weeks, I want XYZ done in whatever aspect of your, of your life, you know, and then just work really hard at it for those three months ah and see where you get. So I guess my thought process is I learned to be more specific about what my goals are yeah and and being more specific, whatever that timeframe is.
00:17:37
Speaker
to do it, you know if I don't accomplish it, I don't view it as a failure because I'm closer to it than I was had I not started. Yeah, that's a really good perspective.
00:17:52
Speaker
It's more so just been that um mentality shift for me and more so like I think of goals a lot differently. Like I do have long term goals, but I also have daily goals for myself.
00:18:08
Speaker
I have weekly goals for myself. Like ah my team, they laugh at me because I have like sticky notes everywhere. And then in my phone, like my notes section is like full. Um, but I feel like if you like, I mean, it's a reoccurring thing. I knock stuff off and then stuff goes back on. yeah Oh yeah. Um, but I think it's just a way that I think about it and like you said, you know Knowing that you're further than you were Yesterday or further than you were two months ago Gives you the grace that you need in the comfort and confidence to keep moving forward I think that's really good. I also when you were talking was just thinking about like
00:18:53
Speaker
These goals now are just not are not as black and white as I think the goals that we had to get to where we are right now. And so, you know, where there was You hate to use failure, but like you could fail a test. You know what I mean? Like there was, there was a black and white stop there versus now, like you said, you're just getting closer to achieving it. Even if you're not there yet on that time horizon.
Acknowledging Small Accomplishments in Wellness
00:19:24
Speaker
Like it's not dentistry related, but we talk about the injury that I have to my back and how it's frustrating sometimes because it sets me back. But when it comes to just moving my body more, yeah you know,
00:19:38
Speaker
Is it realistic for me to say that seven days a week I'm gonna work out like how I used to Know like it's a new Renetta. So if it means that like I just did 20 minutes of yoga today That's better than me sitting on the couch not doing anything. Yeah. Yeah, I like that I Think I think that's a great piece to end on of just You know set your goals, but We're all human. We can only do so much.
00:20:12
Speaker
I know and I think us as dentists, we haven't gotten as far as we have without setting goals and like um being super intentional and persevering to get to this point. um And we're not saying don't do that. We're just saying be be kind and gentle with yourself and just realize that some progress is better than none.
00:20:39
Speaker
and to keep trying, and we're here for you along your journey. You guys are not alone. Awesome. Well, that is a wrap on today's episode, and we'll see you all back here next
Wrapping Up and Listener Engagement
00:20:53
Speaker
time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Beyond Graduation. If you enjoyed this week's episode, be sure to share it with a friend. Connect with us on social media, Savannah Craig, DDS, and Dr. Underscore Sartor. And remember, you are not alone on this journey.
00:21:09
Speaker
This episode was sponsored by the Dental Residency Guide and the Beyond Graduation eBooks. These eBooks can be found at IgniteDDS dot.com slash eBooks. Thank you so much for listening to the Beyond Graduation brought to you by Ignite DDS and Future Dentists.