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Defining Success
30 Plays6 months ago
About the Hosts:
Dr. Savanah Craig and Dr. Ronnetta Sartor are both accomplished professionals in the field of dentistry. Dr. Savanah Craig, after following the rigorous path of academic dentistry, now enjoys the freedom to control her schedule and practice. Dr. Ronnetta Sartor's professional journey in dentistry focuses on efficacy, efficiency, and continuous learning to provide the best care for patients. Both share a passion for exploring the various facets of success, both in their dental careers and in their personal lives.
Episode Summary:
In this engaging episode of "Beyond Graduation," Dr. Savanah Craig and Dr. Ronnetta Sartor delve into an intimate and evocative conversation about what success means to them, teaching listeners that success is not just a destination, but a journey with changing goals. The dialogue traverses the realms of personal growth, professional fulfillment, and the intricate balance between ambition and well-being.
The discussion begins with Dr. Craig equating success with the newfound autonomy she experiences in her practice and personal life. Dr. Sartor reflects on the evolving nature of success - from achieving clinical proficiency during her student years to valuing efficiency and effectiveness after graduation. Both doctors find common ground in the notion that genuine success is grounded in freedom, happiness, and peace. The second part of their talk examines the shift from extrinsic rewards, such as academic accolades, to developing an internal compass for accomplishment. They open up about adapting to life beyond structured education and how that challenges their sense of achievement compared to peers outside of dentistry.
Key Takeaways:
- Success is a personal and subjective experience, defined by individual values and goals.
- Early career success may focus on clinical competence, while later stages emphasize efficiency and personal fulfillment.
- The journey from external validation to internal satisfaction is a key part of professional growth.
- Continued learning through Continuing Education is essential for both personal development and providing the best patient care.
- Balancing work commitments with rest and personal relationships is crucial for long-term success and happiness.
Resources:
Connect with Dr. Savanah Craig: @savanahcraigdds
Connect with Dr. Ronnetta Sartor: @dr_sartor
Connect with FutureDentists Beyond Graduation: @futuredentistsbeyondgraduation
As you ponder on these reflections about success, don't miss out on the full conversation in this episode of "Beyond Graduation." It promises not only to enrich your definition of success but to also site invaluable lessons from two experienced dental professionals. Stay tuned for more profound discussions and insights on future episodes!
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Transcript
Introduction: Life After 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.
Defining Success in Dentistry
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Beyond Graduation with Dr. Craig and Dr. Sartor. This week we are talking about success and what success means to you in different aspects of your career and your journey and in life in general and dentistry and as it applies to your personal life in general. So what do you think Savannah? What does success mean to you?
00:00:44
Speaker
I think success at this point just means the freedom to do, you know, whatever I want in practice. Not whatever I want, but...
00:01:02
Speaker
within reason in life and in practice and, you know, finally getting the freedom of controlling my own schedule. You know, I've never not lived in an environment where I followed an academic calendar. So I think success is just being in control right now. What about you?
From Efficiency to Freedom
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me, early on success in residency or success in school meant, you know, feeling confident in certain aspects or I should say certain areas of dentistry like
00:01:46
Speaker
you know, being able to do a crown and being able to do an own lay or crown lay. And then, you know, you start setting higher expectations for those things like in school, in dental school, you have three hours to do it. So when you get in residency, you're like, okay, I want to try to half my time.
00:02:07
Speaker
And then as you go into, you know, life after school and beyond graduation from residency in dental school, you try to
00:02:18
Speaker
even not so much doing things fast, but just being more efficient and effective. But I think now it's kind of shifted from that because I'm like, okay, I'm comfortable with my efficiency in those areas. But now I'm more so
00:02:38
Speaker
how you are in terms of success for me just means having freedom, having happiness and like having peace.
Internal vs. External Validation
00:02:47
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And you know, that's in my life personally, but also professionally. Yeah. Do you think it's because
00:03:00
Speaker
you know, success for our whole life was these checkpoints, you know, pass the test, pass the competency, get into dental school, get into residency. I think it's hard to, I don't know, that's such specific, tangible things of success. And now success has a, I don't know, more broad term to it.
00:03:32
Speaker
I think I'm worried, not worried. Residency was a good transition from, I don't know, like I want someone to pat me on the back and say, you did it. You did a good job and check the box. I love a checklist. You know that. So I think now it's having an internal, um,
00:04:01
Speaker
guide of success, not an external one.
Self-Comparison and Personal Compass
00:04:06
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It's interesting because I feel, and I think we've talked about this before, in school, we kind of get into a rhythm of, you know, comparing ourselves to our classmates, you know, even if it ends term of comparison, not so much in a bad way, but even just looking at each other's preps. Oh, okay, I like what you did with that. I like what you did with that.
00:04:35
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I think for me at some point after graduation, it was the same thing when I would go to like conferences and see my classmates and everything. You know, not so much from a negative standpoint, but you know, what are you doing in your office? What are you doing a lot of? What do you like? What products are you using?
00:05:02
Speaker
And I think early on I, some of my success, I kind of looked at what other people were doing, but over time I was, I developed, like you said, my own compass of, okay, that's cool that it do things that way, but I think I'm gonna stick with how I'm doing it. Unless like something newer and a better technique comes out.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Education and Lifelong Learning
00:05:37
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Do you think part of that is just, you know, we're high achieving people. We, I mean, we're in a formal education environment for all of our formative years. So comparison is just what we're used to.
00:05:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm, and I think because dentistry is the practice of dentistry we We never stop learning or that's the goal to never stop learning and so part of it is just not internalizing like what You are learning in a sense of like letting it Make you feel like you're a lesson or you're not doing it right but just striving
00:06:25
Speaker
to do better so that you're the best that you can be for your patients. And I think that's what I've learned over the years along the way to look at it in that standpoint and ask the questions of my friends and colleagues and go to the CE to get it. But that doesn't determine my success or like if a procedure
00:06:47
Speaker
that I do on a patient fails is not so much that I failed. It's that the dentistry failed in figuring out why it failed and how it could have been done better. That makes sense. I think another thing we've been talking about as residency comes to a close is
00:07:13
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this comparison with your friends who didn't go to dental school or, you know, there's this idea of, is that success? You know, they've been working at least four more years than we have. And it feels funny to sort of be entering real life. Finally, right? Right.
00:07:39
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You know, I have a lot of friends in dentistry who are in the same position, but there are so many people, you know, good friends that have already been doing the real life thing. So it can feel like you're behind in a way. Yeah. I think part of it is just recognizing that we're all on our own journey. Um,
00:08:05
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And the lessons that we learn along the journey help us to be in the right place at the right time for what we're supposed to learn and know at the time. Yeah. But that perspective also came with with time to like right out of school and right out of residency. I definitely didn't think or feel that way. But looking back on it, that's how I feel now.
Continuing Education and Its Importance
00:08:35
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That's good to hear. And I think, I don't know, holding both of those things of residency was the best thing I ever did, you know, for my career and for myself, because I needed that year of transition and like challenge. But it is funny to look at my friends who are, you know, already been in practice for one year and be like, it must be nice to like,
00:09:05
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be in a stable position and not moving again and all of that, but definitely I ended up where I was supposed to.
00:09:19
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I think with dentistry being lifelong learning and a lifelong practice, people go one of two ways where they're like, I must take all of this NEE and do everything and know everything. Or they're like, this is good. This is it. Has that changed over time for you? Or is your definition of your life success
00:09:49
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involved in history or not at all? How does that look for you? That's a very great question. Such an easy topic. Not a loaded question at all. So I'll answer the first part of your question in that
00:10:16
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The way I look at CE, I love going to CE. I probably do a lot more CE than a lot of dentists. It's just an opportunity for me to learn something new and I bring that back.
00:10:34
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to my team and bring it back to the patients just to make myself a better provider, but to provide the best care for the patient, too. When I was in dental school and in residency, that's the way I looked at the whole process of learning, too. When I would study, I would try to learn it with that pointing in mind, not to just regurgitate the information back
00:11:05
Speaker
to pass an exam. It was I was learning it for the long term so that I can use that to better treat patients. And so in that I think it makes me a better person or me at a higher level of success or what I define as success because it's something that's
00:11:33
Speaker
very important to me to is something that I value.
00:11:38
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So it kind of helps contribute to my idea of success for myself, not for anyone else. I know that for myself, I need to go to continuing education and learn as much as I can, as often as I can, so that I feel that I'm providing the best framework for my team and my patients.
Balancing Financial Goals and Relationships
00:12:04
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And I think in doing so,
00:12:06
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That links back to what you were saying about like as a person and in general on a personal level I think that helps feed me What I need from that standpoint And helps contribute to my overall Arch and theme of what I consider success for myself How about you this that was a great question I would love to hear what your thoughts are I
00:12:35
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Yeah, I think I like you said I enjoy the CE and learning and wanting to do the best for my patients. I think at this point it was mostly about how far I could push myself and knowing like where
00:13:00
Speaker
the ends of my comfort zone are and also Yes, we've had this conversation, you know, yes, I can do this procedure But do I want to? And so I think that is my Success for me right now is just Knowing my own level of confidence in my own abilities And
00:13:29
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Providing the best care for my patients and knowing the limits of What is enough I think the other interesting thing right now is You know entering private practice and getting a big kid job And really having to think about what is enough Financially or All of those things is really
00:14:00
Speaker
you know, I always joke that I had a plan up until residency, you know, I went to college, I went to dental school, I knew I wanted to go to residency, and then I didn't think of anything after that really. And so it's a cool time to be
00:14:21
Speaker
reflecting on what is enough and what is The path I want the rest of my life to take not that that won't change But you know, it was important to me I wanted to work four days a week and have time to you know, maybe drive home and see my grandparents or Have the opportunity
00:14:49
Speaker
to make those decisions for myself because in school and all of those things, like I said, my schedule was controlled for me. You know, hey, I can't come home this weekend. I have an exam on Monday or things like that. So I think right now success has a lot more to do with relationships than
00:15:16
Speaker
dentistry or education at this very moment in time. That's fair. You brought up a really good point. I kind of wanted to circle back to you said, you know, what success looks like in this phase. And it made me think about, um,
00:15:36
Speaker
I'm pretty big on setting goals and, you know, creating a vision for things I want to accomplish like in the coming year and sitting and thinking about it before the new year comes in. And so I remember, you know, the years after residency, I would, you know, say, you know, I want to see if I can push myself
00:16:06
Speaker
to make X amount. And this is not saying that I'm over diagnosing or anything like that, but just with the treatment that I see that patients need and I'm able to diagnose, I want to see if this year I can make this amount. And then the next year I would have the same goal, but a little bit greater. And then the next year I would, I got to a point where I said,
00:16:34
Speaker
Mm hmm. That's great. I know I can do that. But now I'm at a place where like I want to see what I could do if I allow myself to have the time and the rest that I want. Like within not saying that I was taken off every day or every weekend, but
00:17:02
Speaker
ahead of time, planning out all of the time off that I want and seeing where that led me. And I found that when I did that, not only did I make more because I came back more refreshed for my patients, but more importantly, I was more happy.
00:17:24
Speaker
because I took time to do the things that poured into me and in doing so that allowed me to be able to pour into the team I was part of at the time and the patients better.
Paradox of Rest and Achievement
00:17:37
Speaker
And so I think that's when the big switch for me happened with defining what success is. Kind of the irony of like,
00:17:50
Speaker
grinding and working as hard as possible when you actually give yourself rest. But I've heard a lot of people had that experience. And it wasn't so much that I was wanting to just make, it wasn't that it was all about the money. It was more so like you said earlier, I just want to push myself to see, okay, if I tried, could I?
00:18:17
Speaker
And then once you know that you can, you're like, OK, well, now it's time for rest. And if I give that to myself, what's possible? That's a really cool perspective, because I think so many people would have the opposite thing of like, well, I accomplished that. So what if I push myself even harder? So I think it's a really good point that you bring up of
00:18:47
Speaker
Imagine if I'm rested what I can do.
Mentorship and Life Balance
00:18:53
Speaker
But I definitely think that's a product of the world we've lived in for our entire lives of higher education.
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm lucky to have so many mentors in dentistry who are like, you're gonna make enough money, you're gonna be okay. The point of working this hard is to enjoy it. So I think that's a really good perspective to have on rest and success.
00:19:34
Speaker
Any final thoughts or recommendations for the people about success?
Final Thoughts and Listener Engagement
00:19:41
Speaker
No, I'm very interested for the people listening to let us know what success means to you. So definitely let us know. Connect with us on social media at Dr. Underscore Sartor and Savannah Craig DDS.
00:19:59
Speaker
And remember, you are not alone on this journey. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Beyond Graduation. And we look forward to tuning in with you guys again soon.
00:20:16
Speaker
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 at Savannah Craig DDS and at Dr. Underscore Sartor. And remember, you are not alone on this journey.