One definition of professionalism became the foundation of Dr. L. D. Pankey’s life and a thesis of his teachings. He wrote the definition himself!

“Professionalism is that quality of conduct, which accompanies the use of superior knowledge, skill, and judgment toward the benefit of another person or society prior to any consideration of self-interest.”

Throughout his life, he endeavored to make relevant connections with others, intentionally pay attention to others, share gratitude and appreciation, and offer compassion—even in the midst of reading another person’s lips!

As he was entering the last decade of his life, he remained continuously aware of and interested in others. Until the end, he was a continual student, eager to learn more. He encouraged other dentists to live and love their profession to its fullest at every opportunity.

The Story of Wilbur the Garage Mechanic

Dr. Pankey met Wilbur in the late 1970’s, when Dr. Pankey’s ’76 Fleetwood was not running as well as a relative’s ’72 Fleetwood. Dr. Pankey was able to observe Wilbur do his job and experience the ’76 Fleetwood move down the highway as if it were new. After a trip to Jacksonville and back, Dr. Pankey stopped again at Wilbur’s Garage to extend his gratitude and appreciation. He also wanted to listen to Wilbur’s own story again on a deeper level.

On reflection, Dr. Pankey wrote, “Like me, Wilbur got a few breaks. But of course, he helped make those breaks and took advantage of them by doing his job well and treating people right. Although he had never heard of the Philosophy as such, Wilbur was using it in his auto repair business just as I was using it in my practice.” Isn’t that interesting…

Dr. Pankey always had a smile on his face as he told Wilbur’s story in each Philosophy session he taught in the late ’70’s and well into the ’80’s. Let me encourage you to reread his personal story in the first section of A Philosophy of the Practice of Dentistry by L. D. Pankey and Bill Davis. Read that section of the book at least once or twice a decade. Reflect on your experiences; you just might become aware of new observations and connecting insights, during your decade-by-decade reflections. This exercise often puts a smile on our faces!

“That Quality of Conduct”

The quality of conduct on which Dr. Pankey founded his life’s work (his professional philosophy) not only embodied genuine interest in others as individuals (with uniquely compelling situations, needs, personas, and values). It also embodied genuine concern for others’ welfare ahead of his own. Intentionally sustaining his vision of practice, drove this professional philosophy deeper into his “tissues”—into his thoughts, behaviors, motivations, and emotions. His philosophy did not spring full grown out of his mind. It developed over time.

In my last blog, I wrote that as we look into our life’s mirror (over many decades for some of us), we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. By reading again Dr. Pankey’s story, we discover a deeper understanding of how it relates to our personal stories and life’s work. Reflections on our own lives (and Dr. Pankey’s life) offer opportunities for new awareness, commitments, and actions. We develop over time, and the beat goes on!

Often something I read or hear will trigger a cascade of retrospective thoughts about friends, team members, patients, family, teachers, and mentors who have touched my past and present. These memories are constantly shaping my future.

Recent Reflection

Within the past month, I experienced the third session of a six-session Pankey Virtual Study Club on “A Philosophy of the Practice of Dentistry_v2.0.” As a small group, we reviewed the timeline that each of us had created on Dr. L. D. Pankey’s personal story and the timeline we had created on our own story.

As the decades pass, I find this process keeps revealing insights for me and others, and the process is connected to other things as well. Once again, I became more aware of events in Dr. Pankey’s story and the one-on-one conversations we had over twenty-plus years.

Dr. Pankey would often invite us to better understand the depth of processing involved by saying, “It can take fifteen years to get a philosophy into our tissues.”  Some in his tutelage received that statement with some despair and others with relief, as they honestly looked at themselves in their mirror of life and celebrated their slower understanding, in bits and pieces. Years have demonstrated there is a lot to chew on and begin to digest, through experience.

Another one of his favorite statements was a Dr. G. V. Black quote, “No dentist has a moral right to be anything but a continual student.” One of Dr. Black’s many roles was Dean of Northwestern University Dental School. As a dental student there, I saw that statement written in many halls and heard it in many lectures.  It took me a while to understand it as an encouragement for a lifetime of living and learning…hmmm…Isn’t that interesting?

Recent Realization

My most recent reflections on Dr. Pankey’s timeline and the conversations we had brought me to the realization that his formation of “A Philosophy of the Practice of Dentistry” began long before he started talking about it in 1947.

He graduated in 1924 when he was soon to be twenty-three in July. In eighteen months of budgeting his cash flow, he had paid back his school debt and the total cost of his practice debt (new equipment and all). By then, he had received a letter from his mother congratulating him on his success and telling him about the treatment she had received from one of his classmates. She wrote that she hoped he was not doing the same to other people’s mothers and removing all their teeth.

He shared in a conversation with me that he had never been able to talk with his mother about those dental events! Her letter impacted him deeply and caused him to create a Vision Statement, which included “saving people’s teeth and never removing another tooth” for the rest of his life. To me, that is a true Vision Statement because, at that time in dentistry, the process of helping people keep their teeth for a lifetime had not been clearly identified.

Dr. Pankey continued to learn about many things throughout his life, which shaped “A Philosophy of the Practice of Dentistry.” Even though he started talking about it for the first time in 1947, it was twenty-two years in the making and more years in the refining. Hmmm…

Stocks and bonds have both fallen in 2022, taking down portfolio balances. Meanwhile, inflation has shot up, tying the hands of many investors—retirees and others, who might otherwise be inclined to reduce spending in periods when our portfolios have lost money.

What Can We Control?

As long-term investors, some of us have experienced these moments before. One of the best ways to minimize worry in a volatile, uncertain market environment is to focus on what we can control.

What we can control is:

• our savings rate,
• our spending plan, and
• our spending rate

In retirement, the spending rate is often referred to as the burn rate.

We can use all three of these levers throughout our lives. Often, these levers influence long-term outcomes more than investment selection or even asset allocation. These three levers are often the main determinant of whether our plan sinks or swims.

We Can Invest More

Increasing our savings rate in down markets allows us an opportunity to invest more when markets are off 10%, 20%, 30%, or more. The process of buying more shares at a lower price point weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly allows us to lower our average cost per share. (This is Dr. L. D. Pankey’s Rule of “7’s” in A Philosophy of the Practice of Dentistry.)

Many investors in accumulation mode prioritize “maxing out” their contributions to tax-sheltered retirement savings vehicles—IRAs, 401(k)s, and more recently, health savings accounts. Yet another type of tax-advantaged contribution has been seeing an increased uptake: after-tax 401(K) contributions.

My recommendation is that you talk seriously with your business accountant to determine if your current business cash flow will support more contributions to your retirement plan, savings, and/or possible after-tax investments.

Consider After-Tax 401(k) Contributions

If there is a knock against after-tax 401(k) plans, it is that many people who have access to them are not using them! They have much to offer.

Plans that offer after-tax contributions, allow investors to stash a full $61,000 in a 401(k) ($67,500 for people over 50), including pretax or Roth contributions, employer matching funds, and after-tax 401(k) contributions.

Assuming the 401(k) is a high-quality one, after-tax contributions tend to beat investing in a taxable brokerage account on an after-tax basis. That’s especially true if the plan offers automatic in-plan conversions. These plans are especially appropriate for high-income, heavy savers, who have access to them.

Required Minimum Distributions Can Be Reinvested in an After-Tax Account

For those already retired, our main lever for the health of our plan is how much we withdraw from our portfolio. If we can find a way to take a bit less when our portfolio is down, we will leave more of our portfolio in place to recover when the market goes back up. One question that inevitably crops up in the realm of portfolio withdrawals is the role of required minimum distributions (RMD’s) and whether they could cause us to prematurely deplete our assets.

The short answer is no! It is always appropriate to evaluate the amount of the RMD, and realize we are not required to spend it all. We can reinvest it in an after-tax  investment account and/or increase our Emergency Fund, as a cushion for future unknown events of which persistent inflation could be one example.

Take a Long-Term Perspective

Focusing on what we can control—especially our savings and spending rate, can provide peace of mind in volatile times, and so can taking a long-term view. Learning more about the history of the stock market and the detailed history of stock market declines, broadens our understanding and can minimize the noise.

The dominant long-term trend is up, and the periodic bear markets, even bad ones like 2007-2009, have been fairly modest blips along the way. It can be easy to lose sight of that long-term view when the market logs one bad day after another.

It is worth training our gaze on the long-term and what we can control by:

• living on less than we make,
• saving a greater percentage of our compensation, and
• becoming more aware of controlling our spending plan and burn rate

To learn more about personal finance, I invite you to sign up for the Pankey Institute course titled Creating More Financial Freedom which will be held March 30 – April 1, 2023.

One evening I was seated next to a new acquaintance at a dinner party. As we began the conversation, I learned Bob was a retired CFO of a manufacturing company with $250 million in sales. He had traveled extensively and had had many experiences in dental offices.

In our conversation, Bob discovered I was a dentist teaching at The Pankey Institute. I thought I would move the conversation off of dentistry and have the opportunity to climb into the mind of a CFO of a $250 million dollar company, so when he asked what I taught, I responded with “I teach Finance.” He looked surprised and a bit disinterested, but he said, “You know, the thing that impresses me most, about dentists, is how quickly they make decisions.”

Trying to find the compliment in the statement, he had just made and hoping he thought dentists to be of high intelligence, I queried, “Quick decisions?” He went on to tell me, and sometimes show me between bites of food, the crowns I had already noticed. He said, “It always impressed me, when I went into the dental office with a broken tooth, how the dentist would have a quick look around and then tell me I needed a crown. Sometimes he was ready to do it on the spot!”

Other things had come out in our conversation. He was an accomplished golfer with a six handicap. He had three homes, and each home had an identical set of golf clubs. All were recently updated, matched, swing-weighted custom sets. My mind was spinning as I thought about the gap between those matched sets of clubs and his unmatched set of teeth! How could I get his attention?

Doctor Pankey would often say to me, “Communicate with others by making your examples relevant to the other person’s experience or frame of reference.” The light bulb came on, and I said, “Tell me about how you made decisions as a CFO in your business.”

“Well, I take a good look at the short and long term impact of the decisions, the cost of capital necessary – both short and long term, and the risk/reward potential to the bottom line of the company.”

Now I was in full swing, “Sounds like you study the problem and/or opportunity with reflection and quite a bit of detail. You slow down and take the necessary time to uncover the best decision.”

“Well, yes, of course, they would be important decisions, and they would take time!” Bob replied.

“Quite honestly, Bob, that is exactly what I and others are attempting to teach dentists at The Pankey Institute. We are asking dentists to intentionally slow down and become more reflective, affective, and effective with their patients.” I could see he was thinking about this.

“Bob, let’s compare you and your teeth to your sets of golf clubs.” He was intently listening. “It’s as if, when you were a young man, God gave you a set of new golf clubs. We, as dentists, call them teeth. You used them through the years as you refined your golf game and in time you broke the 9-iron. You went to the pro shop and tried to get a new one. It was a 9-iron, of course, but the grip, the shaft and the swing weight were not quite the same as your original set. It was okay, because you knew how to adjust if you remembered to accommodate for the differences.

“As time went on, you had the same experience with your 7-iron, the 4-iron, the pitching wedge, and your favorite wood. In time, you were adjusting your swing and muscles every time you swung a club. You noticed there were times when certain muscles would get sore and even the soreness would get in the way of your swing chewing. Finally, you decided to get refitted with a whole new set of clubs. You went to a professional who put you through a whole series of tests and thorough evaluations to diagnose and plan the best solution, which fit your uniqueness. And, you not only got one completely new set of golf clubs, you got three.

“Many dentists would see you as a very busy man who wants to get out of the dental office with dispatch. They respond in a crisis mode to your crisis events. But, like clubs, teeth need to be customized and “matched” to work together so you aren’t constantly accommodating as teeth break and are restored. What we are encouraging dentists to do is to slow down and be as thorough as you would be in your decision making in your business. It’s better for you—actually better for all concerned.”

Bob’s face lit up, “So that’s what you teach?” “That’s what I teach,” I responded

With that “aha” smile, Bob said, “Would you be so kind as to give me your business card with the name of a dentist who thinks like you do? In fact, I’d like three – one for each of the locations of my golf clubs!”

Doctor L.D. Pankey would often say to me, “Communicate with others by making your examples relevant to the other person’s experience or frame of reference.”

Years ago, I had been asked by a young dentist to come to his office and help him with the implementation of his new learning with occlusion applied to bite splints and equilibration. I suggested he line up a few patients for us to work on together during my visit. When we arrived at his office early in the morning to talk about the patients we were going to see together over the next two days, I asked him to bring me up to speed on where he was in treatment with the patients and the conversations he had had with them. We also looked at full mouth models, models of bite splints, and radiographs. I asked him what he wanted me to do with the first patient who was coming in that morning.

He said, “I want to watch you sell him a bite splint!” A little surprised, I asked him to tell me about the patient. He said he was a new acquaintance. They played golf together and occasionally gambled as they played to keep their interest up in the game. They also gave each other a hard time about handicap ratings. He mentioned he felt a bit embarrassed because he thought he knew what was best for his new friend and had kind of hustled his friend on the golf course to be a patient. Now he was feeling a bit guilty about having his new friend come in as a patient, and he could not bring himself to a have conversation concerning the benefits of a bite splint.

Charlie (the friend) appeared, and the dentist introduced me. Charlie and I stood about the same height. We looked each other in the eye, and we smiled at each other – a good beginning. In my mind, I was repeating slowly to myself, “Find a relevant connection.”

I said, “Thanks for taking the time to come in and meet me on such a beautiful Spring day, as I pointed to a comfortable chair for him to sit in.”

He offered something about how golf could be a bit boring if you played it too much. Still looking for a relevant connection, since my “stated task” was to sell him a bite splint, I asked him about his work, and he said he was retired from directing filmed commercials. I asked him what he did with his new found time aside from golf. He smiled a big smile and said he ran about five to seven miles a day. I smiled as I remembered the years when I ran three to five miles a day during the week and seven to ten miles on weekends. A light bulb went on, in my head, and I knew a question I could ask to engage him and tweak his curiosity.

I asked, “How often do you buy new running shoes?” And without hesitation, he said, “Every four hundred miles.” I then asked, “How did you discover that interval?”

He reached down with his right hand and rubbed the lateral surface of his right leg from the mid-thigh, across the lateral surface of his knee, to the lateral surface of his calf, while telling me of the discomfort he would experience in his muscles when the bottoms of his running shoes became worn.

I made the statement, “You must run with the traffic!” Surprised, he asked, “How do you know that?”

I told him I experienced the same thing when I ran on a road with the traffic, especially when the road had a bit of a “crown” on its surface. I thought I had found a relevant connection, and I let it sink in a bit. Then, I told him his dentist friend wanted to offer him a new pair of shoes for the top of his teeth in the form of a removable bite splint. It would be like getting a new pair of running shoes. It would be professionally custom fitted to the tops of his teeth, which would please your chewing muscles and create greater comfort, just like a new pair of running shoes pleased his leg muscles and knee joint.

Charlie looked at his dentist friend and then at me before standing up. With a big smile he said, “I will make an appointment with the receptionist.” Hmmm… Isn’t that Interesting!

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.

Comments by the Fed – FMOC: Suggest the Fed is trying to gently convince their adoring public that inflation may actually turn out to be “a little stronger than they forecast for a little longer than they forecast.”

Grant Williams’ notes in Things That Make You Go Hmmm:

We may be facing demand-driven inflation as a consequence of misguided monetary policy and misdirected fiscal stimulus. Monetary stimulus had some effect, of course, and the latest growth forecasts suggest, it is already dissipating. The Fed has done so much, so fast, it produced a self-limiting recovery in which supply – chain inflation (caused by all the container ships anchored / waiting in Los Angeles / Long Beach) tend to cap potential growth. The trucking industry may also be a part of the log-jam, backing up deliveries.

5.9% Announcement by Social Security

That is the increase that retirees receiving Social Security will pick up next year to account for inflation. It is the biggest jump in 39 years and captures what consumers have been feeling acutely over the past year: Stuff is getting more expensive.

The fact that Social Security payouts will reflect higher costs is certainly a plus for that portion of retirees’ income streams. Inflation may prove fleeting, a short-term blip resulting from pent-up pandemic demand and snarled supply chains, or it could persist. Or, it could be that the medical premium portion of Social Security could be increased and consume much of the 5.9% announced increase. No one has said much yet, other than the increase of 5.9%.

Dentist’s and Retirees Take Note

I believe all dentists and retirees can learn to think about inflation more individually and holistically. We can start with taking stock of our own rate of inflation, which is not a standard CPI. We can look at the details of our Personal Spending Plans (Budgets); a function of what we spend our money on and how much inflation we are seeing in those outlays. Inflation considerations also extend to our portfolio; think about our withdrawal or “burn” rate, if retired, as well as what kind of inflation protection to embed in our portfolio’s. (more on this below)

We can also look at, and think about inflation today, examine our own personal inflation rate, and safeguard against inflation’s corrosive effect on our investments and our Economic Engine. For most dentist’s, our Economic Engine is our dental practice. We can study our line items on our Profit and Loss Statements and/or our Management Income Statements (MIS), year-over-year or twelve month roll, looking for inflation creep in line items like; consumable dental supplies, laboratory costs, salary and benefits (hygiene, clinical, and administrative teams), occupancy total costs, administrative supplies and services, notice the rise in dental equipment cost (replacement costs), along with financing costs. All of the above will combine into our Personal CPI, which may well require an adjustment in our dental fees.

Calculating Our Own

As we collect our personal and practice inflation data, be willing to ask a question; what are we discovering? If looking at the FOMC CPI weightings and they look nothing like our own, when considering our increased household and practice spending, we are most likely on the right track. Our outlays for housing may diverge significantly from the CPI percentages, especially if we live in a paid-off home. We will still have costs for upkeep, insurance, and property taxes, which are also included in Housing Costs.

By doing the above exercises, we can learn to tweak inflation expectations, pro-actively while attempting to keep then in-line for each of line items, and incorporating our own experiences and discoveries. At the same time, it is important to not come away with a false sense of precision with respect to inflation. For one thing, inflation statistics can vary by section of our country, state, and even town by town. Moreover, a number that can bear paying attention, is the trend in our actual, all-in spending, which depends on a few key variables: our fixed and discretionary expenses, as well as, what is going on with inflation in each of the spending categories. Ultimately, our aggregate household and practice spending trend matters more because we exert a level of control over some of our spending, where the overall inflation rate is out of our hands.

Early Retirement

Is early retirement is on your radar? Data suggests that the case for a growing share of workers, inflation protection is an even bigger hurdle. That is because we will be using our retirement dollars, and spending them over a longer time horizon, when starting early. This increases the odds that inflation could flare up sometime during our drawdown period: pay attention to withdrawal rates, portfolio construction, and Social Security adjustments.

Investment returns over the next decade might not be so great, some experts warn. Be prepared to rein in our spending in case a lousy market materializes. A threat of experiencing big portfolio losses early on in retirement, when our portfolio value is at its highest, is one of the key threats to the durability of any retirement plan. And sequencing risk looms particularly large in environments like the current one, when bond yields are low and equity valuations are on the high side. If market returns are indeed lower than our two decade averages, in the first few years of retirement, our best defense is to cut our spending. For younger dentists reading this a lesson to be learned is “keep shoveling it in” and increase the percentage of present income earmarked for saving and investment; over time, through compounding, this will ease your worries and provide a greater measure of choice in financial decision making.

What we may want to discussed, in this context, is the other side of the same coin. Yes, today’s retirees can become more conservative on the withdrawal rate, and use a safer withdrawal rate closer to 3% than 4%. What may matter more is the dollar amount we can pull out, not the percentage. Thanks to elevated portfolio balances, a 3% withdrawal of a larger portfolio may translate into a withdrawal that is every bit as large as 4% on that same portfolio ten years ago. In addition to balances being larger, retirees can enlarge their lifetime portfolio withdrawals by employing a flexible withdrawal approach rather than taking fixed amount withdrawals; helping to reduce portfolio demands and a requirement for bonds with minuscule yields.

It is good to remember to continue to use and learn from the Financial Tools, which have always been available to us: Personal Spending Plan, Personal Net Worth Statement, Potential Cash Flow Analysis from All Cash Flow Streams (Dental Practice, Tax-Deferred Portfolio, Personal After-Tax Portfolio, Investment Real Estate, and other holdings. It is a good thing most of us have been given enough years to layer our financial learning, with intention!

Keep a Moving Target Orientation!

Invest in Yourself
Sign-up for Courses to Continue Advancing Your Financial Literacy

Two Courses to Consider:
Creating More Financial Freedom / Mastering Business Essentials

Father of Index Funds

John Bogle has many books to his credit. We all may benefit from reading one or more of them as a part of a New Years Resolution focused on Raising Our Financial Literacy! A perfect Stocking Stuffer, with a future focus in mind! John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, changed investing forever for ordinary Americans, and wrote a dozen books over his lifetime, selling over 1.1 million copies worldwide.

An editor that worked with Bogle said, “I don’t think there’s an author who spent greater care on the words he chose,” and, “when he did a book, he was so meticulous; he’d rewrite and rewrite. He always went the extra mile to make sure there wasn’t a single person who could not understand what he was saying.”

“Jack,” as he was referred to by many, made it his mission to educate people about the benefits of index funds and not paying high fees to mutual fund managers. Below are some of the best books he authored:

1. Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

The first edition of this classic was published in 1999, and Bogle wrote a completely updated second edition a decade later to help investors understand mutual funds and how his simple and low cost investing strategy can be used to outperform stock pickers.

2. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns

This 304-page hardcover book is one of Wiley Publishing’s Little Book investing series and has proven to be an incredibly popular tool for investors. In this investing bible, Bogle presents his ideas succinctly for the layman.

• Warren Buffett advised in his 2014 letter to shareholders that rather than listen to the “siren songs” of advisors, “investors – large and small – should instead read Jack Bogle’s The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.”
• Bogle said even he needed to be reminded of his own advice in trying times. “How do I feel when the market goes down 50%?” he continued. “Honestly, I feel miserable. I get knots in my stomach. So what do I do? I get out a couple of my books on ‘staying the course’ and reread them!”

3. The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism

John Bogle was a vocal critic of Wall Street and the American financial system, and in this book the insider revealed what he knew about the unethical practices of money managers and corporate executives, which add costs to millions of small investors.

• The New York Times called it “yet another important contribution in an illustrious career,” and it was long listed for the Financial Times and McKinsey’s Business Book of the Year Award in 2005.

4. John Bogle on Investing: The First 50 Years

Bogle’s senior thesis at Princeton University was titled “The Economic Role of the Investment Company,” and it contained the very ideas that Vanguard would be built on. It is included in this compilation of his best speeches.

5. Stay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution

At the time of publication, Vanguard had more $5 trillion in assets under management, and the road to that number wasn’t easy. Early on it was dubbed “un-American” and mocked by Wall Street professionals.

• Named after his most iconic piece of advice, Bogle’s last book is a memoir that traces the history of the Vanguard Group and provides new details. He addresses his critics, his regrets and even his Vanguard successors.

Sign-up for Courses to Continue Advancing Your Financial Literacy
Courses to Consider: Creating More Financial Freedom / Mastering Business Essentials

A Reflection: Although most of our early educational classrooms have not often fostered it, an essential participatory experiential exercise can help ground our discoveries and anchor our adult learning, in which we can be “known through” an experience with self and others, more than knowing anything by our own thought. An authentic encounter with a teacher/mentor can foster, in time, our discovery toward a feeling of true knowing, in our heads, our hearts, our hands, and our bodies, as well. This understanding, authentically discovered, can emerge, in unique ways with each individual, and becomes an opportunity for True-Self seeing. It is quite unlike the intellectual “knowing” most of us have been taught to rely on. This experiential kind of “seeing,” can take away much of our anxiety concerning figuring it all out fully for ourselves or requiring ourselves to be “right” about our formulations beforehand. At this point, a teachers’/mentors’ facilitation can become more like a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea.

Life then becomes more like a verb than a noun…We were not put on this earth to describe life, rather we are invited to actively live it,,,! In time, there often can be someone dancing with us (maybe sitting on our shoulder), and we are not afraid of making mistakes. We learn through experience, mistakes, doubt, while allowing a reviewing process to become an intentional part of our experiential learning. It is often best, if we are not told first… Rather, we can be invited to discover it for ourselves! Hmmm…Isn’t that interesting?

“The true wonder of learning is discovering for ourselves!” Carl Rogers, PhD

Through our own experience we can discover while having many encounter’s in which family, patients, team members, friends, and colleagues become our teacher’s / mentor’s. Even when we are doubtful, we can look in the mirror, at our authentic self and say, “Yes” – knowing full well, there is much more to be experienced and it is bound to add layers to our understanding and learning on the job! What ever the “Job” may be or become! Learning becomes a “Two-Way Street” and our teachers and mentors can become participants, team members, patients, spouses, parents, grandparents, adult children, children, and grandchildren, in all age groups. Success then, is a moving target… Not a fixed destination; instead, it can be a becoming!…Isn’t that wonderful…!

New Patients / Patients of Record

Often a dentist or team member can believe: A new patient or patient of record wants to be efficiently informed on two or three things:

• What do you want me to know about my dental health?
• What and how do you want me to do “it”?
• What is this going to cost? Or isn’t dental insurance going to pay for this?

A Story of Dr. R. A. Green from the Past to the Present:

A retired physician of seventy-five years of age was enjoying teaching at The University of Chicago Medical School. At the time of this conversation, I was attending Northwestern University Dental School and working part-time as a Doorman at The Hotel Pearson. The Hotel Pearson was a residence hotel; the physician was a resident of the hotel. The hotel was located where the Ritz Carleton presently stands on Pearson Street, one block East of Michigan Avenue; the time frame was the early 1960’s. That evening, as the retired physician walked out for some fresh air, he engaged me in a conversation, which he had done on previous occasions. I remember asking him about, what he was teaching?

His reply has stuck with me all these years. He said, “I am trying to encourage the young Interns and Residents to slow down and listen.” Slow down and listen, I replied with a question lingering in my voice. He said, “Yes, if I can help them begin to create opportunities for a patient to experience “deep listening” and then stay “present” with and for a patient, the Intern/Resident will notice, in time, a patient will diagnose their own ailment (at least offer enough important information to be able to develop a very accurate differential diagnosis); a wonderful place to start, a beginning!”

He went on to say, “If I can encourage the Intern/Resident to continue to listen deeply, a patient can reveal how they want to be treated. And, if the Intern/Resident can listen just a little longer, a patient can initiate a conversation about how they want to pay for the services to be rendered. Deep Listening accomplishes a greater understanding of the patient, which leads to a better diagnosis, and can lead to a more successful practice model than running from room to room, thinking you only have three – five minutes to do all of the above, while not accomplishing any of the above. I am really trying to encourage them to slow down and listen!”

Now, almost sixty years later, I am sitting and reflecting on my lifetime in dentistry and work with patients, team, and dentists; I too have been involved with teaching and coaching, myself and others, for over sixty years. While I strive to have conversations concerning many different aspects of dentistry, which surface while being present, with and for others, the bottom-line in a relationship-based life and practice are very similar to that of the retired physicians’ message, nearly sixty years ago.

My response is also altered and influenced, due to an early encounter’s with Dr. L. D. Pankey, soon after I had met him in 1968. In a conversation, he had asked me to tell him about my office and the flow of a day in my office. His response to my description of my usual day was, “Why don’t you Slow Down and become more Affective, you are Efficient Enough!” A similar message, and it had a heightened impact upon further reflection: “I have heard this before and it sounds very familiar!”

What is it you do intentionally, on a regular basis, to slow down and become more Affective (Affective Domain), for you too are Efficient Enough?

Hmmm… Isn’t that interesting!

Financial literacy is the foundation of our relationship with money, and it is a life-long journey of learning. The earlier we start, the better off we will be, because education is the key to success when it comes to money, and our financial life is likely to become more complicated as we get older.

Becoming financially literate involves learning and practicing a variety of skills related to budgeting, managing, and paying off debts, and understanding credit and investment choices. Personally, we have more energy around creating an effective spending plan, than a budget! Basic steps to improve our personal finances include creating a spending plan, keeping track of expenses, being diligent about timely payments, being prudent about saving money, periodically checking our credit report, and investing for our future. Financial literacy is the ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills, tools, and processes; including personal and business financial management, spending plan creation, and investing, while learning to live on less than we make!

We believe financial literacy is one of the most important things we can learn and help others learn, and the learning never ends. We believe the subject qualifies as a mandatory part of primary education. Yet presently, it is only a required course in public schools in just 17 states in the USA.

Given that college students graduate with an average of $32,000 in debt due to student loans and credit card debt, and on average, a graduating dentist in 2020 reported close to $300,000, in dental school debt (ADA).

Therefore, we believe, it is imperative that young people learn the basics of credit, debt, spending plans, saving, and investing before they face that burden. It is never too late to become financially literate, and the earlier we start, the better.

We are adding some basic financial literacy lessons into the intentional design of our coursework. Come join us and devote appropriate time and energy to really getting on top of personal and practice finances.

2021 Pankey Financial Course Offerings:

• Mastering Business Essentials (MBE) – April 29th – May 1st

• Creating More Financial Freedom – August 20th – 21st