The Invisible Dental Curriculum: Business and Career Education School Skipped

The most important parts of a dental education arrive after dental school ends. This is the part they skipped.Dental school teaches you to be an excellent dentist. It does not teach you to read an associate contract, price your work, negotiate a lease, manage overhead, protect yourself before a dental board, or build lasting wealth. That education is real, and it is decisive, and almost no one hands it to you. Most dentists learn it slowly, by paying for their mistakes. This book was written so you would not have to.Written by a dentist who has practiced for more than 30 years and built 21 practices, these 50 chapters follow the full arc of a dental career. The early ground: mindset, the associateship years, and the first contract you sign. The ownership decisions: buying or building a practice, reading financial statements, the practice loan, and partnership. The daily business: hiring, fees and insurance, marketing, overhead, lease negotiation, malpractice, and the dental board. The long game: growth into multiple locations, private equity and DSOs, personal finance and real estate, and the human questions of burnout, balance, and what a career is finally for.A dental career places you on every side of the table: associate and employer, buyer and seller, tenant and landlord, the dentist weighing a DSO offer and the one building the organization that makes it. Whoever understands both sides navigates each of them with confidence.Somewhere right now a patient is out of pain because of something you did. Build the business well, with integrity and the long view, so you can keep being that person for as long as you choose. This book is here to help you understand exactly where you stand, and stand there better.