After having visited a lot of hospitals around my place I finally found “my kind of work environment” in a huge upcoming dental hospital in the city and I joined without hitch with a decent deal. Initially, however because of shifting the relatively small setup to the bigger building we had a lot more to do than just treating patients, be it getting the dental chairs installed or making a list of how many more personnel we would need, the team including me did it all. In the process of making a check-list one day a couple of days back I pointed out to the need for dental assistants in the setup, my idea was to hire some in advance before we start full-fledged so that we could train them as per our requirements for a smoother functioning of the place. Apparently, when I said that me and my boss were sitting with a man who had visited us from a firm which deals with house-keeping people, my boss too realised the need of assistants and asked him if he could get us some people for the job. “Yes, of course, sir I can,” he said, “but how much are you willing to pay” was what he asked next. “Well! You say how much do you think I should?” asked my boss. “Hmm...Say 8000 to 9000Rs monthly sir” he suggested and asked simultaneously, “What are you talking man! I won't pay that much” my boss exclaimed. Well yes maybe we can start with a little lesser, train them, see how they work and accordingly increase the pay is what I was thinking in my head while the man continued to argue and bargain with my boss. “Close it man I don’t want the assistant’s from you I will get BDS doctors for 5000Rs a month!” said my boss, “Come to the college where I am and see how people work there with that salary as tutors and demonstrators and they survive well.” I looked at him in utter surprise while he looked at me and continued, “yes doc, they will be happy to work in a huge setup like this and they will easily agree for working a little extra also if required.” I was still surprised and I did not give any response to that, he didn’t take my opinion either. I was surprised to see his attitude for BDS graduates and I was simultaneously surprised to know that they do agree to work for that pay after having worked hard to earn that degree. Who is at fault? The established practitioners who exploit the relatively young dentists in need of work, or the graduates themselves who agree to work under such terms. If you ask me I feel both are somewhere responsible for demeaning their profession…the big and successful are responsible because only a handful of them think about offering incentives and promoting good teamwork whereas the younger and still struggling dentists are responsible because most of them accept to work under any circumstances and for any money they are offered because they fear failure and succumb to the competition that exists around them.
The idea of sharing this experience of mine is to make you think a little more on where exactly are we heading by this kind of work culture? Because eventually, this finance does affect the patient's treatments as well because neither the ones hired will have any drive or motivation to do better work nor the bosses will be able to get the best team and will have to work with a solo mind! Rather than playing a blame game for everything that exists around us like the increasing dental colleges and lesser government jobs let us think about improving things in our area of practice by whichever means we can. It's time that the struggling dentists realise their worth and start saying a big NO to such offers and the established ones realise the importance and need of good teamwork to deliver more and better to their patients. Its us who can realise our worth, its us who can take our branch to greater heights in India, and its us who can eventually improve our positions. Dentistry is one of the most flourishing fields that you can be in, let's try getting together to make it one.
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