Below are excerpts of Dr. Leah Schulz’s CU School of Dental Medicine commencement address from May 2023.
I remember my first year out of dental school. I was constantly agonizing over pretty much everything. How will I manage multiple ops at the same time? Will I be able to grow my practice fast enough to pay my loans back? How can I possibly complete an oral diagnosis exam in less than three, three-hour long appointments and a minimum of 50 faculty swipes?
My mentor had the same response for me, every time: “Treat people well, and the rest will follow.” I have learned over the years that those “people” you should treat well include yourself, your team and your patients, among others.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on the journeys that brought you to today: you researched, volunteered, shadowed, earned amazing grades, pulled all-nighters…and that was just to get into dental school! Then you finally arrived here in the Fall of 2019, ready to roll, and then less than a year in…COVID hit. Your time has been marked by continual adaptation. Resiliency was foisted on you! Constant change is not easy, especially for Type A perfectionists, overachievers and planners.
All these years of exceptionally hard work and pivoting have meant that you’ve given a lot of yourselves, unintentionally (and perhaps unavoidably) burning the candle at both ends. This sustained effort does not come without consequence to your personal wellness. Some of you have not been treating yourselves well for the better part of a decade. That’s the tricky thing about “burning the candle at both ends” – you burn twice as brightly, but you extinguish twice as quickly.
Life after dental school does not get any calmer. As amazing as our profession is, we’re in stressful situations many days, with busy schedules, patients who have no reservations telling us they hate the dentist (to our faces), working in fractions of millimeters with sharp rotating instruments on patients who apparently lose all ability to control their tongues, leading teams of widely varying personalities, and learning how to run a business on the fly, with materials, technologies, policies and “best practices” that advance quickly and frequently. I can tell you from experience that, thanks to your inherent drive, in the quest to continue to be the smartest, the best, the ones who do it all and make it look easy, many of you will inevitably continue to give too much of yourselves. Before long, you will find yourselves once again burning the candle at both ends, and you’ll again be extinguishing twice as quickly. Our field is riddled with dentists suffering from high anxiety, clinical depression, and mental illness, which in some cases leads to substance use disorders or even death by suicide. These are dentists who were, at one point, just like you: exceptionally determined high performing individuals filled with personal and career ambition. No one is immune.
My wish for all of you is that you make the commitment today to be intentional about prioritizing your own health and wellness…forever. That’s not such a big ask, right?! You are worth it. Treat yourselves well, and the rest will follow.
Dentistry can be isolating so please do not go it alone! Reach out! Find a community! I found my support network in organized dentistry. I mean, where else can you find a community with whom you can “talk shop, nonstop” with people experiencing exactly what you are every step of the way? And you have tons of options: CDA, ADA, NNOHA, AADSO, NDA, HDA, AGD, AAPD, AAP, AAE, ACD, ICD, PFA, ACDC (oh wait, ACDC isn’t one of them, but if you figure out how to get into that one, let me know!) Organized dentistry offers networking, leadership opportunities, advocacy, wellness resources, continuing education and, most of all, connection with likeminded peers!
Another part of treating yourself well is establishing your own, personal practice philosophy, based on your individual core values. Ask yourself “what do I stand for?” Make sure you know the “why” behind it, and then work in a model that supports your philosophy. Dentistry is a wonderful profession, but you may not fall in love with it until you find your calling. So please avoid “the career climb” for the sake of the climb, trying to achieve some career goal that society prescribes as “the best” rather than intentionally cultivating a career that aligns with your unique core values.
Reflect on your experiences and how you felt when you treated patients well! Remember why you applied to dental school. When your core values align with your practice philosophy, then you’re far more likely to treat yourself, your patients and your team well.
Speaking of your team, they will become some of the most important people to you. Most of you will spend more waking hours with them than with your family. We rely on teamwork; your support team will make or break you. And it doesn’t matter what practice setting you’re in or what your official title is. You are the leader because you are the dentist, and your team will look to you to set the tone. If you treat your team well, then the rest will follow. If you approach your team with respect, develop a genuine interest in their lives, prioritize their priorities, and help however your team needs you, even if that means seating the next patient when you’re short staffed, then they will be an all-star team for you. Why? Because when you treat them well, they will treat your patients, each other, and you well, and the rest will follow.
Lastly, if you treat patients well, the rest will follow. If you treat your patients kindly and thoughtfully, with intent and investment in their whole person care, and you are committed to lifelong learning, they will want YOU to do their dentistry. Most patients want to be treated by someone they know cares about them, not just their teeth or their wallets, but their whole person. When you treat them well, they will bring you homemade cookies, hand knit baby blankets, curated playlists, thank you cards, souvenirs from their travels; just ask my husband, we have a house full of this stuff, and I love it. But perhaps most importantly they’ll bring the people they love, their families and friends, to come see you.
So, Class of 2023, when you apply your talents, resiliency, compassion, and drive (being careful not to burn twice as brightly) and when you treat people well, the rest will surely follow.