Balanced Life Philosophy

Through my journey of education in the dental field, God has given me the opportunity to go to the LD Pankey Institute.  There is where I learned a philosophy that has influenced in my professional life.  Dr. Pankey had a philosophy of a balanced life.  It is if you can imagine a cross with four points.  The four points on the cross are work, play, worship, and love.  I have since in my life modified this to being a three-legged stool with the three legs as being work, play, worship, and the seat of this stool of being love.  The work, play, and worship part of the stool needs to be in balance in order to have peace in your life. 

A person needs work to have purpose in order to be participating in what God is doing in any person’s area of influence.  A person’s satisfaction comes when he enters into what is God is doing with the work that God has provided for him to do. We are to work along side God in His creation here on earth.  

The next step of the stool is play.  Play must be part of a person’s life as they recreate and has time away from work in order to refresh his mind.  This play can involve family, friends, or just by themselves. This is a time of renewal.

The worship part of the stool is where a person takes time to worship God because knowing that there is a higher being in charge of their life, will bring peace to a person’s life.  Of course as a Christian or other religious type person of faith, this would entail talking to God and having to work out on how he should live his life.

The seat of the stool is love and without love there is no purpose in the other three footsteps of the stool.  Without love, there is no purpose in work and without love there is no purpose in play and without love there is no purpose in worship.  Love is what drives a life of peace and satisfaction. The Bible says that with faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love (1Cor 13). Love is the greatest because when we go to heaven, we will not need hope and faith because the object of our faith and hope will be standing in front of us!  But love will endure into the eternal kingdom!  God is love (1John).

Love is not “being in love” rather it is a verb that is active loving.  Love for ones fellow human being is what drives a Dentist to do what they do and should be what drives every persons work and purpose of life.

 

New Courses for the Dental Sleep Academy

As in any medical profession, there are organizational entities that represent that particular aspect of the profession.  When it comes to sleep medicine, the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine is that representative organization.  It was started many years ago by like-minded sleep Dentists who are pioneers in the profession.  They organized the academy in relationship with the medical side of sleep medicine.  The original philosophy was to be in partnership with the physicians to solve the issues relating to obstructive sleep apnea.

I have recently become involved with the Academy in helping them to develop an advanced curriculum.  There is no better way in the dental sleep profession to come to understand sleep medicine than the introductory courses offered by the Academy.  They are very organized and thorough in their content.  Next step is to offer more advanced courses as more and more dentists are becoming involved and there is more and more need for advanced information to help these Dentists treat their patients.  We gave our first advanced course in New Orleans last month and it was a success.

I hope in the next six months that we will be able to mail down a format that is ever-changing and responsive to the needs of sleep Dentists across the nation.  It has to be a fluid and highly responsive offerings as the profession is advancing at breakneck speed.  New information and research is coming out all the time, which will greatly influence the content of the advanced courses.  These are exciting times and I have to commend the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine for responding to these changing times to provide profession with an excellent organization all with the goal of serving patients who have sleep breathing disorders.

Staff

A doctor has chosen to sacrifice much during an early period of his life in educating him or herself to be able to meet the medical needs of people.  This sacrifice comes at a time when they could be both making money at another job and enjoying the benefits of their youth.  However, they have chosen to delay gratification in both by attending medical school or dental school.  They come into private practice full of knowledge and lacking in experience.

A wise medical professional will determine very quickly the value of their supporting staff.  There is no way a medical professional can deliver quality medical care without a quality medical staff.

I have been blessed with a staff that has the same heart as I do.  They are all very compassionate and desire to serve the patient with the highest quality of care and compassion.  God’s gift of mercy is a very big attribute of my medical staff, as they sacrifice daily, parts of their life that they could be enjoying also.  They often times stay late and come early.  They work harder to deliver the quality care that our patients need in order to resolve their medical issues.

I am very proud of my staff, and I would hold them up as an example to all treating medical professionals as to the type of staff that they should seek in their own offices.

Thank you…Linda, Erica, Brenda, Gloria, Judy, Julie, Jenny, Susan and Kim for all you do.

Exciting Times

As many of you who have been following me for the past couple of years know that I have been helping Dr. Keith Thornton on developing the custom CPAP mask.  The hours spent without any compensation are immeasurable.  I credit my staff for putting in many unpaid hours and helping us to figure out how to make this mask a viable option for dental sleep doctors and their patients.  Dr. Thornton just recently got this mask FDA approved so that we can start teaching it to Dentists.  We have also been able to work out and streamline the procedures so that it can be delivered at a fee that the patient can afford as well as the Dentist and his staff is able to deliver.

Having said that, with the availability of this custom mask to obstructive sleep apnea patients to the nation and possibly worldwide, this will completely revolutionized sleep medicine.  The biggest obstacle to CPAP machine as many of you know, is the mask.  With this custom mask, all these obstacles are eliminated.  There are no straps and no leakage.  These were two main problems with the current CPAP mask situation.  Check  my website for more information concerning these masks and look for educational opportunities for those of you who are Dentists.