Don't budge

I'm getting better at standing my ground in situations where my ideas of treatment and the patient's ideas differ. Normally I'm quite flexible in my treatment planning but when the patient wants something that I think is absolutely a bad idea then I think it is important not to budge in your refusal of that treatment. For example a patient not willing to have an unrestorable, infected tooth extracted without promising to fill the gap after. This is in a mouth with poor oral hygiene and half completed endos on the abutment teeth.

The patient will go through the stages of acceptance: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and then eventual acceptance. You can actually see the changes in their behaviour as they move through these. They will keep asking if you can do something for them. They will keep coming up with different ideas to get around your suggestion but in the end you have to keep giving them the same message: they have to do what you suggest or they get nothing. In the end they can either give in and accept the treatment you propose or refuse and you've lost a customer that was more trouble than they were worth.