Collegiality

Know that you are part of something bigger. Your profession is part of your identity and the values of collegiality should underlie your day to day practice. You will have the opportunity with any new patient to trash your colleagues who also may be local competitors. Some of the dentistry that has been done in the past in these patients may not seem ideal but it is not up to us to judge work that has been done in the past. We don't know the whole truth about what the conditions were like at the time and what pressures the previous dentist was put under.

When we see these patients or are asked to comment previous work we have to realise that the same thing will happen to patients we see. They may go to another practice and you would hope that the next dentist doesn't judge your work too harshly out loud to the patient. No one's work is perfect, everyone has off days and makes compromises to fit the situation.

Instead, we should aspire to treat our colleagues with respect, insist that we don't know what the situation was like and we can't comment on the skill or care of the dentist before. All we can comment on is the current situation and plan to move forward. If you bad mouth the other dentist thinking it will benefit you it probably won't. Instead you come off as arrogant and untrustworthy to the patient and it may work strongly against you.