Work update

 Recently my contract at the hospital dental clinic ended and I decided not to pursue renewal. This means I have ceased employment there and passed on my patient care and headaches to other clinicians. I have stayed on for a couple of days with the university clinics on a casual basis but I am not sure how long I will keep that up. It is not a bad job to have but I find it extremely tiring and I am learning very little from it. What I do learn is how to fix clinical mistakes and I am thinking quite a bit deeper about the 'why'  of how I do my dentistry.

I have started a couple of days at another private practice and the practice owner seems keen to pass on his knowledge and experience on to me. This clinic does fairly high end dentistry, a fair bit of fixed prosthodontics, implants and ortho. One big bonus is they have an on site lab and a digital setup which is a big gap in my knowledge as I have only worked analogue in the past. 

Working 3 jobs has been working fine for the past couple of years but I think it will soon be time to consolidate my days. Private practice will soon be too busy for me to be there part time and achieve what I want to achieve in terms of patient outcomes and my own learning. As I pick up experience in fixed pros and digital workflow I will need to spend more and more time to explore the field. University work is clearly the loser here and I will have to work out when is the best time to drop days or drop it entirely. It is a shame because it is quite enjoyable work and the students seem receptive to my supervision. 

I will be interested to see how the next 12 months go in terms of my professional development. I feel that after 6 years of practice I am starting to get a handle on what I need to learn to improve myself as a clinican.