Is selling actually part of a licensed dentist’s professional responsibility to patients?
Yes. The license to practice dentistry carries a duty to use the knowledge the dentist has acquired to help patients make good decisions about their oral health. That duty includes guiding patients toward care they need, in language they can understand, using methods that respect how human beings actually make decisions. That is selling, in the ethical sense. A dentist who refuses to engage in this work is not staying neutral. They are leaving the patient alone with a complex health decision they are not equipped to make well by themselves. The result is undertreatment, deferred treatment, and worse outcomes downstream. The profession has historically treated selling as somehow unseemly. That stance was wrong. Ethical, evidence-based selling is part of the job the license was granted for. The dentists who accept that responsibility serve their patients better. The ones who refuse it serve their patients worse and rationalize the gap as professionalism.
If the answers you are finding here resonate with you, my team and I work with a small group of clients each year. The next step is a complimentary Discovery Consultation and Practice Review with Dr. McAnally.
