Why do successful dentists use a checklist during patient consultations? Because memory fails and a checklist does not. In a fifteen minute consult you have to look the part, ask the right questions, find common ground with the patient, keep hunting for what is really motivating them, and decide whether you can genuinely help. That is a lot to carry in your head while a stranger is sitting in your chair. Try to wing it and you will forget the question that mattered most. A pilot does not skip the preflight just because they have flown a thousand times, and you [...]