Is every dental CPD/CE really awesome? I think the best investment I ever made was in postgraduate courses, but with escalating costs and ever-expanding choices for courses, how does the confused Dentist pick a course? Is there a toxic culture whereby Dentists are afraid to give less than perfect reviews for a course?

https://youtu.be/Idgy1YfXaTY

Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below!

The highlights of this episode:

• 7:07 Importance of Feedback on Dental Courses
• 23:17 Too Many Positive Reviews!
• 27:22 What kind of learner are you?
• 30:11 How to Choose the Courses you should take

Check out the book recommended by Druh Shah called The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World by Dorie Clark

If you enjoyed this episode, you will also like Being Unstoppable with Ferhan Ahmed

Click below for full episode transcript: Opening Snippet: Are you six months later still using stuff from that course, right? Are you still, have you changed your practice because of that course? How was the after support, how's everything like that?

Jaz’s Introduction:

You know how we always moan that dental education at dental school is kind of letting us down and we come out qualified. And we feel underprepared. This episode is kind of moaning not about undergraduate dental education, which I’m actually, I’m not moaning I want to say but we’re debating okay, because I’ve got Dhru Shah and Niall Hutchinson, we’re debating about the current state of art when it comes to dental CPD or dental CE, so that’s continuing education, continuing professional development, all the courses that we go on, after dental school, there is kind of like a toxic culture. And I spoke about this, in the previous episode #AskJaz. And this is what sort of stimulated or created this debate because in that episode, I kind of answered a key question where people are saying, Should I do this course or should I do that course, this course because it’s a significant investment. And all the reviews are really confusing. I don’t know which one to pick. And I kind of said, well, it kinda doesn’t matter. Because from all these reviews, you’re probably very unlikely to go wrong. But then after the episode, I’ve had two of the Protruserati who I really respect and really loved, they messaged me, and they said, Jaz, I’m really regretting, they said, Thanks for tackling that topic it’s not really spoken about enough. But they said, I’m doing this course, one is a restorative course very well known UK. And the other one is a very well known orthodontic course in the UK. And these two guys, these are like course junkies, that course connoisseurs, they’re no like spring chickens that are just doing their first course they’ve done several courses. And they reached out say, You know what Jaz, you had a point because I kind of went by the hype of this course and the reviews. And I’m extremely disappointed after investing, probably in five figure course here we’re talking about, so not a cheap course. And education is worth every penny, I think. And we can go on and on talk about value and the importance of implementation to gain the most out of courses. But essentially, these two guys who are really great dentists, they were left disappointed. And I think that stems from the fact that whenever we search about reviews of courses, we always hear that this course is amazing. That course amazing. This course is life changing. So how do you know which one to pick? Well, the way I think about it, everything in life, everything in life, okay, that’s the quality of dental care that we give, or the quality of the lawyers or teachers or the quality of food that’s out there in the world. Like it’s everything follows a bell curve. There’s most of it, which is average and maybe above average. And then there’s a 5% outliers on either side, which are just abysmal and absolutely awesome. But when he read the reviews for courses, apparently, every single course is damn awesome. And so it becomes very difficult to pick. So I you know, where are the the course reviews that say this was a solid 7 out of 10. Well, there’s a reason those course reviews don’t exist because of the culture that exists that people are afraid to give reviews, which are less than 10 out of 10 because it’s a small world in dentistry, and we are afraid to be ostracized. We are afraid to get backlash from educators. Maybe the real reviews are exchanged at 2am at the bar in confidence, looking over your shoulder. Is anyone listening? Yeah, that course. Yeah. It wasn’t as good as said on Instagram, right? So this is the kind of debate we’re having a little bit controversial. It’s funny how this episode came to be.

This was actually a random impromptu Friday Night Live episode recording that we did. And one of my guests Niall, he is actually in the car driving. So for those of you watching, you won’t actually get to see much you’ll see a pitch black. But for those listening, you’ll gain a lot of value from this. It’s quite a stimulating debate. It’s quite different from what I usually put out, I guess. But this is an interference cast as like a kind of like a non clinical interruption. Ultimately, this is completely unscripted and straight from the heart. If you do for some reason, wanted a video of this episode, I put it as unlisted on YouTube, which means that you can’t actually searched for it, you have to go on the protrusive.co.uk website to access the video. Why? Because this is the kind of themes that we discuss are not relevant for patients. And I don’t want patients to come across this and one of the best things that to come from this chat from this episode is the birth of a Facebook group which I shall not name and I’ll explain why in a moment. But this Facebook group was created by Niall, one of my guests, based on conversations that we had literally the next morning Niall set this up as a safe place for dentists and colleagues to post their mistakes, because we learned so much from our mistakes. So it’s all about creating a safe environment where we can learn from each other’s mistakes. It’s completely different and unique type of learning. The reason I’m not giving you a ‘Hey, join our group. Here’s a link’ kind of thing is because I want to create friction. I want to make it difficult for you to join this group. So only the right eyes and the right hearts join this group. What I mean by that is I don’t want people to join this group because they want to see all the perforations that I’ve done, all the interproximal elbows that I never prepped for veneers and I share those on the group so far. And it’s not a place for us to come and laugh at our colleagues even though you can anonymously post and that’s fine you know, you can share your story, you can share your communication errors, you can share clinical mistakes and whatnot in a safe environment. But part of the way that this is a safe environment is that not anyone can just join willy nilly.

So if you join the Protrusive Dental Community Facebook group first and find that then you can find a link to join this group. And even then, you know, like direct link, you have to comment and then one of my colleagues, Krissel, she will fact check, you she will like do an ID check on you, she will stalk you online to make sure you are who you say you are, you’re actually a dental colleague, and then you’ll get accepted. What this does is it creates a very safe environment for us to share our mistakes. So it’s a great wonderful, beautiful thing that formed as a result of this episode. So hope enjoy this episode eye opening, fascinating, controversial maybe. And I’ll catch you in the outro

Main Interview:

[Jaz]

Welcome to the first ever Friday Night Live Protrusive Dental podcast with another first ever guest Niall Hutchinson is, not with his red wine. I’m the one with the red wine, we switch roles. He’s driving, my first ever driving guest and of course a veteran to the podcast, Dhru. How are you both? First, I’ll start with Niall. Now, how are you mate?

[Niall]

I’m very well thank you very well, it’s been a busy week but yeah, fantastic. Thank you.

[Jaz]

I’m so again like I said, before we started recording, I’m really glad that you didn’t have your red wine with you. But you said you’re recording at Payman and you can do that podcast with red wine. So we’re very much looking forward to that.

[Pav]

Yep, absolutely. That’s coming up.

[Jaz]

He might cut in and out so we’ll have to just as it comes in. Dhru, how are you mate?

[Dhru]

Great. I’m great. How are you? Welcome I think it’s nice to be back actually

[Jaz]

Mate, you always fun guest and obviously I’ve got your juices flowing says it’s gonna set some context because some people, Niall, your connection dropped for a bit but now you’re back so great to have you back. Guys, he’s actually driving so those listening in the future, I have a driving guest. It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty funny fit, funny for me, actually. So let me just set some context guys, before we just start picking your brains. The context is earlier today or yesterday, I’ve lost track of time. Last night I published an episode #AskJaz number two. And the first question on that one was, Should I do, I’m confused young dentists, Should I do the Paul Tipton course? Should I do with Chris Orr course? Should I do the Richard Porter Aspire course? This is like up there? And the question like the most common question we get along with which indemnity provider and which composite heater etc, etc., right? So really common question. And these are mini episodes that I make they’re completely unscripted. So I just went off on a ramble and I said, You know what, there is a toxic culture, that you’re always going to be flooded with positive reviews. And because we’re all nice to each other. Well, I believe that, I want to believe that there’s a niceness in us. There’s a fuzzy niceness in us. And that’s why we don’t post negative shit about each other. Because it’s a good thing. We don’t want to be, you know, negative and defaming people. However, there’s a fine line about bad experiences and people making decisions based on social media hype when it comes to courses. And so I posted that on Facebook and you guys jumped in. So I’ll go first with you Dhru, you’ve been you’ve had a number of hours now to reflect on this very controversial post. Where do you think we’re at just just summarize situation, the landscape in your words?

[Dhru]

What’s the filter? Listen, I, I personally think that we’ve seen an explosion of courses in the last few years, when I pretty much started Tubules signing of 10, well, 13 years ago, but when we probably went into the education side away from the forums, it would have been about 10 or 12 years. And at that point, the real problem was the lack of information and the lack of you know, the education being out there, and I’ve been seeing it for the last few years, we no longer have a lack of information and education anymore, we now have a lack of attention and focus to doing what’s specific. And where we are now is that Yeah, there’s just, there’s more courses than we can, you know, I mean, I see the amount of courses going up and actually there’s a lot to think about there.

[Jaz]

Niall, what about you, my friend? What’s the landscape in terms of your thoughts on that post?

[Pav]

Yeah, I agree with you entirely. I, in fact, that made me think why hasn’t somebody produced the independent review site where you can anomalously, the problem is with you know, you get these feedback forms at the end of the course or you get the video in the middle of the course or the course hasn’t even finished and you’re sort of they no come up and say a few words to the video. And you know, you’ve got no choice but to be nice, you know, really haven’t and I can tell you there’s two or three courses I’ve been on not over the last few years where they have been frankly shit and they expensive courses as well. And I filled in the feedback form saying basically this is, you don’t want to put this as shit. But you go in the other totally ignored. And

[Jaz]

What it is, right? Is if it was a good, okay course, you give it a five. If it was shit, you give it a four.

[Dhru]

Yeah. Because we’ve had a couple of, you know, even Congress we’ve had feedback where we’ve had to take things on board and take it on the chin. And I’m quite happy to say this. But actually, you know, one of the congresses, we had someone go, this is the worst course I’ve ever been on in 30 Plus careers. My thought, wow. And actually, our team broke down in tears. But the truth of the matter is, we appreciate honest feedback. And we personally went to this person, and found out what exactly are the things that didn’t work out for them. We’ve had this a handful of times, but I think the feedback forms have got to be honest reviews, but you can only give honest reviews as a delegate on the feedback form if you trust the course provider. That’s why we can get the honest feedback that we get, because they trust us to follow it up to action on it to change it. I mean, every person who’s come back with any kind of feedback, have actually said, I’m coming back to the next Congress, and that one person has turned up three times after the first negative review, and seen those changes. And that’s the power of reviews if you do them properly. But there’s no reviews, those are feedback, understandably

[Niall]

Probably is, you pointed out, there’s this FOMO herd mentality at the moment, you know, wherever he goes, Oh, I’ve got to go on. So and so of course, it goes through this course, go through that. Now, it may be that just it’s, you know, not a great course. But everybody just seems to want to do that at the moment. You know, I can think of a few course providers are a bit like that at the moment that everybody wants to do it. But equally well, the thing is, I know people trust you Dhru but you had one negative feedback, it’s a bit like getting one patient ringing up and complain about you how many have left quietly, you know, because they didn’t quite trust you or didn’t fit felt awkward to actually give you what they were really thinking. I personally think there’s more of a scope for it more of an anonymous field, which, you know, where the feedback could be given in an anonymous way away from the course, maybe just after the course or whatever. And then I think people would actually probably be more honest about what they thought in the course about the course.

[Dhru]

I think that’s, I agree with that. But I’m not a fan of anonymous, because anonymous means you’re hiding behind a wall and doing things and the truth of the matter is that both parties have to build enough trust with each other, to be able to do that. I would want a patient come in the same way that I’m in dentistry, I don’t want a patient complaining anonymously. And my patients trust me enough to know that they’ve got a problem, they’ve got a concern, they’ve got anything, I am approachable enough for them to tell me what I need to. So maybe there’s an issue here about how we operate with our communication in dentistry, generally, you know, and most course providers or dental providers, and communication and trust building is one of the most powerful psychological tools. Now that puts a question out there straightaway, away from reviews, how many course providers think about come on and learn about communication, psychology, human, you know, thought processes, behavior processes to create the conditions that allow that honest communication to happen. Yes. Another interesting question to put out there.

[Niall]

Yeah. The problem is, I think that dentistry is a small community. All right. And there are a few, let’s not get into the dentistry top 50 again, but there are a few people who have strong, let’s say strong opinions of themselves, you know, that they really do. And as a result, and don’t forget that courses bring in an awful lot of money. They are much more profitable than any dentistry would ever be. All right. On a daily or an hourly basis, or whatever would you call it. So they are very keen to keep these courses going and people coming in. And I think people go, well, A) it’s a bit like the emperor’s new clothes. For some of them. It’s like, Oh, everybody else thinks they’re, Look, everybody else is saying they’re brilliant. And you’re the one that’s scared to come and go oh, no, they’re actually a bit shit. You know, and I thought it was a pretty well, they can be very strong egos these people who run these courses, I just did run the course not no disrespect, Druh, but I mean, I even though I’ve got quite strongly opinion, I wouldn’t run a course. I didn’t think I’m good enough to run the course. Yeah. But there are a lot of big egos out there. So people get sort of bullied into sort of saying, Oh, I don’t want to say anything bad because they might block me or they might not, you know, I might be a part of the gang anymore. Oh, you know what I mean? So that’s why we’re come back to anonymous. I don’t, I agree with you. I don’t think Anonymous is not useful. But there’s there could be some way of feeding in that it wasn’t anonymous to a central party, but the central party fed the stuff on

[Jaz]

Independent adjudicator.

[Niall]

Yes.

[Dhru]

Yeah.

[Niall]

So basically says, Yes, this is genuine feedback from a genuine person, right? But it gets fed on anonymously.

[Jaz]

But I want that feedback to be presented in a balanced way on that. So let’s say you go to a course provider page, and then that feedback should be like, Okay, so from the reviews that we’ve seen on social media and what we’ve collected, we find that overall, most people have a, you know, a good positive experience, a few negative we had a focus around the catering. Now, someone can read that and think, okay, know what the catering is amount me, and therefore, I’m gonna go on this course, because this course is good. But for those people who, you know, who go to courses for the catering, then they will know that, okay, this course, I’m just making this up, obviously, just give an example, and how this could be used. But that is one way to consider it.

[Dhru]

I think this but there’s two things to think here, Jaz, and that level as well for course reviews. And I think the important first thing, the important bit is that whoever gives a review, good or bad is giving their meaning of it. Now, as you’re aware, many of the courses we do at to build some of the lectures, we do film them, because the lectures allow us to do it. And then I distinctly remember, there was one, where the, when we looked at the feedback, the person left some really heavy feedback that the lecture was not polite to me, or was obnoxious, whatever it was, I reached out to this person had a very good chat, I then reviewed the video because the conversation and everything was there just for my feedback to say what’s happened here. And there was a total loss of meaning, locked on both ends. And it was almost like someone had misinterpreted it in a different way. And so whether it’s anonymous or not, or whether it’s a negative or positive review, you have to remember that it’s not the most direct interpretation of things that happened on the course it is the meaning derived for that single person. So that’s one of the first thing

[Jaz]

It’s like restaurant reviews, like restaurant reviews. Yeah, they can, I do think is a bit. It’s a bit personal taste involved here. There’s a palette involved here

[Dhru]

That’s right.

[Jaz]

There’s a palette for educational work

[Dhru]

There’s a palette involved, and there’s a there’s an art form, but then then you bring the second point where you talked about catering. And so one of the biggest strengths in trying to arrange reviews or workout reviews, is we’ve got to have some criteria. And since Niall didn’t want to bring out the top 50, it’s the same argument I say. What’s the criteria, right? It’s but the question being if you build some parameters around which you can make the judgment, now it’s a level playing field within that area,

[Dhru]

So like objective data with many parameters collected for all the educators?

[Dhru]

Yes, correct, then you get a trend, you’re never gonna get obvious. It’s right, you get 90 positives, 10 negatives. You get 85 positives, I don’t know, 15, negatives, whatever. But then it’s not just one course. The other thing to then note is you look at reviews across courses. I’m making this very complicated I think.But you look at reviews across courses, now you see a trend appearing. And in that trend, in that objective criteria, you get a better long term judgment of what’s being derived. There’s a third factor here. And I think now it’s pointed this as well, you go to a course and somebody says, Listen, I’m going to, I want a video at the end of this course, can you give me a testimonial? Yes, that’s got value at that point. But the biggest value is the biggest impact of that course is when I go into practice, and the changes I make in practice and the results I see of those changes. So one of those criteria is about so you do another review and feedback six months, nine months later, and that impact factor. Now it makes sense when you add all of these things, what’s the trend of things happening here? That’s what the key should be. Not ‘I went on this course last Monday. Here’s my five star review’, which is brilliant. Because you’re writing on the emotions of that course, you will write something positive, it takes a long time for the emotion

[Dhru]

The after support as well for cases and mentorship thereafter, which is also really crucial for courses.

[Dhru]

Absolutely correct. All of these things bring into the review system that we need to think about. Sorry, I’ve rambled on

[Jaz]

Any points because I’d point wants to hear you out.

[Niall]

But the problem is with giving, the thing about giving feedback on the day is there is this sort of Fear Factor or bullying factor or whatever you want to call it or even just put it in a positive way, and exuberance factor. You know that you’re going Oh, fantastic, brilliant, loved it, you know, really nice. They really enjoyed it. So I’m gonna give it brilliant review. You’re absolutely bang on right, are you six months later still using stuff from that course, right? Are you still, have you changed your practice because of that course? How was the after support? How was everything like that? I must have had this interesting Just hearing you say Dhru that when you give negative feedback, you chest up. The two times to tell you, either I’ve given negative feedback and horses never contact us or not interested. Now, of course, stop making the the opinion of them even worse. But I think the problem is, it’s far too easy. We see quite often on social media, people were photos of their feedback forms, going, Oh, look at all this brilliant feedback I got on my course you know, and you go, yeah, but that’s not really mean that much does that you sort of semi bullied them into that. Then they but

[Dhru]

There’s another point here as well, Niall that it’s this showing the feedback, but actually, I want, you almost want to know, not from the course provider, but you want to know it from the person itself about how that course met their learning needs. That’s slightly different isn’t about who’s actually showing that feedback, because the course provider will show you the feedback. And same with us, the Tubules. I mean, you know, course providers showing that feedback, look how amazing we are. Yeah, clap for me, please. But actually, the real bit has to be the real impact of a course is when the person who went on that course tells you how to change their practice.

[Niall]

Yeah, absolutely. 100%, it’s made it better for you, it’s either work easier and more profitable, whatever way, whatever quality you got out of it, you know? Is it still there in three months? Six months? I mean, you know, there are courses I have done. Yes, that has totally changed in my practice. There are courses I have done more when, you know what, it was the CPD hours and ultimately hasn’t changed anything at all. And the thing also, I find that the moment, you know, think courses have got ridiculously expensive?

[Dhru]

No.

[Niall]

No?

[Dhru]

I’ll tell you why. Well, because we run courses all the time. And, you know, the genuine cost of elements has gone up. Now we, we run courses at such a way that we try and limit the amount the companies have to just give as equipment or materials. Tubules, we buy as much as we can simply because we don’t want to think that there’s influence of companies or anything like that. Companies do come and support it, but we buy as much as materials, but the cost whether it’s Brexit, inflation, I don’t know what it is. But the cost is generally high. By time you include speaker fee, the venue fee, okay, we’ve probably, I mean Jaz, you’ve probably come to some of the courses you know, the hot food we like to give or whatever, we almost make it personally yours perhaps because the numbers we keep small, it might be all of these, but actually the genuine costs of just event management have shot off massively

[Jaz]

And the VAT. I just want to have in there. Exists, just because it doesn’t for dentists it does flip and flip way round.

[Dhru]

Ladies and gentlemen, this episode is just been dedicated to Pav Khaira. So yes, you’re right,

[Pav]

The VAT including course you have to charge VAT and in looking in the course VAT is it?

[Dhru]

We put it in the course fee as a veteran, just company, we’ve just put it in the course fee. It’s included. But you’re right, they’ve got I mean, Jaz you’ve had the same experience, I suppose the cost of just shot through the roof.

[Jaz]

It’s a little bit different in the way that a lot of stuff I do is online as well, which helps keeps costs lower, right? But ultimately, what it costs, the educator especially for community based learning why I run is mentorship thereafter and being there for everyone and dedicating time. And that’s something that’s really important for courses. But the main reason to get a go have you guys on tonight is to see if we can come up with some sort of a solution. Druh, you’ve offered some ideas now you’ve offered some ideas. Probably the best one that I saw in on the Facebook group was someone who suggested, I’m so sorry, I have my phones over there. And I can’t go find exactly who it was who suggested this, but some sort of a website or a group where you get to see the course name, a little bit about the course. But you don’t get to see the reviews or whatever. But you get to see who has attended that course. And the people who have attended they get permission that can you know, you can see that I’ve been on this course. And then you might say, oh, you know, well, I went to dental school with this person, like, you know, 15 years ago, I trust this person, they’re similar to me, let me message them and get their sort of advice on how it was and they can independently without the course organized knowing what they exchange give their okay know what it was good. I found this useful, but the support hasn’t been as good but is definitely better than the other course I did. Like they can give some real good advice, which when you ask on a big public forum, like on Facebook, you just gonna get flooded with positive feedback and the negative feedback will probably be private message.

[Pav]

Yeah. You know that I thought that was an excellent idea. And I do think that some of the there does need to be some sort of independent, you know, forum where people can find out more by courses because it is just too bad, towards nothing but positive reviews. And we’ve all been I mean, Jaz, you must have been on some courses that you thought God, this was bit shit. I mean, have you been on courses?

[Jaz]

Yes. It’s only because I critique the education very seriously. And I always think of it as, okay, the learning points. How can I apply this on Monday morning? That’s a mindset I come from so when I find that when I’ve been on some, you know, five figure courses, and I feel as though the support wasn’t there thereafter, or a regret, you know, you get like, Yeah, I know there’s buyer’s remorse when you’re buying material things but when it comes to to knowledge, I don’t think you can ever regret it. Because knowledge is knowledge, it’s always a good thing. But when the fact on Dhru’s point, if you don’t get to implement it, because of whatever reason, I either mentorship, the support wasn’t there, or the way that the course was delivered to you. In on this point in the way the course is delivered to you was it was teachable. And people always educated say, You know what, I designed this course to be teachable. That doesn’t mean anything to me, as a learner, I want the course to be learnable. It should be about learnability, not teachability. That’s why I’m coming from

[Pav]

Yeah, I think

[Dhru]

I think you’re spot on. Yeah,

[Pav]

I think you’re spot on. Dhru said earlier about communication. I think what you mean is almost people need to be taught how to teach course, people, anybody can throw on a course at the moment. I mean, I can throw in the course and be awful, but

[Jaz]

That would be brilliant. Maybe it’s nice red wine, and we love all the different rights you actually do. And I would definitely go to yours

[Pav]

Would be fantastic journey on my course. Now the catering would be amazing. It would begin us on top. But No, but seriously, but anybody gets through on the course it doesn’t mean they can bloody teach. Yeah. And then. And that’s a big issue. I mean, how many I mean, I don’t know if you’ve got any, your kids aren’t old enough, probably guys, but my kids have been through university, they’ve both been to Durham, and then. So good universities, what was their main complaint? Half the lecturers couldn’t teach. I’m sorry, half of them can’t teach. So they’re charging, sometimes 800-900 quid for a day course. But they can’t actually teach

[Jaz]

100% my wife is doing a master’s, I’m not going to say which one or where. And I get to sit in on some of these webinars that she goes to. And I’m like, this is death by PowerPoint. These are specialist teaching. This is death by PowerPoint. This is not acceptable. And I completely agree with you.

[Dhru]

I mean, we don’t agree with bullets, knocking people out. And people try and do this with bullet points. It just doesn’t work really I think we have to. But there’s something big here. And again, I take it step back, because we introduced a really strict QA form on Tubules. For every course now to approve it. Well, we’ve added for a couple, three years now. The QA form is 13 pages long. So anybody wants to run a course with us has to go through this QA form. And in that Niall, we actually, you know, ask questions like, does your course actually identify the learners need before they arrive on your course? We ask things like, does this course, you know, what’s the teaching experience of the educators? But also, what is the presentation experience? Or what is the experience of the educator in terms of having delivered this kind of teaching, the surprising the variability you get? And one of the biggest things is you say, if you can do dentistry, and you want to translate that knowledge doesn’t mean you can teach, you can share facts, but sharing your experience so that somebody can take that experience and you know, supercharge what they’ve done, that takes some serious skill.

[Pav]

Yeah, and there are some very good, don’t get me wrong, there are some very good educators out there, some very good teachers, but they tend to be the ones who’ve gone, maybe done more advanced degrees, they’re not just a simple BDS. They’ve gone through maybe a level of hospital or university, you know, the so they learned how to lecture through that. You know, there have been some courses, the education has been absolutely brilliant, the teaching has been absolutely brilliant. I’ve just been on far too many where you’re going. Yeah, you’re just flicking slides up, basically. And that’s all you’re doing. Yeah, it’s a bit

[Dhru]

And this speaks another bit. It’s about how you interact and engage the speaker. So do to answer your question Jaz about how can you make this really usable? I think, look, factor one has to be, you know, you can talk to somebody who you know, trust to give you the information.

[Jaz]

Because you mentioned something earlier on Facebook, which I think is really worth mentioning now, is that the only person who can really give you the best opinion is the guy who’s been on both Aspire and Tipton and Richard, you know, and Chris Orr, the guy who’s been on all three is in the best position, but that guy’s a unicorn, right? The only there’s only two people in the whole world that come close is Muhammad Sharjeel, if you know him, he’s been on every single course in the world and course connoisseur, Anya Sienska these two people if they said things good or bad, believe them, okay? Everyone else word depends. Have they have the experience? Have they tasted the other educators? Just bear that in mind, based on a point you just said

[Dhru]

Yeah, I think that’s that’s really important because nobody can compare it. And then people will say this the best course I’ve ever been on I go, compared to what? And this look, we’ve got to flip the game, I’m going to play this differently to say the flip the game in the sense that millions of courses out there, somebody turns up and goes, I want to go on a, I’m going to use an example. I’m going to go on a prep course. And you see the same, this course is excellent and the same name popping up. Now the first cynic in me says, Say names popping up in this thread. Is it being happened are a genuine will? Or is there a back end private group pushing this and that’s the cynic in me saying this. But but that’s because of course has been going what we have to do is that the learner themselves have to realize not just improving crown preps actually figure out what specific part of the preps they want to improve, and how are they going to learn best? What’s the best learning for them? Is it interactive workshops, group lectures, and find a course that fits that, right? That’s a level of intelligence you need because forget course reviews, you will always get good review when these factors connect in life. If my if you know what I want to learn from a course and what you want to learn from a course Jaz and what you learn to learn from a course Niall, it’s completely different. Our experiences our concept of

[Jaz]

But the really tangible here, I want to learn crown preps. Okay. I go on Facebook, I go on fourth with this bio dentist, I type in Crown prep course. Okay, and every thread I go on, it will have the same names over and over again, I’m still none the wiser, I don’t know who to choose. Alright? So help me.

[Dhru]

God. Of course, one, your question has to be a lot smarter. It has to be not just crown prep course, it has to be, I wouldn’t go on a course that improves these aspects. Because you’ve got to have, as a learner, you’ve got to have that much insight to know what you want to improve, and how you want to improve it. And two learn like this. Now you put those questions out there, and then say, Does this course actually give these specific details of the way I learn and what I want to learn? So that’s not just this course is excellent. How does this course deliver these things that helps you make a better informed decision. When we talked about informed consent for too long, but the informed decision becomes very important here, because that is powerful. The second thing I’ve also learned,

[Jaz]

From Niall, in terms of that point. Niall, any insight onto choosing that crown prep course as an example? Or

[Niall]

What’s interesting about that, though, the problem is, you’ve got you pick out a learner, who has got some insight to what’s wrong with them. But quite often, the learners don’t know what they don’t know. So what they’re doing is they’re going I want to get better at crowns. I really don’t know what I don’t know, it’s not the tough times until you go on the course, example I did, I’m driving home from during the Botox clinic. That’s why I’m sort of driving home. And I did Botox started during the 12 years ago, I went through the general course, I didn’t know anything about it. I then went back into the very specific course, because I worked out what I didn’t know. The problem is coming out of dental school when they’re young. They don’t know what they don’t know that dumb luck are old nowadays in dental school. So for them to at the very start, that they don’t know what they don’t know. So therefore, you know, it is still difficult for them to choose. And I think, you know, you put your second point there, Dhru what you’re going to say?

[Dhru]

No, I was only on that point, what you were gonna say I say one of the biggest things that learners need to do is develop that art. Now I will talk about the four P’s of growth. And one of those Ps is people. And what I say is you don’t know what you don’t know, because you interact with people on what course I should choose. Instead, maybe you should take a step back and interact with trusted people to put your stuff you’ve done out there and say, here’s a crown prep I have done, what do you think? Get objective, useful feedback from people who you trust and who you know can give it to you. The right people, the right process, the right way to give you the feedback to you for you to understand what you don’t know. And that’s, you know, I mean, I say it’s about study clubs. That’s where study clubs are reported or whatever

[Niall]

It should we have, instead of having, showcasing I know, this is sad, again, you go on to showcase, all the brilliant work that’s done, especially all the composites have been touched up with Photoshop afterwards. No that doesn’t happen. They know but seriously, should we really have a shit dentistry Facebook page, you know, this is a, you know, this is my cock up of the day, you know, experienced dentists going look at one wrong hair, you know, or Mike, you know, whatever. The problem is, people get put off you say, well, they should put out what they’ve done. I mean, Even I as I’m 35 years Dentist, even I am scared to put photos up of my crown preps or of my this or of my that, because I’m looking at some of the stuff on there and going God no Jesus Christ, I’ll just get ripped shreds over this, you know, then they, you know, it is scary to put that out there. Do we need to get some more comfortable environments where people can put them out there and it will be soft? Like the mathlete.

[Jaz]

That environment is not Instagram firstly, that’s not the right environment but let’s create that environment because I love what you said there. We should have a shit dentistry page where we can is no humblebrag so you just post your cock up and that will make everyone feel like you know what? We’re on the level playing we all make mistakes and I think we need to have that and it reminded me five days ago someone posted on one the dental groups, I don’t know if you must have seen this both of you, some IPR that was done that was on lower incisor and it went in pretty much went into lower incisor probably millimeter half, two millimeter shy of the pulp. Okay. And what I love about this dentist who posted this is that A) that takes balls to post that firstly B) they said look, I already, they said in the post, they said I already feel really bad about what I’ve done. So please, you know, just leave me alone like help me don’t, you know, don’t ridicule me, help me. And I just love that because it was so real like, you know what I cocked up, I admit it. I just want to fix this. What do I have to do? And even more than that I loved everyone’s replies, there was no animosity, there was no one like What the hell were you thinking? It was okay, don’t worry, get the aligner, fill it with composite, you know, let’s fix this and well done to posting and well done for sharing. And we need more of that.

[Dhru]

Well, we need more of that. And that was those brave of him to come out on him or her I saw the post on a public forum. But we really need and this is why I keep saying we need peer review groups. Trusted groups of small groups of people who really can talk to each other. Today, I feel shit, I can pick the phone up to somebody and say, Listen, I need help. That trusted group actually then understands you at a deeper enough level to recommend the right course to you. If that makes sense? Because they know not just where you cock up or where you’ve needed help. They know who the person you are. And in fact, there’s a good chance that perhaps a Jaz here, the whole group will end up on the same course because they share the same concerns and troubles. Now you’re getting more powerful delivery, of course is possibly

[Jaz]

Thanks. I’ll see you. Thank you for inviting me.

[Jaz]

The best thing that’s happened from this conversation guys, I really enjoy talking to you. I’ll go wrap up. It’s a school night with the best thing has happened. Now I love your suggestion. Let’s do it. Let’s make it, let’s all three be admins and whatnot. Let’s make a group. We can call it something other than Shit Dentistry, or Oops Dentistry or whatever, like some sort of a page where, you know what you post your cock ups, it’s cool. You can do it anonymously, you can do it as yourself. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just love and respect that we all make mistakes. And I thank you now for coming up idea.

[Jaz]

See you. Take care, my friend. Take care. Thanks for joining us, Druh. Thanks again. It’s a school night for me. I’m at work. We’re gonna call it a day. But Dhru, any final points my friend before we say good night, everyone, and everyone has a lovely weekend, hopefully. Any final points mate?

[Dhru]

I think we’ve looked at most of these things. But for the younger graduates, my main point is suppose one last thing to add here is I read and I use an example of a book. I’ve read this book. And if anyone’s name, it’s called The Long Game by Dorie Clark. And I read this book a year ago, and just straight after I’d read Simon cynics infinite thinking, the infinite game, interestingly, both of the books were brilliant last year, since then, I’ve fired through loads of books. And I went back to these two books. And by the way, when I read books, I’ve read the same book about three times before I move on. But I went to those two books last week and finished them. And the biggest thing that came out of me was, have I read these books before? It’s so it’s almost think about, I’ve been on a course. And then I’ve done other dentistry, and I’ve done everything. And then I’ve been on a course again, and suddenly thought really was this the same course I was on? And so the biggest thing is what you’ve done in between, and how you’ve applied a lot of that stuff and how you change your thinking, how your concept changed. Now, I think anything that you do, whichever course you choose, however you do reviews, end of the day, you the person, the biggest learning is the application of how you do it, and how you change concepts. So you’ve got to apply, think and reflect until you don’t do that yourself. No matter what number of reviews and websites and crap turns out there. That’s not going to change your growth. To me that’s the important part. Yeah.

[Jaz]

Well said Drew and that reminded me of sort of stories are real quick. One chap called Asif Saeed, very charismatic, bloke, good public speaker, runs his private little courses doesn’t really advertise so much. But I went on one of his evening lectures, and he told me about a story about how he reads the same book every year. The one book for the last, I don’t know 10-15 years he has been reading that same book every year. And every year he reads that same book. The book is always the same, He has changed every year. And when he gets that book and it’s almost just like you said, it’s almost as if he’s read a different book, and how can we apply that to what we’re talking that you have to think about where you are in your journey, what is going to get you, what is gonna propel you forward. And it might not be the same course as what your friend or your colleagues thinking of doing your, what your principals thinking and doing. So you will maybe gain from a course in a completely different way to someone else. So I guess I’m trying to say is, trust in the process doesn’t mean you give up courses, but maybe ask your colleagues what they found. Find someone similar to you, the similar learning needs to get the best idea I guess, and again, that’s where that idea of have some sort of a website or directory now just to give a plug to everyone. Chris Waith had a fantastic comment on the Facebook group, please read it. Malvina Chandu, has already got a I think a company name or a website name, which is called Which Dental, to help people figure this kind of thing out, there was also dental careers guide. So lots of people message me and even privately messaged me saying, You know what, I’ve a lot of people have had this thought before. It wasn’t just me rambling today, it wasn’t for a lot of people have had this thought before, that wouldn’t be nice to have a website where we can collect data that truly reflects the course provider. But not only that, because not about the course provider. It’s about navigating that confused dentist who still doesn’t know whether he should do Chris Orr, Richard Porter, or Tipton or whatever, okay? So I don’t know if that’s gonna help them navigate the right person towards where they need to be. And maybe it doesn’t even matter. I don’t know, in these big courses, I don’t know. But it is a shame and I had a message today based on yesterday’s episode from a dentist who spent five figures on a orthodontic related course I cannot say his name, because if I do, then people figure out which course he’s on and he was like, You know what, I really regret this because when they were talking about topic A there were no visuals. And I’m a very visual learner. This is a real thing. And they were really gutted about the learning experience, despite the hype on social media about this course. So how do we protect people from falling into a course

[Dhru]

Like I said earlier? What’s your need? How do you learn?

[Jaz]

That’s it

[Dhru]

Someone asked that question said, I’m a visual learner. How do I do this?

[Jaz]

That’s fine. But how do you suss out which course is better for visual learners? Which course is better for that? We don’t have that because when you go on Facebook, of course, we need objective feedback. That is repeatable and I guess calibrated. That’s what we need. This could be an absolute pipe dream. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. But hey, some reflections on a Friday night. Dhru, thanks so much. Niall, have a safe journey home, my friend. Thanks so much. Look forward to seeing you, Niall. I think next month or the month after we look forward to seeing soon.

[Naill]

Precision dental. Alright. Lovely. Thank you very much.

[Jaz]

Thank you guys. Good night,

[Dhru]

Have a great evening, guys. Safe journey.

Jaz’s Outro:

Protruserati, I’m Jaz Gulati. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I kind of said that now. Because I forgot to say my usual intro at the beginning. Super, super, super busy man. There’s a lot of lecturing I’m doing. I’m doing my first ever full day on occlusion. I mean, the amount of hard work I’ve done early mornings, late nights to put this all together tell stories to build in lots of cases and stuff. So I’m doing this with Mahmoud Abraham from KANA Dental Academy in Milton Keynes. So life has been quite a whirlwind at the moment. So I’m so sorry, if I haven’t replied to any Instagram messages, Facebook messages, emails and whatnot. It’s been super hectic, but it’s all fun and games. And it’s the kind of thing I love to do. So thanks for bearing with me, the episodes will be coming thick and fast once I finish this little educational interruption, if you’d like. And then we’ll get back to the more heavy clinical episodes, which I know you truly love. Thanks again for listening all the way to the end. And thank you also to all those guys who tuned into live and then reached out and said, Hey, I want to help you to set up this sort of which of dental education, this trustpilot of dental education. And I think the way I’m gonna leave it is, well I had to think about it and super difficult to actually set this up. And to make it truly fair to educators and also valuable for potential delegates. So I’m having a meeting with Niall face to face meeting, I think end of this month to have a chat about how we can truly make this work. But watch this space. And I’ll keep you guys posted. The app is coming soon. I just somehow need to find a spare five hours where I can just finalize everything and release the app for you guys to enjoy. So good things coming very soon. But just bear with me. Thanks so much, and I’ll catch you in the next one