During my forty six years of practicing dentistry I had, like so many dentists, a few pet peeves. One in particular really bothered me. Whenever I met a new patient I would always ask about their previous dentist. What bothered me was when the patient didn’t remember their old dentist’s name. Right then I made it my goal to make sure that this new patient would remember my name—in a good way.
Names are important. We are not nameless, faceless robots that wander around all day. We all have our stories, and the way we differentiate ourselves, identify ourselves is with our names. Names give us our presence and our sense of importance. We remember people by their names.
Recently I took a hot Yoga class in Santa Fe New Mexico. The first thing the teacher did was introduce himself. Dave looked at my form and said he had a dentist growing up in Boston with the same last name as mine. That started a whole conversation about other Yoga teachers we both knew. My mind drifted to the time when I was a young child growing up in the Bronx. In those days doctors made house calls.
I still remembered Dr. Weltman who would come to our house. He was beloved by everyone in the neighborhood, and I still remember his name. I am not naive to suggest that we return to those times. Health care has changed. My pet peeve focuses on one change that we can do something about. We need to get to know our patients better, and they need to get to know us better – if we are going to stop the commodification of health care.
Business and marketing author Theodore Levitt once said, “There is no such thing as a commodity; everything can be differentiated.” And it starts with naming it. When we attach a name to someone we put that person in the context of their story. We begin to care more. It is the start of the trusting relationship. Things change when we put a name to every human.
Yes, call me old fashioned, but I do long for the old neighborhoods of the Bronx and Boston when everyone knew your name. We live in a world that is becoming way too impersonal. I was proud of the practice I grew. It was a close knit family of patients and we all knew each other – by name. I felt bad for those patients who didn’t remember the name of their last dentist. It told me much more about them and what they would expect from my practice.