Dr Ron Ehrlich was recently asked about the SHDC Patient experience:
“What should a patient expect when they come to the Sydney Holistic Dental Centre?”
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This is a relevant question for patients who have been in our care for many years, and for those about to join us.
In this video, Dr Ron shares the principles SHDC has been built on for over 20 years. This is our mission statement, and we all agree it is the most important foundation for our practice.
Our practise is patient-centred, treating every patient and team member with care, respect and support in a relaxed and comfortable environment.
This has so much in it… you might ask what is the alternative to a patient-centred practice? One alternative could be a symptom-based practice, where all the dentist does is deal with the immediate problem a patient presents with without exploring what may have caused it. Another alternative is a practitioner-centred practice, where the practitioner is the centre of the whole show.
Neither of these is what we see ourselves as being.
We are very much patient-centred, and because of the stressful nature of dental treatments, both for patients and for our dental team, it’s important we do this with care, respect and support in a relaxed and comfortable environment.
So, there’s a lot in that statement – it says a lot about how we approach this.
Another aspect of our mission statement is our aim is to provide optimal oral health care to enhance our patient’s general health. The connection between oral health and general health has driven our practise since it began in 1979, and it continues to drive our practice to this very day.
There are so many connections between your oral health and your general health, it is often surprising to patients and sometimes even surprises us. This is a very important aspect.
Our team will provide high-quality, state-of-the-art care and advice that are relevant to our patient’s needs. We pride ourselves on maintaining every aspect of our practice up to date, keeping our equipment up to date and constantly reviewing what we’re doing.
Most importantly, we make sure the treatment we deliver is relevant to our patient’s needs, not just because we want to do these kinds of treatments because our patients need a particular kind of treatment.
We keep our knowledge and skills current and we will impart these to our patients. All of us who are clinicians in our practice agree, the more we learn, the more we realise we have to learn. This is a continuous process for us or, even for those of us who have been in practice for over 40 years. We proudly share this with our patients.
This is one reason why we have so many of our patient information sheets available, which are customised from our own health practice. Whenever anyone joins our team, we are very keen to remind them there are three skills they need to bring to the practice in order for us to all work in a relaxed and comfortable environment.
All the team at SHDC focus on three important areas:
These principles have been with us for over 20 years. We are proud to share these with our existing patients, to whom we are very grateful and feel humbled to the fact they allow us to care for them, and also to any new patient who joins our practice.
We hope you found this informative. We always strive to do our best and we hope you agree.
We hope this finds you well.
