Have you ever happened to say:

“Everything that can be invented has been invented”

We have, we often say it. In fact, it’s a very topical sentence. It’s hard to figure out what could still be invented today or how we could improve the products we already have; technology has become incredibly developed in each sector and it has gone far beyond our necessities. It’s hard to identify further radical changes…maybe flying cars or teleportation!

The most shocking thing, though, is that this sentence is attributed to Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office…

IN 1899!!

Now think about how the world has changed in these last ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY years and you’ll figure out how limited our perspective is in each moment of history. We tend to consider the situation we’re living in as the definitive, right and unalterable one.

That’s why the model of private practice or lab that used to work so well in the 80s should still be effective today. And when we realize that, as a matter of fact, it isn’t so, we convince ourselves that our business is failing because of unfair competition by those who play dirty…

Well, my dear friend, let me tell you something:

THE WORLD DOES CHANGE !

Dirty players are certainly there, as they have always been in all fields, but it’s not their fault if patients RUN AWAY from the 80s practices, or if old-style labs lose clients and orders.

For now, change is happening and the old one-man business set in a flat (“So that at least this building’s tenants will come to me!!”) only manages to bring home very little bacon thanks to the very last remnants of tax evasion.

But when change will be completed, only those who have updated their practice, their lab or their professionalism at 2.0 STAGE will have survived.

And let me give you some even more “exciting” news…when you’ll have updated to that 2.0 stage, change towards the 3.0 one will already be in place! And so, on and on, forever.

As the oldies used to say, HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST.

Nowadays, Italian Universities do not prepare students on how to manage a “PRIVATE DENTAL PRACTICE FIRM”, and dentistry knowledge is too often transmitted only theoretically (academics would say “exclusively”???) .

Besides, the lecturers you can sometimes meet during conferences are indeed…LECTURERS, with a dramatically limited clinical activity and the same four academic cases which they present again and again. Those who speak about managing a private practice or lab, then, are not always able to show the profit of their own “firm”.