Episode #520: Shannon Pace Brinker, at ADA SmileCon

Your dental assistants do more than you think. They are capable, worthy, and keep your practice running. If you want them to stay, it’s time you empower them! One of the best ways is by investing in their education. Today, Kirk Behrendt brings back Shannon Pace-Brinker, founder of the Academy of Chairside Assisting, to talk about valuing your assistants, elevating them and their skill sets, and helping them grow with her upcoming course. Support your valuable dental assistants! To learn how, listen to Episode 520 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Shannon’s email: [email protected] 
• Shannon’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chairsideassisting
• Shannon’s social media: @chairsideassisting
• Academy of Chairside Assisting: https://chairsideassisting.com   
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Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Shannon’s course September 23-24, 2023: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/360534086157

Dental Hygiene Nation: https://www.dentalhygienenation.com

Teeth Obsessed Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TeethObsessed

Teeth Obsessed: https://teethobsessed.com

Main Takeaways:

Invest in your dental assistants. They are worthy.

Of 337,000 dental assistants, less than 28,000 are certified.

Elevate the certification so your assistants invest in themselves.

Give assistants the chance to see what they’re capable of achieving.

You and your assistants are a team. Help them grow so they can help you.

Quotes:

“I do love dental assistants. My heart has always been for them. I feel like they really work so hard, and they're so talented. Everybody has their own thing. And what they do in the practice really well, I think sometimes we don't know what that is, and we’ve got to find it. I also feel like dental assistants feel like they're unworthy. And it’s giving them the feeling that, ‘Listen, you are someone. You are great,’ no matter how you may feel, that someone thinks you are the lowest on the totem pole, or maybe you're not worthy of the status of some of the other people in the practice. We are worthy.” (2:16—2:54)

“It’s what you do with yourself, as far as the education. People say, ‘Well, I don't want to pay for my own education. The doctor should be paying for that.’ It’s like, no, no, no, no. You have to invest in you. This is how you're going to grow. But I think the problem right now is we don't have enough people bonding together to be there for that person.” (2:54—3:13)

“I think assistants don't really have anybody that says, ‘Hey, listen. Tell me about you. How can we make you better and help you be fulfilled? Because we don't want to lose assistants in this industry.’ And right now, it is a hard time. There are so many openings for assistants, and we need to keep these good people in that assistant’s chair. And I feel like right now, more than ever, they need hugs. They need love. They need affection. We need to say, ‘We love you,’ and keeping them there, and finding out what can we do to keep them in the office. It’s a sad time. We’ve got to lift them up.” (3:21—3:53)

“When I was going to dental school, and I went to Wake Forest to get my dental assisting degree, we basically were working with dentists at that time. Right now, in all these dental schools, no assistant is working with any dentists because they're all closed down. There's not a school where the doctor is working, and the doctor goes to school, and the assistant is with them at the same time. The only time they ever work with an assistant is when they're going to take their exams. And I think that's a problem because we weren't, from day one, working with an assistant to say, ‘We’re a team. We’re a team right now.’” (4:12—4:40)

“It’s never about money. It’s telling [dental assistants], ‘Hey, you are just as worthy as I am. I trust your opinion. I trust you.’ Yeah, they’ve got to be trained first. But letting them have a voice, and then when they're trained to do these things, I mean, there's so much that assistants can do nowadays that we couldn't do before. Let them run with it. Don't still keep control.” (4:46—5:05)

“Our dream is that [dental assistants] can do expanded functions. But let's talk about the worst part. The worst part is there are 337,000 dental assistants, and less than 28,000 are certified. So, the value of certification is gone. And I'm going to tell you why. Because the difference in the pay for an assistant who is certified versus one that's not, is pennies. Why would I continue to pay $300 every two years and keep my CDA if I basically can do the same thing I'm doing in a practice and not be certified, and the doctor does not elevate that as far as the salary goes? There's no difference in the salary, so they don't see it. So, right now, 337,000, and only less than 30,000 are certified. It’s sad.” (6:10—6:59)

“Everybody has a skill set. You have to find out what that is and then get them to feel like, ‘Wow, I am really good at this,’ and own it, and let go. Let them run with it. That's how you're going to keep them, is letting me bloom and blossom and, most importantly, do more by myself. Because, again, that's what we yearn for, is to feel like we are a part of that team. But most importantly, everybody always says, ‘Oh, hygiene is a producer. A dentist is a producer.’ I'm a producer too. And I think that this is the mindset that doctors have to have.” (8:24—8:54)

“I love my doctor because he lets me be Shannon, and he gives me the credit, and he says thank you, and I love you. And it’s not about the money. During COVID-19, I made $15 an hour. I can show you my paycheck. $15 an hour. It wasn't about the money. It was about doing something I really love. And when I can make $15 an hour — and that was the only job I had. It wasn't about the money. It’s never about the money. These team members want to be appreciated. We want that “thank you”. And we’ll stay with you forever.” (9:07—9:36)

“Over the last year, I've seen people not really seeing a value in whitening. And it’s cash! How dumb is that? I mean, they're like, ‘Oh, whitening really doesn't make me any money.’ $249 for an hour’s worth of whitening is good money. It’s more than some associates make. And so, this is where we’ve got to change the mindset. People want it, so they're going to [go to] you, or they're going to [go] to someone else and get it.” (10:19—10:39)

“What I always want people to understand is, it’s not about the whitening. It’s what comes from it. And more treatment will come when you're doing that and you're making people happy about their smiles.” (10:50—10:59)

“The assistant and the hygienist have a wall. It is this persona of, assistants feel like they're the lowest on the totem pole, and hygienists sometimes, people think the persona of a hygienist is that they think they're better than us, or they're paid three times as much as we are. And it’s true. But they’ve gone to school longer, as most of us. And so, I know why. But the thing is, we always feel like we’re not . . . And what Amber [Auger] and I hoped to do was to change that. We said, ‘We have to do something.’ The practice is not running if everybody isn't on the same page. It doesn't matter what role you have.” (16:25—17:03)

“The problem in dentistry is we don't laugh enough.” (27:04—27:05)

“Sometimes, the doctor doesn't even know the capabilities their assistant really had. That's what's crazy, is at the end of the day, they didn't know they could do those things [they did at the course] because they never gave them the chance to do it. And the beauty is, now that they’ve done it, doc, you don't have a choice. You've got to turn it over because they just showed you that they could do it.” (34:22—34:35)

“Assistants want and yearn to feel needed. They yearn to get to that next level. One thing I always say is, when you invest in me, I'm going to always remember that. I will forever be grateful. And if you want me to stay with you for 30 years, let's be partners in this and let me grow. I can't keep doing the same dang gone thing I've always done. And I think that this is where we have to. And sometimes, we’re better at it than the doctor — no offense.” (34:58—35:24)

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

2:03 Uplift your dental assistants.

3:55 What you need to know about the assisting position.

5:23 Expanded functions for dental assistants.

7:00 Develop and utilize your assistants’ skills.

9:39 About Shannon’s courses.

17:50 Giving back with her online shop, Teeth Obsessed.

31:48 What you'll learn at Shannon’s two-day course.

33:23 Go to Shannon’s course with your assistants.

37:07 How to get in touch with Shannon and sign up for her course.

Shannon Pace-Brinker, CDA Bio:

Shannon Pace-Brinker, CDA, is a national and international speaker and published author of over 300 articles for various publications. She has been a practicing dental assistant for over 25 years and works for Dr. Robert Korman in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Shannon has taught over 2,000 classes on dental assisting techniques and over 60,000 dental assistants over the last six years alone. She has taught at the Nash Institute, Dawson Academy, and Spear Education, instructing through both lectures and hands-on programs.

She has written over 300 articles regarding Clinical Application and has a current column in Dental Product Reports for the team evaluation of dental products and materials. She has her own publication for dental assistants with partnership of Schein Dental called "Side by Side". She has started one of the first online platforms designated for dental assistants called the Academy of Chairside Assisting.

Shannon is an active member of the AACD. She was the first auxiliary to sit on the AACD Board of Directors and was awarded the Rising Star Award. She has also been recognized as one of Dentistry Today’s Top 100 Clinicians for the last 10 years, Dental Products Report 25 most influential women in dentistry, the Lucy Hobbs Award, Sunstar Butler achievement award, and Dr. Bicuspid’s Dental Assistant Educator of the year.