If you can’t explain it simply...

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. — Albert Einstein

I sat through a 45-minute treatment consultation recently. The dentist was sincere and honest but they bored the socks of me and the patient.

The case was simple. The patient was worried about gaps between their front teeth. They needed either orthodontics or veneers to fix the problem. It should have taken 1 minute to explain.

By the end of the 45 minutes the patient had no clue what was going on. They’d been given so many irrelevant details about treatment that it was all merging into an amorphous blur.

What the patient needed was: Orthodontics: pros, cons, cost. Veneers: pros, cons, cost. What they got was a dental text book.

Genius in explaining treatment to patients is not demonstrated by taking a long time, or giving lots of technical details, or trying to show how much you know, or showing how complicated things are.

Genius is giving short, concise, easily understood explanations in plain English. Just the essentials; the things that the patient needs to know. Nothing more.

Do you have concise, easily-understood explanations of crowns, root fillings, implants, veneers and orthodontics. If not it’s something you should think about.

Demonstrate your deep understanding by the simplicity of your explanations.