I graduated with an MSc in Oral Surgery from the University of Copenhagen in 1985 and worked 27 consecutive years in dentistry. Today I am an educational advisor, assisting young managers in finding an appropriate master’s degree program that matches their profile and career expectations and fulfill their professional aspirations. My journey from an oral surgeon to an educational advisor is a long learning journey with many stopovers, seizing and creating cascades of possibilities that advanced my personal life and stimulated my professional growth.
When I started treating my first patients, I encountered people on a daily basis who had neglected their teeth and therefore suffered from toothache. I used to ask them: “Why do you neglect your teeth like this?” The response was almost always the same: “Going to the dentist brings back bad childhood memories”, and therefore they postponed their dental visits as long as possible.
That was when I set my personal objective to be a dentist who would promote positive dental hygiene behavior in patients and thereby promote an increase in their quality of life. Preventive dental health care became my mission. Children were my primary target group. I developed an approach to demystify dental visits, to give my small patients a positive experience from their very first visit and create an atmosphere of mutual trust. Once the mutual trust is established everything else is much easier. Preventive dentistry is all about creating awareness, motivating, and helping people to shift behavior towards healthier actions. The positive impact I had on the quality of life of my patients was motivating, I was more a dentist-coach and cheerleader than a dentist! My approach certainly did not make me rich in monetary terms, but I definitely became a richer person!
These experiences motivated me more than ever to dig deeper into the impact of Preventive dentistry and so I decided to pursue a Doctorate in Oral Epidemiology. The Faculty of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Bern (Switzerland) accepted me. When I earned the doctorate, the City of Lausanne chose me among several candidates to manage their Department of School Dentistry with 28 dental professionals from nine different countries. They told me that my mission and passion for preventive dentistry was a perfect match for them! Notwithstanding, putting our mission of providing preventive dental health care to the school children in the background, I felt the urgent need to go back to school and learn management techniques that would help me be more effective! This is when I enrolled into the part-time MBA program at Webster University Geneva. During the two and a half years of study I was able to carry my newly learnt managerial skills to practice at work on a real-time basis. Combining dentistry and business management in this setup was extremely exciting and satisfying.
Unfortunately, a few years later I came to the realization that public decision-making was often subject to implicit political constraints and felt this was unfairly restricting my ability to passionately carry out the mission. The work was no longer satisfying. I resigned from the public dental office. Nevertheless, I felt confident. Well equipped with an MBA in my pocket and a ton of managerial and professional work experience, I ventured into self-employment. My own boss now, the first six years of private practice were extremely rewarding and satisfying. I could literally feel the dopamine pumping in my veins. My personal approach as a dentist-coach confirmed that it was the right recipe to enable my patients to shift their behavior towards better personal health care. It was obvious that I made a big difference to many patients who came from far and beyond. Then came my personal desire to go further, beyond dentistry, with my coaching model. I was convinced the dentist-coach model was transferable to other areas, but I also felt that to realize this dream I needed further learning.
I sold my dental office to pursue a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). With the DBA I aimed to become academically qualified, which allowed me to teach at any business school in the world. Teaching business and management to undergraduate and graduate students became a crucial step towards what I am doing today. It gave me an understanding of my students’ motivation and their career expectations.
Looking back at my career journey, I see a clear link from my previous activity as a dentist, coaching patients towards better personal dental hygiene and advising young managers on how to further their personal and professional development to create opportunities to advance their careers. Educational advisory, like preventive dentistry, is about creating personal awareness, motivating, and helping future leaders to make the right decisions. With a passion for continuous learning and enthusiasm for passing-on the knowledge I have acquired to others and seeing the impact of this, I believe myself to be an impactful coach for future leaders who seek to truly develop themselves.
https://www.41north.com.tr/programs/executive-mba/
My contact coordinates: eea.llp.uk@gmail.com