Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2022 - 52

Practice Management
Practice Management Diary
Your Practice Mission
A practice mission can help you make logical choices
about any proposed changes to your practice life,
policies, office design, orthodontic hardware, or staffing.
Some advocate using a one- or two-sentence
mission that describes your intent. I suggest this is
too limiting.
Dr. Gerald Nelson
San Francisco, CA
PCSO Bulletin Editor Emeritus
How to Develop Your Mission
The best ideas come from discussion that considers
many factors. Involve your team in this project.
My practice consisted of three partners and more
than a dozen team members. We developed a
mission by a group effort, a few hours one morning
with bakery goods, tea and coffee, and a large
white board. We discovered that a one-paragraph
mission simply could not describe the future that
we all wanted.
Consider This Plan
Appoint a facilitator from the team. Let the group
discuss the qualities that you value and want to be
known for, and make a list on the board of the values
you all can agree on. Assign groups of two people to
draft a statement that would cover the agreed-upon
values. You could put the drafted statements in a
document to circulate. From this, you may find that
the mission must contain more details than one
might have predicted. At least this is what we found.
Ultimately, we decided on a document with several
paragraphs with specific missions. My partners in this
practice were Dr. Michael Meyer and Dr. Paul Kasrovi.
Here is the result:
Kasrovi-Meyer-Nelson Practice Mission
Our pragmatic mission is to earn a decent income for
everyone involved in the practice by efficiently achieving
the most excellent result possible for each patient.
Our teaching mission is to educate our patient families
about dental care and prevention of dental disease
and to help them understand and value the benefits
of the orthodontic treatment they are receiving.
Our civic mission is to help selected people in the
community who cannot afford the work we do.
Our intellectual mission is to strive to gain knowledge
within and outside orthodontics so that we can create
superior methods of treatment and communication.
The mission for our soul is to connect personally with
the people in our lives.
The mission for our ego is to be known as providing
the best possible service to parents and patients, to
impress our referral sources with our skills, and to grow
in the esteem of our fellow workers and colleagues.
The mission for our sense of fairness is to avoid inferior
work, harmful gossip, and subjective judgments.
Our ethical mission is to tell the truth, to discuss all
treatment options, and to fulfill our responsibilities.
The mission for our self-esteem is to protect our own
health and appearance, to treasure our family members,
and to develop interests beyond our profession.
52
PCSO Bulletin Spring 2022
Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Spring 2022
