From Hot Head to Healing Hands: A Dentist's Journey
A young hot head, who felt had achieved everything for success There’s something beautifully ironic about youth in dentistry. The more degrees we stack, the more unstoppable we feel — and yet, the world beyond the university walls is often nothing like we imagined. These days, when I talk to young dentists, I often feel a strange sense of familiarity — like looking at an old version of myself. Hot-headed (though we called it cool-headed), confident, intellectually fed from eight years of research and academic rigor. We thought we were ready to change the world. But the real world? That was a different beast. Starting my practice felt like the curtain had just lifted on the actual play. There were no professors to correct me, no mentors guiding my hands, no classmates to reassure me. Patients were few. Money was even fewer. The mind often wandered into dark corners. And since I had studied in a different region, I had almost no professional connections in my hometown. I still r...