How to prove you’re good before you even start

Take a breath, relax your head, neck and shoulders, and smile before you enter the reception area. Radiate positivity. You’re a good hygienist. This is going to go well. Make good eye contact. Warmly and calmly call patient by their first name.

Your expression and affect, your “energy” is a convincing indicator of how good of an office this is, how good of a hygienist you are, and how good of a visit this will be. In the mind of the patient, a calm and pleasant demeanor convincingly communicates competence.

Patients only have so much to go on. They have to make some basic assumptions. The assumptions they make automatically, whether they want to or not, strongly influence the way they will experience their treatment today.

Let’s practice making some of those basic assumptions.

Imagine you’re a patient waiting in the waiting room. You see two hygienists walk up. One appears sullen and rushed. The other is smiling and seems focused only on greeting you. One will be treating you today.

Which one has been overwhelmed by their work? Which one is on top of it? Which one has been making people smile today? Which one has been frazzled by difficulties?

Now, considering this, which one do you hope will work on you?

To Patients, Your Apparent Mood or “Energy” Is a Preview of Your Ability to Function

That first impression, your initial presentation, is a great way to communicate a sense of your abilities. A calm air of professional poise is reassuring and authoritative. It tells the patient that you can handle everything with ease–that nothing stressful, dangerous, or upsetting happens on your watch.

You’re good at what you do. Why not get credit for it from each and every patient?

Patients don’t understand oral hygiene well enough to understand how good you are in clinical terms.

They need more obvious, human cues to make that judgement.

Think about the moment when you first see the patient:

A talented hygienist is about to take great care of this person. It’s what you do all day! Project that! It’s the only way they’ll know how good you are.

There’s no sense in underselling yourself. The best you’ll get from a patient who doesn’t expect much is a sense of relief that you weren’t as bad as you looked.

Don’t sell yourself short! Don’t make the patient sweat it! Smile! Be sincerely warm and pleasant! It’s easier!

It’s better!

If you have trouble feeling sincere with all of this

At this point, you’re probably seeing that small things matter, and that smiling and being personable are good things to do for reasons besides sharing the song you keep in your heart.

So getting comfortable smiling and projecting positivity is well worth the effort. It’s a clinical skill. It’s the invitation to connect, so it’s the prerequisite for comfortable care.

Some of us come from households or backgrounds where we are, for one reason or another, hesitant to smile and be friendly with people we don’t know personally.

How many times have you said or heard someone say, “clinical excellence speaks for itself,” or “That’s just not me,” or “It feels fake?”

If any part of that tendency still remains in you, if your best attempts at smiling, making eye contact, and making small talk are still being sabotaged by these conflicting feelings, take heart.

Set yourself free by understanding the professional purpose of mindfully positive verbal and nonverbal communication.

You’re not trying to convince people you’re cool. You’re not blurring the line between your social and professional self by being friendly.

You’re communicating effectively, making someone comfortable, and building credibility and trust.

When you focus on what happens when you can be sincerely compassionate, your skepticism evaporates.

Forget about “customer service.” Forget about “being nice.” Think about what these touches actually communicate. Think about what they make possible.

A patient can’t sense your command of the scaler. They don’t know how much you know, and telling them doesn’t help, either. But they can sense how capable you are of seeing them, guiding them, and protecting them.

It’s Instinct

We are animals. We predictably respond to cues in our environment, including the cues that come from other people.

When we see a person who seems uncomfortable, withholding, or unhappy, we automatically look for reasons why this is. We tense up, assuming that this other person knows something we don’t, and is reacting to an unseen unpleasantness we should prepare for. The sympathetic nervous system wakes up.

On the other hand, for the same reason, your warm and open nonverbal cues and your calm, pleasant confidence are contagious, and these positive feelings keep their nervous action down and directly reduce the amount of discomfort and pain the patient will feel.

If you communicate with positive and inviting verbal and nonverbal language, people will feel comfortable around you. They won’t if you don’t.

If you’ve been holding out on this, make a commitment to try all of what we’ve talked about here, keeping what it can accomplish in mind.

It’s worth it. You’ll take your performance to a whole new level and find a deeper satisfaction in your career.