The blog of Alun Rees, The Dental Business Coach
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
What’s a boy to believe?
Heads you win…
Gum Disease Not Found To Cause Heart Disease Or Stroke read more here
Tails you lose
Risk Of Blood-Vessel Constriction Linked To Gum Disease May Be Increased By Specific Protein read more here
And lose again..
Researchers Find Joint Failures Potentially Linked To Oral Bacteria read more here
And win again
Oral Cancer Detection Could Dramatically Increase With Saliva Test read more here
“Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions; it’s walled and roofed with them.
Yes, and furnished too.“
Recent research supports the conclusions of a controversial environmental study released 40 years ago: The world is on track for disaster. So says Australian physicist Graham Turner, who revisited perhaps the most ground breaking academic work of the 1970s,The Limits to Growth.
Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030.
However, the study also noted that unlimited economic growth was possible, if governments forged policies and invested in technologies to regulate the expansion of humanity’s ecological footprint. Prominent economists disagreed with the report’s methodology and conclusions. Yale’s Henry Wallich opposed active intervention, declaring that limiting economic growth too soon would be “consigning billions to permanent poverty.”
Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. “There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” he says. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”
Original story in Smithonian.com here.
From Seth Godin – who is correct as usual.
The end of the diva paradox
Great surgeons don’t need to be respectful or have a talented, kind or alert front desk staff. They’re great at the surgery part, and you’re not here for the service, you’re here to get well (if you believe that the surgery part is what matters). In fact, gruffness might be a clue to their skill for some.
Great opera singers don’t have to be reasonable or kind. They sing like no one else, that’s why you hired them, and why they get to (are expected to) act like divas. Get over it.
So the thinking goes.
The traditional scarcity model implied some sort of inverse relationship between service and quality. Not for service businesses like hotels, of course, but for the other stuff. If someone was truly gifted, of course they didn’t have the time or focus to also be kind or reasonable or good at understanding your needs. A diva was great partly because, we decided, she was a jerk.
I think that’s changing, possibly forever, for a bunch of reasons:
“The difference [between a good coach and an average coach] is knowing what you want, and knowing what the end is supposed to look like.
If a coach doesn’t know what the end is supposed to look like, he won’t know it when he sees it.”
“Which of us is not saying to himself — which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: “I shall alter that when I have a little more time”?
We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”
Arnold Bennett in How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
‘Those people who can stand at the intersection of the humanities and science, the liberal arts and technology, that intersection, are the people who can change the world’.”
Edwin Land to SteveJobs
As told to Walter Isaacson in his authorized Biography, Steve Jobs
From Dentistry online
How the silver haired, silver tongued Mr Lansley can effectively say “well that’s alright then” is beyond me. I have highlighted some of the figures that I find most disturbing. These findings are be unacceptable and the Secretary of State should say so.
Yet again is the use of “NHS” as a brand or badge.
Almost one in four NHS dentists has suffered from work-related stress in the last year, according to a new survey.
The annual NHS Staff Survey revealed 23% of respondents had endured the work-related illness.
In addition, 10% say they have been victims of discrimination and a further 13% endured harassment, bullying or abuse from patients in the past 12 months.
Five per cent of dentists had suffered physical violence from patients in the last year.
Working extra hours remains a problem with 87% working unpaid hours.
But it would appear most NHS dentists are happy in their jobs with 95% saying they believe they make a difference, and 89% valued by their colleagues.
However, they want to go further as just 73% are satisfied with the quality of work and patient care they deliver.
Work-related injuries were reported by 7% of the participants and 44% admitted to witnessing a potentially harmful error, near miss, or incident in the last month.
The staff poll questions workers in 38 key areas which also included work/life balance, work pressure felt, job satisfaction, support from management and training given.
Overall, the Department of Health said the results were the same or better in 25 out of 38 key measures compared with the previous year.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘This survey shows that NHS staff remain committed to providing the highest quality of care to their patients.
‘The number of staff happy with the standard of care remains stable, with some foundation trusts performing to a very high standard. Too many trusts continue to have less favourable levels of recommendation to family and friends. The NHS should use this as a basis for seeing improvement in the services we deliver for patients in the future.’
In total 250,000 NHS staff, including pharmacists, paramedics, and mental health workers, were sent a questionnaire and 134,967 responded.
The results are mainly used by NHS organisations to help them review and improve staff experience so that staff can provide better patient care.
Consultant doctors and dentists are grouped in the same category but does not include trainee dentists.
Author
Anika Bourley
Fits well with this from Jo Taylor
From Financial Tips! – Published every 4 weeks by Rutherford Wilkinson Ltd, written by Financial Planners Ray Prince and Graeme Urwin.
NHS Pension Changes 2015 – Proposed Final Agreement
On March 9th the Department of Health released a Proposed Final Agreement document for the NHS Pension Scheme following many months of debate.
Basically, it’s the governments final offer on what the NHS pension scheme will look like after 1 April 2015. The headline contents haven’t changed at all since the previous iteration of December 2011 (which the government referred to as the ‘Heads of Agreement’).
In a nutshell, we are still looking at a CARE (Career Average Revalued Earnings) scheme with an accrual rate of 1/54 of pensionable pay, the linking of the Normal Pension Age with the State Pension Age, and increases to employee contributions of 6% over the next three years.
Let’s take a look at the main proposals:
Some of the transitional protection includes:
Earnings 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15
£48,983 to £69,931 6.5% 8.9 11.3 12.5
£69,932 to £110,273 7.5% 9.9 12.3 13.5
Over £110,273 8.5% 10.9 13.3 14.5
The Financial Tips Bottom Line
From April 2015 the NHS pension scheme will be changing for all members. We’re certain the government will stick to their guns with the Proposed Final Agreement, but it will also be interesting to see whether doctors do vote for industrial action.
Action Point
The BMA in particular have been quite vociferous about the proposed changes. Starting on Monday 19 March they are running a series of roadshows where doctors can find out more details about the proposed changes and how they will be affected.
You can also see how much you stand to lose by visiting the modeller on the BMA’s website. BDA members can read their views here.
You can download the full Proposed Final Agreement document here.
The Incisal Edge 