Misadventures of a dentist

This is the account of the most exciting day of a disillusioned dentist and a juvenile in the managerial scenario and the feel good factor of the day is that I still crave for more .The eventful day started with the briefing of the task for the day to be performed with a partner(buddy for future reference) which happened to be earning our own bread and butter (which is also what I had as the most hurried breakfast ever) for the day with absolutely no financial resources at the first place as well as the last which means make your own dough but consume other’s bread.


CHRONOLOGY OF THE EVENTS

!0:15 AM Assemble at the gate and perform all the antics to hitch a hike.
10:20 AM Climb the back of a truck filled with gravel in an elegant sari using the nooks, corners and spaces between the driver’s cabin and the load carrier.
10:45 AM The truck drops us somewhere in the opposite direction which I realized after a very dramatic event of getting down from the truck.
10:50 AM I and my buddy Naresh managed a small load carrier.
11:05 AM We reach our destination Nal Stop and move on to the Karve Road
11:06 AM My Buddy and I are torn between the choice of a job in the hospitality industry(his domain) and a healthcare awareness programme particularly a dental awareness project me being the tooth puller.
11:15 AM We entered what looked like a glorified version of a “dhaba” and tried acquiring a job for the day. We excitedly narrated our expertise in keeping the tables clean, escorting the customers and the ability to pass expert comments which could push the sales through the roof over the day to the most important looking person in the establishment. Unfortunately our sincerity didn’t move him and he told us to come after the owner of the restaurant came back. We accepted the very justifiable excuse for not getting the job and unanimously decided to change our job profile and move on



Our new job

We made a shift to the healthcare industry and decided to be self employed.

Our new job was to conduct a unique door to door dental consultancy service with Naresh giving a suitable introduction and me carrying out the necessary service of checkup and consultation.

Target customers: shop owners on Karve Road

Our part included
Creating dental health awareness among the masses
Explaining their dental health status to the subject and the patients in layman’s language
Giving oral hygiene instructions
Prescribing over the counter drugs to the needful



Our marketing plan
Creating dental awareness

Raising funds with the help of this programme

Putting these funds back in the awareness programme


· We asked for a pay to be decided by the subjects or the patients according to the service provided
· We explained the process honestly to the subject
· At no point we lost patience due to unpleasantness on part of any subject




Our first subject, a very enterprising owner of a bakery and a mother of two children appreciated our effort wholeheartedly and invited us to provide the service at her residence to her family members and gave us a fee of Rs 50 and made our day.

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED

Hostile reactions by some people leaving us with bleeding egos though we continued the work with conviction.
Most of the subjects showed an initial interest in our campaign which wilted out as soon as we mentioned the fees which we clearly implied could be anything greater than nothing.
Most of the people looked at us with doubt & apprehension as soon we mentioned the word dental. The reason probably being venturing in an unknown territory like provision of healthcare service at doorstep

STATISTICS

VERY ENTHUSIASTIC POPULATION 15%
PEOPLE WHO REQUIRED SOME LEVEL 20%
OF PERSUASION
PEOPLE WHO REQUIRED 25%
HIGH LEVELS OF PERSUASION
PEOPLE WHO AVAILED THE SERVICE BUT 0.5%
REFUSED TO PAY
REFUSED ON GROUNDS OF A RECENT 0.5%
CHECKUP
REFUSED STERNLY WITHOUT PROVIDING 36%
ALID REASON



OUR LITTLE EXPERIMENT


We made a fake list of the customers previously attended to and we changed the fee paid by previous customers as 100/- based on the observation that most people wanted to know the fee paid by previous customers inspite of our mentioning it being optuional and noticed the levels of hostility raise dramatically.


EXPERIENCE GAINED


A good understanding of the body language and facial expressions
A chance to observe the effects made by small changes in the package of a service
Last but not the least gaining a bit more of clinical experience