Special List #8: How I Turned Mentorship Into Partnership with Dr. Krupa Patel

Dr. Souyias (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists. Welcome back. We're glad to be back on another episode of The Special List. To always, as always, with my co-hosts, Dr. Michael Seda.

Dr. Seda (00:18):
How are you, Jason?

Dr. Souyias (00:20):
Wonderful. Glad to have you. And Dr. Cameron Full.

Cameron Full (00:23):
Yes, sir.

Dr. Souyias (00:24):
And we are pleased to be hosting tonight, Dr. Krupa A Patel Sharma. She's a DMD MS and board certified periodontist and Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology. She's a University of Pennsylvania graduate with Advanced IV sedation and periodontal surgical training. She's able to blend precision surgery with a passion for lifelong learning. She was born in India, raised in Michigan, and she brings both cultures and plenty of creative energy to the Port Huron practice that we get to share together. Notable Achievement, she's a diplomat of the American Board. She won the Russell Bunting Research Award and she's the best associate I could ask for. She's awesome and I'm glad her.

Cameron Full (01:11):
Great introduction, great introduction. Bravo

Dr. Souyias (01:15):
Krupa give us a little Hello.

Dr. Patel (01:16):
Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. I just want to really start out by saying a big thank you and I'm very honored to be a part of it, and I think in my introduction, the most important bit was that last sentence. So yeah,

Dr. Souyias (01:32):
When I approached Krupa about being on the podcast with us, she kind of was like, well, what do I talk about it for? And then she came up with this idea and I was like, oh my God, I can't wait to share this with everybody. This is a fantastic idea. And what we wanted to talk about tonight or what me, what Krupa wanted to talk about tonight and I think is so important, is kind of the pearls of success that have led to successful Associateships becoming two partnerships. So Krupa and I have gotten to that point of our career where she's been my associate since 2019, but then now we're transitioning to what does partnership look like for us and very excited that she is going to be my partner coming up in about 2027.

(02:21):
So we're working on those details and trying to figure it out. The challenge, I guess, that when Krupa brought this subject up is that about 80%, and I could not find this specific for periodontal practices, but this was true from the American Dental Association. They said about 80% of associate ships lead not to partnership but splitting up. And so we kind of thought this would be a really cool topic tonight to be able to do both from the associate perspective and from the owner perspective of what has made these things. So lets, Krupa has, she is an amazing person who likes to prepare for things, and I love this part about it is when we asked her to come up with a list of five things, I got back two and a half pages of stuff to talk about tonight we're going to, it's not going to work. We're going to dive right into it and get going. And so Krupa made a list.

Cameron Full (03:22):
Let's go.

Dr. Souyias (03:22):
Why my associateship has been successful. So do you have anything to add before we dive into the list?

Dr. Patel (03:27):
Yeah, I want to say, why should we even talk about this? Why is this important? I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. So we start with the why. I hear from your peers and my peers, the number one thing is like, oh, why can't I find an associate like you and why can't I find an owner doctor to work for like you? And I'm like, what are we doing right that it is this difficult for everyone else to find that happy medium? So actually my list was even longer. I condensed it quite a bit. I took out all the things you shouldn't do, but I think the biggest,

Cameron Full (04:05):
We don't have six hours.

Dr. Patel (04:06):
Sorry. Okay, let's just dive right in. I mean, my first point on my list I would say is the most important one. And it's very obvious for some reason this gets missed quite a bit. You got to need an associate for it to work to begin with. I hear all the time, and this happened with my first job that I was hired on as an associate when I wasn't really needed, the practice had not grown enough to accommodate me. I walked in and it was an empty schedule every single day versus the true time to hire an associate is when you have an overflow of patients and you don't know what to do with them, you cannot handle them by yourself. And that's when, okay, you need another doctor to take on that patient load. And that's exactly what Jason did. And so the first day I started his practice, I had exams in my schedule.

(05:01):
The very next week I had a surgery and things just rolled very quickly from that point forward and everyone says, okay, well you got to go market. You got to get your own referrals. I did a lot of marketing, I did all of that. I was introduced to all the referring doctors from day one. I formed relationships, I started doing the marketing one-on-one from day one. But having that pool of patients that I've already seen gave me the confidence to go have those conversations with those referring doctors. And if I hadn't had that, then I would've gone in basically deer in headlights. So I think it's very important to kind of just give that little boost of confidence to somebody when they have patients, the schedule and they already can start building those relations, start making those phone calls to referring doctors and be like, okay, I saw your patient X, Y, Z, this is what I think we should do. What do you think? That really helped

Cameron Full (06:00):
Krupa In the middle of that though, it's one thing to have a patient demand. It's another thing to come in and want to seek that mentor mentee relationship.

Dr. Patel (06:13):
Yes.

Cameron Full (06:14):
So I think,

Dr. Patel (06:16):
Yeah,

Cameron Full (06:17):
She talked, no, but this is her style. That's one of the things you guys do so well. I've been in your practice more than a handful of times. And that right there Krupa the relationship you two have, which is an extension of Jason's with Mark Sutter. That's what a lot of practices miss on.

Dr. Patel (06:37):
Well, I mean I think also it goes back to personalities. There's going to be some individuals who graduate from school and they don't feel like they need a mentor, even though they might need one, they just don't know it yet. I am cut from the cloth that I want to be the best. My first conversation with Jason was like, I want to be better than you someday, so I need a good mentor. I needed that path. I'm like, if you give me that path, I will knock it out of the park. But I needed somebody to light that path and my previous employer didn't do that well.

Dr. Seda (07:11):
So Krupa, when you say mentorship, can you be more specific? What does that look like? What forms does mentorship take? I'd assume for different associates it would have a different approach, but for you, I guess, what did that mean?

Dr. Patel (07:28):
So I mean, I first came out of school, I was like, I just want to focus on the surgery right now. I want to get really good at that. I want to get really good at treatment planning. I want to get really good at my relationship. Building communication to patients. That was very important. And that eye opener didn't happen until I started practicing after graduation. When you start having those conversations and your case acceptance isn't great, you realize, okay, what do I need to do better? There's a missing link here. And to be honest with you, I didn't know what I didn't know at that time. And when I came and saw how he did things, then that's when it kind of crystallize, okay, I need him as a mentor. And unfortunately, it's like nobody graduates knowing that it's until you go and see. So I always encourage it's humility. It's humility. And I always encourage anybody who's graduating, like, Hey, before you actually graduate, go start spending time in private practice. So you get a feel of how do you want to work, where do you want to work and who you want to work with.

(08:31):
Because again, keeping the end in mind, keeping figuring out what you want your life to look like five, 10 years down the line. You start working on it right now, but you need a goal to work towards. And I think that young graduates, young doctors, they may not think that way. They're worried about X, Y, and Z, their loans and everything. But I am like, okay, well all of that is important, but you also need to figure out what you want your life to look like and then work backwards. To be honest with you, I got lucky and I saw Jason live the life that I wanted to live. I want to practice like that. And I was like, okay, this is the type of mentorship I need. And then I started communicating to him like, okay, I'm really good at this, this and this, but this is what I lack in. I'm not great with confidence whenever I come to you with a question. Most likely nine out of 10. I just need a little boost of confidence. If you can do that, I can do the rest. But not everybody is self-aware. So being self-aware is very important too.

Cameron Full (09:30):
I think that when you go back to this mentorship thing, I mean we could talk about this for the entire episode very easily, but I think Krupa part of that communication that you guys have, talk to us a little bit about some of that formality. You guys set aside time regularly both to talk about clinical and nonclinical. Talk a little bit about some of that structured engagement that you guys have, which really forms that mentorship mentee relationship.

Dr. Patel (09:59):
Yeah, yeah. I mean that's kind of like my second point. Communication early on was very, very important. We went to lunch every Wednesday for the first two years.

Dr. Souyias (10:09):
Once a month.

Dr. Patel (10:09):
We still go to lunch. This is very important for us to check in. And

Cameron Full (10:13):
How often?

Dr. Patel (10:15):
Probably at least once a month now.

Cameron Full (10:17):
Wow.

Dr. Patel (10:17):
Yeah. Once a month. Just sometimes we don't talk about work at all. Sometimes we just catch up on life. But those first two years, every Wednesday, it was a structured built in time for us to talk about, for him to check in to see how I was doing with my patients, referring docs and team members, and for me to have an opportunity to ask questions. And he was still available at other times too. That's one of the biggest things that was very important to our relationship is having that open communication. I always felt like I could go to him and ask anything. I mean, we shared an office, we still share an office. It was very easy. But that structured time was also to talk about any unique struggles I was having. And Jason would bring up something that if the team needed me to do something different but there were too shy to talk to me, he would be like, okay, this person feels this way.

(11:08):
This is what I think you should do, but you do it. I'm not going to solve this problem for you. And I love that because it gave me the opportunity to solve the problem with a team member if I was doing something that they didn't like or if there was something that I wasn't doing enough in my exams for the treatment coordinator to do their end of the work. It gave me an opportunity to bridge that gap and to resolve that issue and build some trust with the team members and set myself up as a leader and also any other struggles that I was having. It was always a good opportunity to discuss that. And I mean those two to three crucial years of communication just built that solid foundation for the future. I can confidently say that if Jason were to walk away from his practice right now, I would not lose any team members. That's number one. And I would not lose any team members and the number one. And the second thing is if whenever he's not in the office, he does not have to worry about anything. Anything that pops up is handled. He only gets contacted if it's something that is completely unique

Cameron Full (12:25):
Right there.

Dr. Souyias (12:26):
It's an amazing feeling of freedom to be able to walk away and not have to worry about that. I've been working on my schedule to be able to get out of the practice, be in the practice three days a week and out of the practice two days a week. And when you have someone like Krupa from day one, I needed Krupa to know she was second in command in the office at all times and she had to earn that respect from the team. And it takes a while to earn that respect. And she did a wonderful job of that over the years by taking on that role and taking the responsibility and solving problems when I wasn't there. And she's done a phenomenal job.

Cameron Full (13:12):
But that's because I think she was operating with a desire to be a partner early, number one. Number two, that is a testament, and I know this is the episode about your list, but I think that's a testament to sue you guys', leadership characteristics.

Dr. Patel (13:27):
Oh yeah.

Cameron Full (13:27):
He's acknowledging that he wants this relationship to be this way in a number of years, and so he paints that pathway and supports you, which in turn then drives this engine towards you getting to where you are today. So I think it's this incredible partnership that happens. Again, I think that starts with this mentor mentee function and dedicating the time. I mean, this is not one of those, skip skip to collect $200 situation on the monopoly table. This is an investment of energy, of resources, of time, which is obviously in the specialty practice, not a commodity. It's a scarce resource, especially when you're over your skis on patient loads. So Seda.

Dr. Seda (14:21):
So to crystallize this because I think it's a really important point, Krupa that you made, and that is for those people that envision themselves getting into practice as an associate and for practice owners and Jason's position looking to bring in an associate, one of the key things is aligning on how much mentorship you're going to do. Absolutely. And doing it and actually carving out the time and doing it. And where does that mentorship come? It comes with clinical procedures. How are we going to treat, what's your technique? What's your workflow? What instruments do you need? It could be how you address team conflict within the team, interpersonal conflict. So there's a social aspect of it. There's the expectation of how we're going to grow the practice, right? Are you expecting to come in, clock in, clock out, do some procedures and go home? Or do you understand that there might be an expectation that you have to meet other doctors? You have to have lunches, you've got to market the practice. Not having these conversations upfront and then not engaging about them, especially in the beginning stages of associateship sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

Dr. Patel (15:39):
Absolutely.

Dr. Seda (15:39):
Super important from the beginning, get aligned.

Dr. Patel (15:42):
You're absolutely right, Michael, that having those conversations early on is very important. And we did do a lot of that in the beginning. He was very clear about the expectations of what he needed from me. Like, okay, these are the three things we need to strive for Krupa, like maintain great relationships with our referring doctors. Number one, give our patients the most best experience that they can ask for. And our treatment planning should be calibrated. Nobody should be able to tell who was the surgeon. And I'm like, alright, cool. You outlined this. I will get it done. I'm very much like if I'm in line with our mutual goals, I will figure out a way to get it done. And thankfully we were.

Dr. Souyias (16:24):
And I want to be clear about this, Krupa is amazing, but I didn't just get lucky. We do this on purpose together. This is purposeful design of the practice. We don't just say, oh yeah, we want referrals to the practice. We mean it, we live it, we make it happen. It goes back. I want to go back a little bit to mutual need. I hate it. Krupa had a friend who was asking the two of us for advice after we've been working. Well, there's this practice that wants to hire me, but I got to go out and build my own book of referrals. They won't share their patients. I said, don't take the job. Why would you go into an associateship where you have to build your own book of referrals and you're not at least given a base, you have to be given that base. In my opinion, Krupa still works to build the relationships, get to know the referring doctors, but as the doctor who's bringing in the associate, you have to be willing to share those. If you're not willing to share those patients, don't bring in an associate. It's not ready yet. You don't need it.

Dr. Seda (17:29):
So one thing I want to ask here, I think this would be a prudent time to ask, and that is a lot of this is contingent on the number of patients coming through a practice. So I know Jason, I've modeled a lot of what I do based on what I've learned from him, and he's been a master at it. And I know you've stood on shoulders of Giants, setter and Stoner and whatnot, but Jason have a, can you talk about it really briefly? What is the impact of insurance on your practice? Are you guys enlisted with insurance or not? Because from my perspective, and I don't have an associate, but if I was an insurance based practice, people finding me on a list, I'd assume that the stream of patients would be probably more steady and heavy than one that's built on reputation marketing from a team, et cetera. And so perhaps that's also something associates looking to associate should be looking at joining different types of practices. So maybe Krupa, you and Jason can touch on that a little bit.

Dr. Souyias (18:38):
Sure, I can start there. I mean, I decided to become non-participatory with all insurances back in 2016. Excuse me. And Krupa joined the practice in 2019, and we average right around like 115, 120 referrals a month. And so referrals to the practice, and we convert about 85% of those to actually consults, right? We have a pretty good flow of patients that there's volume to be seen and shared and split in Cameron. It's probably a good time. What's the average number of new patients per periodontist from the referral lab data across the country?

Cameron Full (19:27):
You can answer this question, you know that.

Dr. Souyias (19:28):
I know, but you can answer this too.

Dr. Seda (19:29):
But Again, the key here I think the key here is these numbers because of referral lab for all the listeners out there, Jason very smoothly and confidently was able to state how many patients he's getting at the practice, what percentage of them are actually coming in. Not all patients that are referred actually come in. And there's an infant number of metrics that I know you look at to make decisions in the practice. That's an aside. But anyway, we'll plug for a Referral Lab.

Cameron Full (20:02):
So the 48 new patient average that referral lab states with perio is subjective to it's objective, but subjective ultimately to how many patients you want to see. What are you comfortable with? Jason and I have a friend who sees north of right around a hundred new patients per month by himself. And this dock is over, his ski was over his skis and has made some aggressive scheduling changes to not only create some space on his schedule, but bring on an associate. He said, Hey, this is what I want to see. This is how many I want to see. And so it creates that space for this example, like Krupa stating, stating that is having that self-awareness to know, okay, where's my sweet spot? Correct. And I know when Krupa was out for maternity leave, Souyias, he was able to see that patient load, but at the same time, because we know the scheduling strategies to allow for that to happen. So we pulled that lever and allowed for him to see that load. But what he quickly realized was, yeah, I don't want to do this. I don't want to that number. And so the beginning of the conversation is so prudent and something to actualize through the entirety of this conversation is having the self-awareness not only to bring on that body that can support you, but making sure that that body matches, that associateship matches your goals.

Dr. Patel (21:38):
The best thing he said when I came back from maternity leave was like, Krupa, this is a two doctor practice. Yeah, thank you for coming back.

Dr. Seda (21:46):
No more babies for you.

Dr. Patel (21:47):
This is a two doctor practice.

Dr. Souyias (21:48):
No more babies.

Dr. Seda (21:49):
No more babies for you.

Dr. Patel (21:53):
But speaking of referral lab, I want to also mention how instrumental it was in helping me learn case acceptance and what I can do better with patient communication. That is a great mentoring tool and a great teaching tool. And also when we saw me being gone from the office for 11 weeks and how that affected the schedule for this previous year, it gave a lot of insight of, okay, what does maternity leave? What does that do to my schedule? And if we were to do it again, what can we do differently?

Dr. Souyias (22:28):
Let's dig into that from any

Cameron Full (22:29):
Oh no, she has told you through the podcast Souyias.

Dr. Souyias (22:31):
No, no, no.

Cameron Full (22:36):
Is this, is this a reveal? Are we doing a reveal right now?

Dr. Souyias (22:41):
Oh no. Oh no.

Dr. Patel (22:44):
I'm just saying if for anybody who is another female doctor who's a paradox, it's good insight. That's all I got to say.

Dr. Souyias (22:51):
Well, but let's talk about, that's actually a really good thing to share with when you came back, it took a while to build your schedule back to the busyness that it was prior to leaving. And so for a long time you're like, oh my God. I mean, both of us we're like, oh my God, what's wrong? What are we doing? What's going on? And we'd go back and we'd look and we'd be like, okay, patient volume. It's the same before as it was after case. It's the same as it was before and after what happened. And I think people fail or miss the point that a doctor's schedule, especially in perio, is cumulative over time because we'll treatment plan these cases that need four or five steps in their surgery and they take eight to 12 months to get completed. And when we're not constantly adding to that schedule, it becomes this deficit. So you forget, okay, my schedule was not busy when I first started and then I built it back up over these years that I was working, and then I took 11 weeks off. And what did that, it tanked my schedule. So there were some things that we learned instead of me taking on that whole load. I mean, one of my biggest ones was like, all right, great, we're going to make a little bit of a backlog and back up some consults for you from the beginning.

(24:11):
Let you do those. And so that was an important take and to understand that we could calm ourselves down by having that data and being like, look, it's just the cumulative of a schedule. What's missing? Because case acceptance was there, patient volumes, all those things. We were like, check, check, check. And then we're like, well, then it's just got to be this volume load of not seeing patients for that timeframe.

Dr. Patel (24:39):
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm pretty sure Referral Lab has saved me a lot of stress over the years. Just my initial reflex is to freak out about things. But then we look at the numbers, I'm like, okay, all right. It's going to be okay. But yeah, and I mean it was very instrumental in teaching me where I could be better. So

Cameron Full (25:00):
Let's segue quick here. I think that what comes through, and I know that comes through the screen and the audio, is the authentic friendship that you guys have developed, the mutual respect that you guys have for each other. It shows, it's a testament to how the practice runs with the two of you. So why don't you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Patel (25:27):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm very blessed that I get to work with Jason every day. It would suck doing this by yourself, having somebody to talk about your day, your weekend, anything that's on your mind. And patience just commiserate and bounce ideas off about treatment planning. It just makes what we do so much more fun. And eventually our friendship started like that. However, it's now grown to where we also are friends outside of work. I'm really, really good friends with his wife. The good friendship, it's definitely important because there's trust and loyalty and respect in it, and we wouldn't be able to do what we do and be good partners if there wasn't that trust and loyalty. In all the years that we've worked together, he's always had my back. And in the beginning I made mistakes. Like any other associate. I wasn't aware that I was making a mistake on something, but he never made me feel bad about it. He said, we all make mistakes. It's how we bounce back from something that we mess up on. That's what matters more

Dr. Seda (26:33):
Bravo.

Dr. Patel (26:34):
And regardless of what he explained to me about what I did wrong, when we were alone together in front of everyone, he would always have my back. And that was very, very important. And that actually reminds me of something that was a very actually crystallized and allowed me to make the decision of coming to work from full-time. So a little bit of backstory, I was working closer to the city and it wasn't enough to fulfill my day. So I was looking for another job. And he initially was wanting to convince, wanting me to come work from part-time, but I was a little hesitant because it was an hour away from where I lived and I had never been to Port Huron. I come and I interview. It's more like Jason was wooing me to work more. He knew he was going to hire me. He was just convincing me. And I met the whole team. And then actually Michael, you were presenting for his study club. You were lecturing about gingival graft gigiva ninja. That's what I remember from that day.

Cameron Full (27:43):
Oh my God. Was that the title of your lecture?

Dr. Seda (27:44):
The title of the lecture.

Dr. Souyias (27:48):
Oh my God,

Dr. Patel (27:49):
That's so cute.

Cameron Full (27:51):
Gingiva ninja?

Dr. Seda (27:51):
It's my alter ego.

Cameron Full (27:54):
Oh my God.

Dr. Souyias (27:56):
Hashtag Let's claim that hashtag gingiva ninja.

Cameron Full (27:59):
Hey, producers, when you update this version, can you not put Michael Seda? Can you put please Gingiva Ninja. Okay, thank you.

Dr. Patel (28:07):
Gingiva ninja. So this gingiva ninja thing,

Dr. Seda (28:11):
Glad a made a lasting impact.

Dr. Souyias (28:15):
It gets beter just wait.

Dr. Seda (28:15):
Oh there's more. Oh, there's more.

Cameron Full (28:17):
Oh no.

Dr. Patel (28:18):
Then afterwards, the three of us, me, Jason, and Michael, we had dinner and we're getting to know each other. I'm like, what am I doing? It's 9:00 PM I want to go home. But we're having dinner and Jason's explaining to Michael, okay, I bought this other perio practice. We're going to merge. I'm hiring Krupa. This is my goal. This is what we're going to do and it's all going to be great. And Michael is like, well, what makes you think she's going to be able to do all this? And I was like, how dare this Mr. ay this? Oh my God, you don't even know me. You don't know me. How do you know that I can't do this? But then at the same time, I thought, I was like, I kind of want to know what he says. I want to know how am I going to do this?

(29:01):
I want to know what Jason's perspective. His answer was, well, surgical skills, if an associate is lacking that I can teach them that I can teach them so they can be good, but compassionate care and a good personality, so compassionate, gentle touch and a good personality that I can't teach. And those two things she has in abundance. So I know this is going to work. And in that moment I was like, yep, working for him, working for him. Because up until then, I didn't know that about myself. It was two qualities in me that I didn't know. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he's right. I love what I do. I'm very compassionate. I do have a gentle touch and I have a great personality. I can do this. And up until that point, I was super intimidated to go to this big practice and work as an associate, but at that point, onward, I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this. If I don't do this, I'm going to regret it. And that was a true inspirational moment for me. And our friendship started in that moment for me. Yeah.

Cameron Full (30:09):
However, I'm starting to realize why Souyias has invited coupon. It's just this affirmation, just this, Souyias has needed to feel better about himself. No, no, that's a great story.

Dr. Patel (30:26):
It is. It's

Cameron Full (30:27):
So affirming.

Dr. Patel (30:27):
It was really funny because I was really like, I never want to see Michael again. But obviously that's not the case, but was funny.

Dr. Seda (30:37):
Sorry Krupa.

Dr. Souyias (30:37):
Hey man, it was the best question you could have asked at the time because it sealed the deal for us. But it's a legitimate question. I was confident to give you that answer. I think it's really hard blindly picking an associate. You don't know some of these things right away. You have to pick up on these things. And it's really challenging because I wholeheartedly believe that today that surgical skills, if you've got a fundamental understanding, you can learn better. You can't teach personality, you can't teach gentleness, you can't teach kindness. You can't teach a good hearted person. Those are things they come with or they don't. There's a little bit more of that funny story. So I was maybe still am. I know the guy that she was working for, but

Cameron Full (31:24):
Not after this.

Dr. Souyias (31:26):
Yeah, not after this out. It's out there. We lost out, they say his name.

Dr. Patel (31:29):
They both were invited to my wedding, so I don't know if they crossed paths.

Cameron Full (31:32):
Sure as hell, wasn't going to be a Referral Lab user. Thanks.

Dr. Souyias (31:37):
And I promised him, I was like, I will not hire Krupa for more than two days a week. I promised him. And so Krupa worked for three months, two days a week. And then she's like, I want to come up here full time. And I'm like, I can't do it. I said, I promised your boss the other guy that you, I wouldn't take you. She looks right at me and goes, well, don't I have a say in the matter. And I was like, I guess. So that's when we're like, all right, we got to let him know.

Cameron Full (32:05):
He took you off the Christmas card list.

Dr. Souyias (32:07):
Yeah, he sure did. That's okay.

Cameron Full (32:09):
Before we move on, let's go back. Something I've been thinking about why group was telling that story was you mentioned through your friendship conversation, the communications around treatment planning together. What are some other things that you guys do together that calibrate that are in unison for your practice, and how do you manage that?

Dr. Patel (32:30):
Well, a great, great example is something just that happened recently. We've been trying to tweak our antibiotic regimen for different procedures, and it was brought to our attention that sometimes we make different recommendations. So our immediate reflex to that was like, okay, you and I have to talk about this at our next lunch, so then we can tell the team, this is what we're doing. We can't have two separate protocols. So everything that's related to our systems, we talk about whether that's him and I privately, if it's a doctor decision or if it's something that then we feel like we have to talk with the rest of the team, then that gets brought up in a team meeting. And if he's not there, I run the meetings. And if both of us are there, we both have equal contribution to the meetings. And my favorite is whenever he's running the meeting, when he says what we as the doctors should do, he still always is like, Hey, do you agree with me? And that I think is so important two ways, because that's respect to me as a doctor. And then that's respect to me as a leader and his partner too, even though I'm not partner on paper just yet. And that just shows that we are a unified front. The whole team is way more cohesive when him and I are on the same page.

Cameron Full (33:51):
But it's managing that through those lunches. So is that your primary time to align? Is these regular lunches?

Dr. Patel (34:01):
That, and we share an office and I'm the type of person where I have to talk about things immediately. So I usually am the one who pesters him and be like, yeah, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think I am? That's unique to my personality? But if we didn't have that, if we just have been busy, then we make the time to go to a lunch to then connect and basically touch base on anything we haven't chatted about in a while. So now it's not a weekly thing, but it's as needed, but ends up being at least once a month mostly to just make, because whatever we do now with the office is mostly on autopilot. It's now tweaking whatever we're already doing. It's gone to the point where if the team member comes to me, I can usually answer for him and he can usually answer for me, if it's the other person's patient, we've gotten that good.

Cameron Full (34:57):
But let's talk about one. It hasn't worked out that way. There's been one or two in the last few months, six months where there's been a misalignment, maybe, maybe not.

Dr. Patel (35:08):
Yeah.

Cameron Full (35:09):
How do you guys handle that?

Dr. Patel (35:12):
We talk about it

Cameron Full (35:13):
Do the lunches.

Dr. Patel (35:13):
Yeah, lunches. We talk about it right then and there. Or we be like, Hey, we got to go to lunch. We talk about it. Yeah,

Cameron Full (35:18):
Got it.

Dr. Patel (35:18):
Right then and there we mostly, it's like, okay, if it's something that we're totally off on, we just close the door, have our conversation, heart to heart, and then we move on with the day. Him and I have agreed that we don't want to let things fester if it's a personal disagreement or a disagreement related to the practice. We don't want to let things fester. That's something that him and I have agreed on and we are sticking by it, and that works for us. I think the whole part of communication is figuring out what works for the two individuals involved in the communication. Because not every personality will be the same, but communicating is important whatever way that may be.

Dr. Souyias (36:06):
The way I look at that too is what's harder? A difficult conversation or us ending our relationship, that's a no-brainer, right?

Cameron Full (36:16):
You know how I feel about that one?

Dr. Souyias (36:17):
I mean, that's a cue from you. I've learned that from you. Let's have the damn hard conversation and get past it and figure it out and put our adult pants on and actually talk about things like adults and be productive and move on. Because once we do that, we're always like, oh, that's great. Good solution both ways. And so I took that cue from you. You're the one who kind of taught me that better than anybody, Cam.

Dr. Patel (36:45):
And we've had such raw conversations to the point where the first trimester when I was pregnant, I was either angry with Jason or angry with my husband. For some reason I took it on those two individuals. I have no clue why. And I straight up told him, I was like, Hey, you're just not my favorite person these days. So just if I'm giving you attitude, this is the reason why. I'm sorry, but that's just how it's going to be for the next couple months. And he was like, okay, my wife is like that to me too. She was like that when she was pregnant as well, and we had to laugh about it. But it's better to do that than to, you have to basically give respect to the friendship.

Cameron Full (37:26):
I love that this is a functional part of when you looked at this pathway to successful associateship, Krupa, you were like had to align with their moral compass.

Dr. Seda (37:42):
There's an adage that says in marriage, if you marry the wrong person, you're going to spend 95% of the time trying to make things work. Whereas if it's someone that's closer, more aligned to who you are, that 95% of the time is just spend enjoying each other and getting along. I think this is a work marriage, right? Associateship. And so aligning on values, goals, et cetera, upfront and making sure of that just makes the rest of the time a lot more streamlined and conflict light, if you will. So I mean, I just sit here and I observe Krupa and Jason as two people, and I can just see how their personalities compliment each other. So well, I am not surprised in the least that their partnership together is just successful in partnerships. It works. And it doesn't mean it's without hiccups. I mean, anytime there's different people involved in the same project, there's going to be differences of opinion, approach, et cetera. But how you work through that and so proud of you guys, I mean, it's so mature. The communication, the respect for each other, patience, all of it. Great stuff, guys. Great stuff.

Cameron Full (39:03):
So I think though that Krupa, let's pretend that you're the hiring partner. Okay? Let's pretend that for a second given us this checklist of the perfect associateship pathway to success. But I think Souyias is patient to some degree in his desire to work with you. He waited, he aligned, but a lot of practices don't have that time. They've got the demand on the doctor's schedule. They've got more referrals than they know what to do with. They don't have scheduling techniques by which to, and so I think that they, sometimes, I shouldn't say rush, I don't think that's the right word you guys, but they don't give it the time that you guys gave it to make it this successful. And so let's assume that that's the case with you, Krupa, along these five things that we're talking about, what are the things that are the most important out of this list? I mean, because not everybody has this time to give to each other.

Dr. Patel (40:16):
I will say, I think everything else can be worked out. You don't really need to be friends. That's fine. We can be okay with that. Even if you have different goals and mindsets, you can figure out a way. We've seen examples of that with some of our peers where one person is a growth mindset, the other one isn't, and they figured out a way to make it work. But the thing that actually is most important to me personally is morals and ethics. I feel like if that piece of the puzzle, and that's point number five that I have on my list, if that is not aligned, you then will have this cancer that will bleed into everything else. And that's something that was very important to me because I was put in a lot of, I was in situations where I just didn't feel comfortable prior to working for Jason where my schedule was not empty and I was encouraged to do something that I wasn't necessarily comfortable with and I didn't.

(41:12):
And I regretted, I was like, I'm never doing that again. And not one day have I felt that way. In Jason's practice, we do not compromise. And if I were to hire somebody else, I would not compromise if the morals and ethics were not there. And that's my opinion, only because Jason and I, we don't agree on everything, but we do align moral and ethics because at the end of the day, we want to practice in a way where we give our best to the world. We do our best, we give our best. And even if it means that we lose money on a procedure or if we don't produce as much, okay, always do the right thing. That's our motto. And if we didn't align on that, then anything we do wouldn't be as amazing.

Cameron Full (42:06):
Did you know that early?

Dr. Patel (42:07):
That was actually something that I asked him during our getting to know each other face, love it, where I was like, Hey, this is very important to me. I'm Hindu. I believe in karma. I'm not super religious, but that is one of the few. I am a spiritual person. I believe in karma. I feel like you have to put your best out into the world. And my purpose on this planet is to be a parent on us. And I think Jason believes that too. Even though we both are not religious and we're not even politically in line, but we both feel that our purpose is to be the best para on us. And I love it. That is one of the biggest things where our passion bleeds into everything else and we figure out to make it work. Because of that starting point, I think that you have to follow that old adage of hire slow fire fast.

(43:00):
You want to take your time with hiring somebody because I'd never wanted to be the associate that just clocked in, clocked out. I have friends who are like that. I've known people who are like that. And it is like they don't want to put investment of motion or time into a practice until they are a partner. I disagree with that. If you are going to be investing in a practice in the future, if that's your end goal, why not start making that practice the way you want it to look alongside with all the help that you have right now? And then people worry about sweat equity and all of that. Dude, don't stop nickel and dimming each other. It's like you're not going to retire off of the hygiene checks you do. But at the same time, my advice to new docs is like, don't live outside your means at the beginning, then you're always constantly worried about production. You're constantly worried about your schedule being empty. Live small. If you don't have kids, if you're not married, live as small as you can. So then when you get five, six years down the line, when you have your

Cameron Full (43:59):
Five, six kids,

Dr. Patel (43:59):
Five, six kids, five, six years, whatever it may be, but you have that flexibility, just like business wasn't taught in dental school, money management was also not taught.

Dr. Souyias (44:12):
That's a great little transition. Almost out of time, I want you to spend a couple minutes telling us about your project, Dr. Perio Pearl.

Dr. Patel (44:20):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Whenever Jason's gone out of his way to mentor me to help me with anything, I always ask him, dude, what can I do for you? What can I do to have your back? And he always says, pass on the wisdom, pay it forward. Basically do this for somebody else. So I've mentored a couple of people already, help them get into dental school, help them figure out their path after residency, after dental school. But now I've decided to do it on a little bit more of an official scale. I've started a social media platform on Instagram called Dr. Perio Pearl, so Dr. Perio Pearl. And the whole purpose of this platform will be to have just information, a lot of free content on somebody who just needs a little advice if they're a fresh Gap graduate, trying to figure out what to do, how to basically present themselves in interviews in front of patients, how to basically be the doctor that they want to be.

(45:23):
And then at some point in the future, we will be offering either one-on-one coaching or in some form of a more formal instruction. So I haven't figured out those details just yet, but we're starting with a lot of just very easy content, free content that's going to be just very fun and very lighthearted. So that's what we're doing right now. And it is a lot for mostly female doctors because confidence is a big part of something that we all struggle with, especially women, especially me. And I would like to create a community where this can be an open discussion.

Cameron Full (46:09):
Yeah.

Dr. Seda (46:10):
Very cool.

Cameron Full (46:10):
Well, I think that I'm going to go ahead and unsolicited advice here. You should open yourself up to conversations around associateship. That's something that you've done so well, obviously through the conversation here, but communicating with her through those channels there. I think there's a lot to be said about how you can engage with associates and how they're looking or not looking at those relationships with their, and knowing what questions to ask when you're looking at joining your practice and knowing what to ask for. Some of these things that you guys have baked into your relationship are absolutely keys to your guys' success, and that's something that you could really, really lead with.

Dr. Patel (46:59):
Yeah, absolutely. I plan on doing that. Thank you for that feedback.

Dr. Souyias (47:03):
Well, thank you for being our guest tonight on The Special List. We've had a great time chatting with you.

Dr. Patel (47:09):
Thank you for having me.

Dr. Souyias (47:10):
Yeah, we really appreciate your time to be here with us.

Dr. Seda (47:13):
Thanks, Krupa.

Dr. Patel (47:13):
Yeah, well thank you for having me, me. It was always a fun time with you guys.

Cameron Full (47:16):
Cheers.

Dr. Patel (47:16):
Alright, have a good day.

Dr. Souyias (47:18):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists featuring a special list from a specialist. Got a question for us? Send us a message at speciallists.com with two Ls. Transform your referral workflow with Referral Lab, purpose-built platform for dental specialists to track, manage, and convert every referral. Request a demo at referrallab.io.