Episode #245: Dr. Mona Patel – Helping Dentists To Heal, Self-Discover, And Thrive

Dr. Eric Block.: Welcome to the Stress-Free Dentist Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Eric Block. As always, I want to inspire, entertain, and educate you on the best tools and technologies out there. My goal is to help make your practice and career more profitable, efficient, and, most importantly, more enjoyable. And check out all of my nonfiction and children’s books on Amazon, and check out the stressfreedentist.com   Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. And today I am joined by Dr. Mona Patel. How you doing today?

Dr. Mona Patel: I’m great. How are you doing, Eric?

Dr. Eric Block.: Uh, excellent. Thanks for joining the show and, um, uh, thanks for being an awesome part of the IADLC and your all that you’re doing. And, um, uh, I really want to get into how you’re helping, not just dentists, but, you know, all people. Um, but first I want to get into your story. Um, how did you even decide to become a dentist or go to dental school?

Dr. Mona Patel: Oh, gosh. Well, I wanted to be a dentist since the age of 13. So I came from a family of doctors and, you know, I was like, I don’t want to do medicine. Like my grandfather was a doctor, or my uncles, my father on both sides, you know, mother and father. And, um, I’m like, I don’t wanna be a doctor. I don’t wanna be on call because I was living in England at the time, grow up in England. So they have an on-call system. I’m like, oh, I don’t wanna get up at two o’clock and have to go to a patient’s house. Right? So I’m gonna do dentistry. And that’s how I decided to do dentistry. At the age of 13, I went to dental school there at 17, graduated as a dentist at 21, and had no clue about life. Literally would go in to see patients.

Dr. Mona Patel: Here I am, hi Mr. Brown, how are you? And not even be able to look at patients in the eye, you know, and, um, it was a big learning curve, right? So did that. Then I got married because in our Indian culture, it’s like as soon as you’re done college, you get married. And so I got married, and he happened to live in America. So at the age of 23, I moved to America and, uh, went to dental school again at University of Pennsylvania. Um, they have their past program for foreign dentists. Did that, taught there, graduated at 25, went into a practice and ended up buying that practice.

Dr. Eric Block.: Wow. So you said, um, you actually graduated from dental school at the age of 21. At, did you, was that in England? That was in England.

Dr. Mona Patel: Yeah, in England. Yeah. So back it was a BDS, so a bachelor of dental, uh, dentistry. Dental surgery.

Dr. Eric Block.: Yeah. I think when I got out of my residency I was 29, and I still felt young and not ready. But you were, you were 21, so that that is really young. Yeah. And, um, and then you moved to, uh, you got married, you moved to the us. Um, what was it like having to go back to dental school at Penn?

Dr. Mona Patel: You know, uh, a lot of foreign dentists in our class would, would actually be angry about it, but for me, it felt like when you reread a book, you get more out of it. And so redoing some of the clinical, um, aspects actually made me so much better at what I, what I did. So I actually didn’t mind it. And it was great because in that, um, I was able to step into teaching, and I didn’t realize that teaching was such a big love for me until they had me, uh, you know, chair the preclinical program. And that was amazing. You know, like it really got, gave me my first, uh, taste of teaching as well.

Dr. Eric Block.: Yeah, I, I, after dental school, did not feel ready to enter into private practice in the real world. I just didn’t feel clinically or mature, maturity wise. So I did a two year residency. Um, but I think even more valuable than that would’ve been if I’d actually gotten a taste of real world dentistry and then went back to school, ’cause you don’t know what you don’t know. But you actually got a taste of real world dentistry, and then you got to go back to school and kind of refine your skills and everything.

Dr. Mona Patel: Yeah, it was, uh, it was great because I practiced in England for a year and a half, and then going back into dentistry again as a student, um, speaking skills, interacting with patients, and then the logistics and the technical skills and all of those things just kind of seemed to gather momentum when I went back.

Dr. Eric Block.: Uh, what was it like to practice? I know you were very young and you weren’t there, you know, too, too long, but what was it like practicing dentistry in England?

Dr. Mona Patel: It was, um, so it’s all based on social services, right? It’s all nationalized. So the work was very bread and butter. There was a lot of, of supervised neglect, right? Because children in your practice were paid per capita, so not, not by the procedures that you had done. So if you had, um, a hundred children, right, you were paid 10 pounds a child to have them on your books. So if they needed any work, a lot of practices would avoid doing the work because they weren’t really paid by procedure. And so it was almost similar to when I learned about how American dentistry worked, was similar to insurance practices, you know, those volume practices, a lot of volume, a lot of bread and butter. Um, that’s how I equate it. Um, so yeah.

Dr. Eric Block.: And your type of dentistry, so you actually bought a practice at the age, did you say at the age of 25?

Dr. Mona Patel: Um, I bought the practice when I was 29. Okay, so I worked there for three years, and then I bought the practice.

Dr. Eric Block.: Okay. So you, you associated there and, um, you ended up, uh, did you buy someone out?

Dr. Mona Patel: I did. So I went into a two dentist practice. One of the dentists was ill, so I replaced that dentist. So here I was this really young, and I looked really young then, like I looked like a teenager, right? And then I was brown, then I was a woman. And I went into this really, uh, really American waspy J. Crew uniform practice, two male dentists, and, you know, everyone was like, what do we do with her? She’s so different. I mean, some of the comments were, it was interesting, like age, um, used to come up a lot. Um, you don’t sound like an Indian.

Dr. Mona Patel: Um, you don’t smell like an Indian. So that was really interesting. Um, and then being a woman too, when you’ve got, you know, these two male dentists who had, you know, co-owned this practice for many years. Um, and when I ended up buying the practice, here I am computerizing, you know, digitalizing records and all these things. And, um, it was, it was a shock for people. And the pressure for me was I have to be so much better because I’m a woman, I’m young, and I’m brown. And in that, um, I achieved an, it’s, uh, it was a beautiful, amazing practice. Boutique, not an, not contracted to insurance. It was sleep, it was full mouth rehabs. But the burnout was huge.

Dr. Eric Block.: And no, I mean, this is, I think, a great lesson to anyone that is buying a practice. And it’s not easy to replace, you know, the previous owner in any situation, mm-hmm. But with all the differences that you had to go through. Uh, and I too, I looked like I was 15 when I graduated, and I had major imposter syndrome and felt like, you know, who are these patients that were, you know, they were lawyers and doctors and engineers. Yeah. Why are they gonna listen to me? But, um, and the same thing with the staff. You know, why I looked so young, why are they gonna listen to me? Uh, how long do you think it took for you to kind of turn that around, where you were able to, you know, get more comfortable with yourself? And you, you kind of flipped things around?

Dr. Mona Patel: I would say a good five to seven years. You know? Um, it depended on so many factors, but number one was my personality, right? So it’s never, it’s never the outside or the external, but it was my internal architecture that led to a much lengthier feeling, comfortable because, you know, fear of failure, wanting to be perfect all the time, being scared to show vulnerability, having to feel like you have to know it all, controlling, that came out in controlling everything and not asking for help. And these are things that a lot of the younger dentists are gonna experience too, because it’s really scary to be in a place where you don’t know everything. And if you have characteristics where you have been conditioned as you grow up to know it, to people please, to appease, to soothe, to take responsibility for everything, to control your environment, to feel safe, you are going to have struggles when it comes to interacting with your patients, interacting with your team, and feeling safe enough to lead. So, yeah, it took me a while.

Dr. Eric Block.: I think it took me even longer. Uh, I mean, I, I still struggle with being a leader. Uh, it’s, it was, I wasn’t born with that gift. I had to work at it. And I think everything you just described probably sums up 99% of dentists out there. Yeah. Um, and the fact that, you know, maybe it took you a little bit longer than someone else, but you were able to do it. And I think that’s the important thing. And, um, you know, I, I really wish that earlier on in my career, I had taken, you know, less courses on, you know, that 18th generation of bone grafting or bonding and more on how to be a leader and getting comfortable with yourself, ’cause that’s, you know, that’s half the battle too. But, um, uh, so, you know, good for you for, for, for doing that.

Dr. Mona Patel: I absolutely agree with that, Eric, just because I think it’s whoever’s listening, and if it’s younger dentists, it’s great to know all, all the technical stuff and go and do like, let me learn how to do veneer cases and this and that and occlusion. But honestly, the courses that would impact you completely would be those courses where you can go deep dive within yourself and understand how you think and, um, present to the world and how to clean up your own energy to be able to feel safe in being seen for who you are, truly not a role that you’re playing.

Dr. Eric Block.: Yeah. I, I went through, and I still do, um, therapy and coaching, and that was one of the first things that I really had to work on, was just me getting comfortable with myself. Correct. Uh, and that was such a game changer. And I just, it, it took a while, but, uh, I stopped caring, you know what, not, you know, what people thought about me, and I stopped trying to be perfect to everyone. And I think perfectionism is a major thing that dentists deal with. Um, and the only, there is no such thing as the perfect dentist. You know, we’re all gonna have mistakes and failures, and you know how it is. We go through school, and if we don’t do well in our studies, we just study harder and we take that exam and we try to, we just push. But when you get into the real world, all of a sudden you have an upset patient or staff that is, uh, an uncomfortable conversation with staff, or you get a bad review, or a crown breaks, and all of a sudden we put this so much pressure on ourselves because we’re getting our first taste of failure and mistakes.

Dr. Mona Patel: Right. And, you know, we automatically think that we did something wrong, right? It’s somehow, it’s ingrained in, in this profession, if something breaks, why is it your responsibility? And you’re suddenly on the defensive. Like if you read on Dental Nachos and all the different things, it’s like, you know, it’s the same issue again and again, right? Because we accept responsibility for things that are not ours. And when we let go of that and we understand, um, I just had this talk with my daughter, who’s a third year dental student, and I said, you have to realize, like one of the most powerful things that I used to be able to say to patients was, I’m not responsible for your biology. If you get a cavity after three years and you are not brushing your teeth, that you’re not, you are drinking soda, you’re doing this X, y, z, I’m not responsible for your biology. And she was like, mom, I love that phrase. And she shared it with all her friends, and they’re using it now and feeling that as it should be. The health of a person, just as happiness, joy, vitality, all of those things, the person is responsible for themselves. And that gets missed in, in, in life, and it gets missed in dental school and in dentistry.

Dr. Eric Block.: I love that. And congrats on your, your daughter being in dental school. That is so cool. Um, thank you. I wanted to ask you just about your style of practice. You said this was not, you know, your typical insurance type practice or volume type practice, bread and butter style. It was more of a boutique, uh, sleep and airway, full reconstruction type of practice.

Dr. Mona Patel: Yeah. So I actually, you know, started off with bread and butter, of course, and then I noticed that there are certain patients that had a lot going on with their teeth, right? And you, you know that when you fix something, it, it was a patch. And I started to understand that I needed more knowledge. I was really happy with, um, being able to say, I don’t know how to fix that. So I went on a journey and I did all this. I signed up with Spear in 2012. I did all the Spear workshops, then I wanted to learn how to work with occlusion, and I loved Spear, but it was, so I had paralysis by analysis. And I found Clinical Mastery, which explain John Nasti, who explained occlusion in, in such a simple way that I was able to understand it, and I was able to then start to rehab these wear patients.

Dr. Mona Patel: And then I went through some health issues, right, from burnout or whatever, but it was linked to sleep disorders. And when I looked into it and understood a lot of the things that I was experiencing in my body and my mouth and all of those things were linked to sleep, I learned about sleep. And I actually ended up speaking, um, about sleep apnea in, in a lot of places, teaching courses on it. And so I, my, my practice changed from dentistry to sleep and dentistry. And, uh, you know, anyone who had a treatment plan would actually have a sleep test to see if the root of the issue was associated with sleep, so that when we rebuilt everything, we don’t put them in a night guard, we put them in the correct appliance for what they need. And, um, I just didn’t work with insurance.

Dr. Mona Patel: So we had, uh, you know, I had really great protocols for talking about fees and trained up my team and had a beautiful, high functioning team. And it was amazing. And I think I would’ve practiced longer if I had techniques that allowed me to detach from my practice, but I was so attached to it. And then it’s relationship based, and then having five maternity leaves after the other in my team and trying to, you know, like it’s hard enough to onboard one member, and then you start onboarding like so many, it was as if I had to start from scratch, and I was just tired. So I started to think about what my future would be, and the practice I sold after, after 29 years.

Dr. Eric Block.: And you, you, you nailed it, what you said, relationship based. You know, I personally went fully outta network two years ago, and it was the most reenergizing thing I’ve, I’ve ever done. And it is, it’s, you just build those awesome relationships with patients and they will stay, mm-hmm, exactly. Um, uh, so I, I, I love the fact that, um, you had this, you know, boutique style practice. You were able to make it work, you did it for, for many, many years, and, um, and then did you sell, uh, to a, a private dentist or to a DSO?

Dr. Mona Patel: I sold to a very small DSO. And the reason, it was really interesting because I had two private buyers who were ready to buy, um, at the price that I sold the DSO, but they wanted me to mentor them and teach them. And I realized that at that point I was so burnt out and tired that if I took on a private buyer, I’m going to be still coaching, teaching. And I was so tired myself, I wanted to be able to step away. So I sold it to a DSO, and, you know, universe was really looking after me. I, it was sold three months before COVID happened.

Dr. Eric Block.: So.

Dr. Mona Patel: Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Eric Block.: I mean, amazing timing. Um, and also I had heard so many stories that, you know, a, a fee for service practice can’t sell to DSO, but you’re proof that it actually can.

Dr. Mona Patel: It can. The owner, when they came in and saw the practice, wanted to buy it on the spot. They, it was like, the problem was the owner was so excited about having a, um, fee for service practice, like some, this amazing model, right, that was producing and netting X amount of dollars on 20 hours a week of clinical dentistry, and then trickling down to the, the line to the regional manager who didn’t understand it because they have all these cookie cutter insurance offices created a lot of discontent for myself and my team.

Dr. Eric Block.: Um, I just have to do a shameless plug here, but what you just mentioned about the five, uh, maternity leaves and having to retrain everyone, I just wrote a book called The Efficient Dental Practice. Amazing. And it’s all about standard operating procedures and getting everything documented so that you don’t have to fear onboarding a new staff member. Shame, shameless plug right there, but how to get that in.

Dr. Mona Patel: Well deserved.

Dr. Eric Block.: Yeah. But, um, so I want, now I wanna get into your post, um, uh, dental, um, practice career. You moved to, uh, and I’m so jealous ’cause we, you know, it’s freezing here in Massachusetts. You’re in West Palm Beach. Uh, tell me all about your, your post, um, dental practice career.

Dr. Mona Patel: Yeah, I didn’t think I was going to retire early, right? Um, but somehow it’s such a long story, so I can’t get into it, but I end up selling my practice. I end up getting out of my DSO contract and no penalties, and everything aligns, and we’re here in Florida. And at that point I knew that the universe is sending me messages. You know how everyone talks about seeing angel numbers, but there’s a, there’s also that nudge that you get, you know, to follow certain things, right? You have it, we all have it, that instinct. And I started to follow that instinct, and it took me into, um, energetic healing modalities. So I work with the energy body. And what does that mean? I mean, we all have our physical body that we can see, but our energy body, our toric field, is about 10 feet outside of us, right?

Dr. Mona Patel: That’s how we walk in a room and we can read a room really quickly, or how we walk into our, um, hygiene check and we know something’s up. Our energy body is already reading the situation before our physical body clocks it. Okay? So I started working with the energy body, learning how so many of our core reactions to things have been actually triggered early on in life, conditioning by environment, family, parenting, school, society, culture. But not just even that, it goes even further back to past lives and ancestral and generational epigenetics. So I started to work with that, and I started to learn how, um, how to track back certain core wounds. You know, a lot of these things are core wounds. Um, core wound of rejection, abandonment, uh, self-worth, all of those things, tracking it back and seeing how it actually affects our energy body, but actually where it lives in our energy centers of our body.

Dr. Mona Patel: So a lot of people now, especially with this, this global waking up of, uh, a different way of thinking in life, right? Um, we know what chakras are, or energy centers, right? We have seven in our body, and we have multiple up and down, above and below. And these energy centers are actually connected to, like, our central nervous system, our endocrine. And, uh, when we start to shut down in our physical body, it’s because there’s blockages in our meridians and our energy centers. And that’s where I come in, and I’m able to track and see and clear those, and also then go into what I call the Akashic records, which is all the wisdom libraries of all the lifetimes that that person has, um, lived, past, future, and the present, and pull out that programming and clear that programming. And I can do that because I trained with, um, the Andy and Shamans, the ro.

Dr. Mona Patel: And then as I started to go into this energetic modalities, um, I’ve just learned so much more. And as I cleared my own channel, where I came home to myself, what does that mean? And this is what I do for my clients as well, because we always learn by our own healing. What we do for ourselves in the energy world is what people are needing. It’s feeling safe in my body, like actually feeling safe. And once I landed from above, you know, in the, the thinking and the analyzing and the protective stories and the narratives, and was able to land home and feel safe, it’s really coming home to yourself. It’s starting to remember your own wisdom so that you can actually connect with your divine spark that lives in your heart space, that’s your higher self or your soul self, whatever you wanna call it, but your true self.

Dr. Mona Patel: And once you land there, you start to trust who you are and you trust your wisdom. And that’s what I help my clients to do. We are our own light, we are our own gurus. We don’t need other people to tell us how to do it. And once you find that wisdom inside, your life really changes because your, your thoughts change your, the way you think, you become gratitude. You don’t just pay lip service to it. And when you do that in your energy field, it actually manifests in your physical, sorry, that’s, that was a lot.

Dr. Eric Block.: Yeah, I, that’s, I mean, that’s amazing. I, I was just gonna ask you, uh, do your clients come to you when they’re burned out or they feel lost or maybe they’re doing well, but they’re just looking for, like, more of a spark? Like what, what is your typical client?

Dr. Mona Patel: You know, it’s all over, but, uh, what, what’s been really coming up, and it’s been a lot of, uh, dental people, a lot of dental speakers and coaches actually that come, but it’s almost like there is a feeling of like, there’s something more. I, I know that I have a purpose, and I, I just can’t, there’s something blocking me. And that’s when they’re really at the threshold. So my medicine, my ener, the way I, it’s very initiatory, it’s very activating. And, um, so a lot of my clients are like on this threshold of something big, but they, they, they have to address some of the blocks they have within them to be able to step into the roles that are, they’re being called to. Um, I also have a lot of dentists who in, who have practices and are just, they’re just burnt out. They’re just tired because they, they absorb, you know, we’re all empaths, and in the dental field you’re working in the mouth, the gateway to the soul.

Dr. Mona Patel: Like, a lot of things happen in the mouth. We have the teeth are associated with lineages and ancestors, but here we are taking on absorbing our patients’ fears and traumas, our team, where we also have our fears and traumas and all of that, and we’re just absorbing it. And a lot of dentists don’t know how to release that when they leave to go back home, and their team doesn’t. How many times does your team say, oh, the next day I’m like, I was up at night at two o’clock and I thought about this patient and I forgot to make a note, right? That’s not healthy. So it is, um, so one of the things I do is help the dentist and their teams manage their energy in the practice, right? So imagine you, like I remember those days, like you’ll get one patient come in and everyone’s just like happy to see them, right? That was for me, that was Betty. She was amazing. Like she would come in and like, you know, the rainbows came out, the sun was shining, everyone was really happy and smiling. But then you get someone like Al who walks in and everyone’s like, ugh. And Al is scared, but we don’t know that. And his fear comes out as anger. And so then the hygienist feels that anger and she’s upset, and she starts to pass it through the office, right? And next thing you know, everyone’s in a bad mood.

Dr. Mona Patel: So that’s managing your energy. What is yours and what is not yours? How do you filter that? That’s so important. They should teach that in dental school.

Dr. Eric Block.: And, and it’s amazing how something negative like that can infiltrate, you know, you or the office very quickly.

Dr. Mona Patel: Very quickly. You know, it’s like, it’s like when you, if you stood at the front door and you opened a jar of vinegar, that vinegar just like you, that smell goes everywhere, right? You smell it. Same with negative energy. Positive energy doesn’t do that, but negative energy, boom, boom, boom, everywhere. Yeah.

Dr. Eric Block.: So true. And you’re able to do all of this, um, uh, through Zoom, or is it, is it?

Dr. Mona Patel: Yeah. Yeah. I can do it in person, but actually I’ve been trained, uh, to do remote healing. So I’m able to, and here’s the woo-hoo, I can open sacred space and I can track through time and space, step out of reality and go in and start to work remotely on people’s energy fields.

Dr. Eric Block.: So cool. And all right. This is, this was amazing. Um, but I wanna, I wanna wrap up with two final questions. Uh, number one is how do we find out more about what you’re up to? And then the second question is, what advice would you give to the young dental professionals out there?

Dr. Mona Patel: Ah, I love that. Okay. How do you find me? You can find me on social media, right? Uh, Facebook is Dr. Mona Patel. Um, Instagram is healing light alchemy, but the easiest way, use my phone number two six seven four seven five 5,000. Um, I’m always happy to get on a call to see how I can help. And if you need help, you may not, you just might be curious. So that’s that. And what would I tell young dental students, um, or dentists? It’s what I tell my daughter. You have to learn to manage your energy. You have to learn to manage your energy and know what is yours and what isn’t. Um, the weight on a lot of young dentists is doing it right, being perfect, thinking they have to know everything and feeling responsible for everything and everyone, and you are not. And if you don’t learn to manage that and step away from your clinical hours and your patient, you are gonna carry that around and it’s gonna affect your health. So it’s managing your reactions to discomfort and to feel safe. When someone’s uncomfortable, you’re safe. They’re just voicing their discomfort. But if you are not feeling safe, it’s because they’re pulling you into a past trigger and you’re reacting from the past, not from the moment. I hope that makes sense.

Dr. Eric Block.: Absolutely. I love it. Great stuff. Dr. Mona Patel, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Mona Patel: Thank you. Thanks for having

Dr. Eric Block.: Me. Thanks again for listening to the Stress Free Dentist Podcast. And don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at info at the stressfreedentist.com. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe on your favorite platform and leave us a review. Until the next episode, I’m Dr. Eric Block, the Stress Free Dentist.