How I Think About Training Doctors Without Making Them Dependent
One of the things I pay attention to in mentorship is whether a doctor is becoming more capable of making decisions without me.
Early on, it is normal for someone to want reassurance. They may want help with diagnosis, treatment planning, communication, leadership, or a case that feels outside their comfort zone. That support has value, especially when the stakes feel high and experience is still developing.
But mentorship should change over time. If every difficult situation still requires the mentor to step in and provide the answer, the doctor may be learning information without really building judgment.
I want the doctors I work with to become more thoughtful, more independent, and better able to explain why they chose a particular direction.
Teach the Reasoning Behind the Decision
It is much easier to tell someone what I would do than to help them understand how I arrived there.
When we review a case, I am interested in the sequence of thinking. What did they notice first? Which information carried the most weight? What did they overlook? What risks did they consider? What alternatives were available?
Those conversations take longer than simply giving an answer, but they are more useful.
If a doctor learns only how to handle one specific situation, the next variation can make them feel uncertain all over again. When they learn how to organize the information, recognize risk, and work through options, they have something they can use across many different cases.
I think the same principle applies outside the operatory. Leadership and ownership decisions also improve when someone learns to think through the situation instead of waiting for another person to tell them exactly what to do.
Support Should Change as the Doctor Grows
A younger doctor may need more structure in the beginning. Closer case review, clearer expectations, and frequent feedback can give them a safer place to develop.
As their experience grows, I expect more from them. I want them to present their own treatment plan before asking for mine. I want to hear what alternatives they considered, where they see risk, and what they would do differently if the same situation came up again.
That shift is important because confidence does not come from being protected from every difficult decision. It develops through making decisions, reviewing the outcome, and having enough support to understand what could be improved.
There is a balance here. Stepping in too quickly can interrupt that process. Pulling away too soon can leave someone feeling unsupported. Good mentorship requires paying attention to when a doctor needs more guidance and when they need more room.
Repetition Changes the Quality of the Questions
Dentistry is full of things that make sense the first time you hear them and still take years to use consistently.
A doctor may understand a treatment-planning principle but need many cases before recognizing when it applies. Leadership is similar. Knowing how to approach a difficult team conversation is different from having several of those conversations and beginning to notice what makes one productive and another ineffective.
That is why I value mentorship that lasts long enough for the questions to evolve.
At first, someone may ask, “What should I do?” Later, the question becomes, “Here is how I evaluated it. What am I missing?”
I pay attention to that change because it shows that the doctor is no longer borrowing someone else’s judgment. They are developing their own framework and using mentorship to refine it.
Over time, I think the best mentoring relationships become less about providing answers and more about creating a place where increasingly experienced doctors can test their thinking, challenge their assumptions, and keep raising their own standards.
