Exploring the Overlap of Personal and Professional Lives in Dentistry

By Carrie Pallardy

Dentists lead full, busy professional lives. All of a dentist’s responsibilities add up to a lot of pressure. You have to manage your finances, both personal and professional. You have to regularly check in on your mental health and ensure you aren’t headed down the road to burnout. You have to set the tone for professional relationships in your practice. When you dedicate your days to patient care and practice management, it can be hard to leave your work chairside and in the office. The boundaries between the personal and the professional can quickly blur.

How much overlap is too much? The answer to that question will be highly individual. Some dentists will find creating balance easier than others. Personal and professional lives inevitably influence one another, and, occasionally, they collide. Developing appropriate boundaries to manage that overlap can help dentists ensure holistic financial, mental and relational health.

Business and Personal Finances

Many dentists begin their careers with a substantial amount of debt; dental school graduates carry an average of $312,700 in student debt as of 2024, according to the American Student Dental Association.(1)

That debt can weigh heavily on dentists’ financial decisions in their personal and professional lives. In life outside of work, you may consider taking out other loans, such as a car loan and a mortgage. In the professional world, dentists with ownership ambitions may be considering the right timing for a business loan to launch or buy a practice.

No perfect formula exists to determine the right time to take out a loan or multiple loans.

“Some people want to get married first. Some people don’t want to get married at all. Some people have kids, some don’t,” said Joe Persichetti, head of healthcare business banking at U.S. Bank. “There’s no cookie cutter answer to, ‘Here’s what your financials should look like.’”

Education is the first step for dentists who want to figure out how and when to apply for loans. What are lenders looking for when you apply for a business or a personal loan?

“The trouble that dentists can sometimes get into is not asking those questions and then finding issues at the closing table or during the approval process,” said Persichetti.

Lenders on both the business and personal fronts are going to look at a dentist’s full financial picture. For example, a mortgage lender is going to want to see cash flow from an owner’s practice. On the flip side, a business lender is going to examine how a dentist’s mortgage payments and other debt impact their cash flow and ability to make payments on a business loan.

Lenders, for the most part, are cash-flow based. They look at what Persichetti calls the “three Cs”:

• Credit. Do you have a high enough credit score to qualify for the loan? Typically, lenders are going to want to see a credit score above 500. But a score of 670 or higher will get you better interest rates and loan terms.(2)

  Lenders may evaluate both your personal and business credit scores depending on how long your business has been operating. However, if your business is still relatively new, such as your first dental practice, your personal credit score will likely carry the most weight in the decision.(2)

• Cash. When it comes to cash, lenders are looking to see that you have the money and financial habits that assure them you can and will make payments. “There’s no magic number of, ‘This needs to be in your checking account,’” explained Persichetti. “The biggest question is: Do the monthly payments make sense for your overall cash flow?”

• Collateral. If you are purchasing a practice or a piece of equipment, those assets will serve as collateral. On the personal side, your home serves as collateral for your mortgage.

Clayton Sorrells, DDS, owner of Glenwood Family Dentistry in Glenwood, Arkansas, and AGD Impact New Dentists columnist, bought a practice in his hometown in a deal financed by the original owner. While this kind of deal is rarer nowadays due to the number of group practices and dental services organizations growing each year, it does highlight the importance of building relationships.

Even if you don’t have direct connections with dentists looking to sell their practices, you can form valuable relationships with bankers. “If you can forge a relationship with a local bank or just anyone in banking, you can see what they are going to need from you when you go out and apply for that loan,” said Sorrells.

The relationship with a bank can span a dentist’s entire career. Building that rapport and track record with a lender can make it easier to get financing in the future, whether you need to buy more equipment or another practice.

Loans are a big part of managing your finances, but they are not the only piece of the puzzle. Practice owners have to contend with paying their employees and themselves, as well as personal and business taxes.

Of course, how your practice performs directly impacts how much you earn and how you can spend in your personal life, but it is important to develop boundaries.

Patients drive income for a practice. But the ultimate goal should be to help them, not to build the most lucrative treatment plans possible.

Dentists do not have to manage their finances — business or personal — alone. They can build a team of financial experts who have established track records in dentistry. A certified public accountant (CPA) with other dental clients will know what kind of tax write-offs to leverage. A lender with healthcare experience will be able to walk you through the process of taking out a loan to buy a practice.

While separation of personal and business accounts is wise, dentists may find advantages in having experts who understand both aspects of their finances. “Having a CPA or a wealth adviser understand both your personal and business needs and what you’re doing with both will give them a full picture of the strategy,” said Persichetti. “It’s hard to give you a great recommendation without knowing the whole picture.”

Sorrells, for example, uses the same accountant to manage his personal and business taxes. However dentists opt to manage their finances — alone or with outside experts — it behooves them to build a plan, stick to it and routinely evaluate it.

“Be willing to have difficult conversations with yourself,” said Persichetti. “If you want a nice vacation or you want to buy a

rental property now because you have a good deal, but you really don’t have any cash, you’re going to take out another loan that you weren’t planning on. All of it has consequences.”

While business and personal finances can benefit from some separation, they are ultimately intrinsically linked in a dentist’s life. Poor decisions on one side will affect the other.

“The leaks will eventually just run the ship dry,” Sorrells cautioned. “If you’re not seeing where the unnecessary spending is going, no matter what you’re producing, I believe there comes a time when you run out of money.”

Mental Health in and Out of the Office

Mental health is a core piece of our lives that affects us both professionally and personally. Stress and burnout are common in dentistry and are issues that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.(3) If you are feeling burnt out, there is no switch to flip that turns those feelings off when you go home for the day.

While there is more open discussion of mental health among dentists, the stigma has not been completely erased. It can still be difficult for dentists to admit to themselves — let alone other people — that they need help.

Mahrukh Khwaja, BDS, is a dentist practicing in the United Kingdom. She is also a positive psychologist with a master’s degree in applied positive psychology (MAPP). But she wasn’t prepared for her first personal encounter with burnout.

“I had this textbook understanding of what burnout or depression would look like, but I had no idea really of what the experience would be like,” she said. “I was constantly ruminating and chewing over unhelpful thoughts and thinking about the future, which felt like an anxious place. I didn’t really have the psychological tools to support myself.”

She worked with a psychotherapist to learn how to use day-today tools, like mindfulness, to make sense of her emotions and find a sense of meaning again.

For many dentists, burnout is an ongoing condition. “A lot of us think that once we experience burnout, we will be done. But my finding has been that burnout is cyclical,” said Maggie Augustyn, DDS, FAGD, owner of Happy Tooth in Elmhurst, Illinois, as well as AGD Impact’s Wellness columnist.

It takes ongoing vigilance to prevent burnout and recognize the signs of it taking hold. “Check in with yourself on a daily and weekly basis and ask, ‘How am I really feeling?’” recommended Sweta J. Shah, DDS, FAGD, a dentist practicing in Wisconsin.

Shah is an advocate of mindfulness and meditation as tools for building mental and emotional resilience.

“Managing stress and burnout is different for everybody. Everyone is on a very individual journey, but having some key practices in place that you can incorporate in your daily life — whether it’s starting your day with meditation or going for a walk, even if only for five minutes — that is something that you can take time for yourself to decompress on a daily basis,” she said.

Shah acknowledged that the prospect of taking up meditation can be daunting. Dentists frequently have busy minds and hands. Isn’t meditation one more thing to add to their plates?

But nearly anything can be meditative. It can fit into your existing day; habit-stacking allows you build mindfulness into your existing routine.

Shah offers brushing your teeth as an example. “When you’re brushing your teeth, really engage all of your senses,” she explained. “Listen to the sound of the water flowing. Count the strokes of your toothbrush. Really taste the toothpaste. Notice the color of the toothpaste to start the habit of mindfulness.”

A big part of preventing and managing burnout hinges on shifting your mindset. Dentists highly value productivity. The more cases you take, the more you make. But there is value in slowing down, too.

“There isn’t a direct financial return on rest, but rest is essential in balance,” Augustyn pointed out.

During the day, rest might mean taking time between patients or leaving the office for lunch. Outside of work, it might mean going for a walk without any devices, taking time to enjoy your hobbies or spending time with the people you care about.

Everyone has heard the term “work-life balance.” Khwaja prefers “harmony” over “balance.” “You’re not going to have it balanced perfectly,” she said.

Taking vacations is part of that balance, but they cannot be the only balm for burnout.

“Taking vacations does not prevent burnout. We need to leave toxic workplaces and take proactive steps to increase our mental fitness, from increasing our diet of positive emotions to inviting activities that increase engagement and ‘flow,’ promote connection to others, and add meaning,” said Khwaja.

Harmony between work and life outside of work will look different for every dentist at different points in their lives.

Professional and Personal Relationships

Managing relationships is a third major component of the personal and professional lives of dentists. As an associate in a practice, you have to consider how to work with your peers and supporting staff members. Are you treating your colleagues with respect? Do you want to develop relationships with any of them outside of work?

Associates can determine those boundaries for themselves, but once you shoulder the responsibility for practice ownership, relationship management becomes an essential part of your job.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you cannot spend time with people outside of work. In fact, after-work socialization can be beneficial to team bonding. But you have to think about how you are perceived as a leader and the potential consequences of mixing personal and professional relationships.

It is up to dentist owners to create the culture at their practices, and that part of the job can be tough.

Khwaja still practices one day a week clinically, but she also leads Mind Ninja, a company that she launched to provide programs and resources focused on workplace wellness in dentistry and healthcare.

“There are a lot of principal dentists and practice managers who have had little training in human resources (HR) matters, well-being and mental well-being — all key facets that help really build positive culture,” she said.

While maintaining appropriate boundaries between the professional and personal, some dentists have taken the wrong approach, in Augustyn’s experience. She has seen some owners set the expectation that people leave their personal issues in a metaphorical bucket outside the practice.

“You can’t unhinge yourself from your parent dying or from going through a divorce,” said Augustyn. “I have learned to change the way I am as a leader. It’s not just business. You can be a compassionate leader, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t hold people accountable.”

She strives to recognize that her staff members have good and bad days, just as she does. If someone on her team is having a bad day, the expectation is that they step away so they do not negatively impact patient care, and the rest of the team rallies around them.

Building that kind of culture — one that maintains professionalism while recognizing the human needs of employees — takes work. Dentists may need help to get there, whether through a dedicated HR leader or an outside consultant. But there is a business case to be made for doing that work.

“Happier, healthier teams equal increased profitability, increased staff retention, and reduced burnout, absenteeism and presenteeism,” said Khwaja. “The business case is solid.”

Carrie Pallardy is a freelance writer and editor based in Chicago. To comment on this article, email impact@agd.org.

References

1. “Dental Student Debt.” American Student Dental Association, asdanet.org/index/get-involved/advocate/issues-and-legislative-priorities/Dental-Student-Debt. Accessed 27 June 2025.

2. Ziraldo, Katie. “Business Loan Requirements: 8 Things You Need to Qualify.” LendingTree, 20 March 2025, lendingtree.com/business/requirements/.

3. Negucioiu, Marius, et al. “Prevalence and Management of Burnout Among Dental Professionals Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.” Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), vol. 12, no. 23, 2024, p. 2366.

Balancing Personal and Professional Lives When Working with Family

‘Til Death Do We Part, While Practicing Apart

By Gerard Scannell, DDS

My wife and I are both dentists, but we don’t work in the same practice, and, honestly, that’s probably for the best. Dentistry is a demanding profession, and maintaining some separation between our work lives has helped us keep our personal lives balanced.

That’s not to say we don’t talk shop. We do, fairly often. It’s common for one of us to bring up a challenging case or a difficult patient over dinner. But instead of letting that dominate our time, we’ve learned how to be intentional about when and how we have those conversations. In many ways, it’s comforting to have someone who truly understands the emotional and mental strain of the job. We speak the same professional language, so we don’t have to explain why something is bothering us. My wife just gets it.

One major benefit of working separately is the flexibility it gives us. Because we each have one additional associate in our practices, we can take time off together for vacations or family needs without shutting down either office. We’re not tied to the same schedule. We don’t have to force our staff to take off, and the office can continue to bring in profit while we’re off.

Another benefit is that we avoid the common pitfalls that can come from working together. If we were in the same office, disagreements would be inevitable. And when business and personal lives are too closely intertwined, those disagreements have a way of creeping into your home life. Having our own separate spaces means we can support each other professionally without adding extra pressure to our relationship.

Lastly, there have been a few occasions when one of us ran out of a supply that was not readily available to order. The other was able to lend a few items in a pinch until that supply could be delivered.

Ultimately, sharing the same profession while keeping our practices separate has been a huge asset. We understand the unique challenges each other faces. We can offer honest feedback and advice. And we both have the freedom to grow our careers independently. It’s a balancing act for sure, but it’s one that works for us. And in a profession that can be all-consuming, that balance is something we’re both very grateful for.

Gerard Scannell, DDS, is a general dentist practicing in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Balancing Personal and Professional Lives When Working with Family

Working with My Father: Boundaries, Balance and Lessons Learned

By Amrita Feiock, DDS, FPFA, FICD, FACD

Working with my father has been one of the most rewarding — and, at times, challenging — experiences of my professional life. Growing up, I spent countless hours in the office, watching how he treated patients, handled emergencies and ran the business. So, when I became a dentist myself, joining the family practice felt like a natural step. But, as I quickly learned, working with a parent comes with its own unique set of dynamics.

One of the most important things we’ve had to navigate is setting boundaries between our roles at work and our relationship outside of it. At the practice, we’ve made it a point to define our responsibilities clearly — who makes which decisions, how we divide clinical time and how we handle disagreements. That clarity helps us treat each other as colleagues during business hours, rather than falling into a parent-child dynamic that can cloud judgment or stall progress.

It’s also crucial to draw lines between our personal and professional lives. Do we talk about work at family gatherings? Sometimes. It’s hard not to, especially when something pressing comes up. But, over time, we’ve agreed on some boundaries — no discussing staffing issues during dinner, no business talk on holidays and certainly no debating treatment plans while out with extended family. It took a while to get there, but protecting family time has helped us maintain a healthier relationship outside the office.

So, is working with a parent a help or a hindrance? Honestly, it’s both. The trust we have is deep, and there’s a comfort in knowing we have each other’s backs. I’ve learned so much from watching how my father built our business from the ground up. But we’ve also had moments of tension, especially when we see things differently — whether it’s about technology, scheduling or how to manage a difficult staff issue. Those conversations can be harder because they’re so personal.

Still, I wouldn’t trade the experience. It’s incredibly special to carry on a family legacy and to share a purpose that spans generations. Working with him (and, hopefully soon, with my husband, too!) has taught me how to separate emotion from decision-making, how to communicate better, and, most of all, how to grow — both as a dentist and as a person. ♦

Amrita Feiock, DDS, FPFA, FICD, FACD, is in private practice with her father, endodontist Rohit Z. Patel, DDS, PC, in Westchester County, New York.