The Identity Piece Nobody Warns You About

Part II: The Grief, the Stigma, and the Different Kind of Dentist

Here is what I did not expect: how much of my self-worth was tied to being a full-time dentist.

When I first scaled back, I would meet people at gatherings and stumble through explaining what I did. ‘I am a dentist, but I also coach, but I still practice sometimes…’ Like I was apologizing for not fitting into a clean category.

I worried my dental colleagues would think I was not serious any more. That my family would be disappointed I was not fully using my degree. That I had somehow failed by not sticking with what I had trained so hard to do.

The Grief That Surprised Me

The grief surprised me too. Not constant, but it would surface at odd moments — seeing a complex case online and missing that problem-solving, hearing about a patient I had treated for years, realizing I would never accumulate the decades of experience I had once imagined.

But slowly, something else emerged — a different kind of identity. Not dentist or coach. Both. And neither fully defining me.

I am someone who understands dentistry deeply but is not consumed by it. Who can speak the language of margins and occlusion and posterior composites, but also the language of identity reconstruction and sustainable practice and what to do when your career stops making sense.

“That in-between space felt awkward at first. Now it feels like the whole point.”

The Imposter Syndrome Nobody Talks About

The imposter syndrome comes up constantly in the dentists I work with. Who am I to leave when others stick it out? What if I am just weak? Maybe I should be grateful and stop complaining.

I understand all of it. I felt all of it. Still do, sometimes. But here is what I have learned: your struggle does not make you weak. It makes you human. And sometimes the bravest thing is not pushing through — it is listening when something fundamental needs to change.

The Credibility Question

People occasionally question whether someone who does not practice full-time should be coaching dentists. I understand the skepticism — it would concern me too if someone who had been out of dentistry for twenty years was claiming to understand current practice realities.

But I was chairside three weeks ago. I know what supply costs look like now. I understand current patient expectations, technology pressures, insurance nightmares. I am living the same tensions around work-life balance that every dentist faces.

The difference is I have found a structure that works for me — and I am helping others find theirs, whatever that looks like for their life, their values, their circumstances.

What This Actually Looks Like

My year has a rhythm now. Two to three months of clinical work, usually in focused blocks. Then stretches where I am coaching, writing, building programs, exploring what nature-based transformation work might look like at scale.

The clinical months fund the coaching months while the business grows. They also keep me grounded. It is easy to theorize about burnout from a distance. It is harder to romanticize it when you have just had a full day of difficult appointments.

“Transformation is not about fixing people. It is about helping them remember who they were before dentistry taught them who they should be.”

What I Know Now

I am still a dentist — BDS, MSc in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, twenty-two years of experience that did not disappear when I changed my schedule. Those years live in my hands, my clinical judgment, my understanding of what patients need.

But I am also someone who coaches transformation. Who helps professionals navigate identity crises. Who sits with people in their fear and confusion and helps them find solid ground.

Both are true. Both matter. Neither diminishes the other.

The career-change stigma exists, of course. Some people do not understand. Some think I am wasting my training. But the dentists who reach out — exhausted, confused, wondering if anyone else feels this way — they do not see failure. They see someone who survived what they are going through. Someone who found a way forward that does not require choosing between their degree and their sanity.

That is worth more than anyone’s approval.

The Real Answer

So when people ask, ‘You are not practicing any more?’ — here is what I tell them now:

I practice when it serves me. The rest of the time, I help other dentists figure out what serving them might look like.

That is not leaving dentistry. That is making dentistry fit my life instead of the other way around.

If you are reading this and wondering whether there is a way forward that does not involve either suffering in silence or abandoning everything you have worked for — there is. It might not look like my path. But there are more options than the ones we have been taught to see. You just have to be willing to ask the questions we are not supposed to ask.