DT News - Nordic - Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part II: CAPS & CLIMB

Eleven tips for success in your dental clinic Part II: CAPS & CLIMB

Dr Anna Maria Yiannikos

Tue. 14 February 2017

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Today, I will share with you the knowledge I have gained within the past 25 years of managing and evolving my clinic so you can always be one step ahead and avoid mistakes I have made in the past. The third very important tip that I am going to share with you today in order to be and remain successful at your clinics is how to regain your power.

We learn a lot of things during our studies in the dental schools. We learn how to make the best fillings with great contours and biocompatible materials; how to treat a tooth that needs a root canal therapy, but do we really learn anything on how to find the best employee that will make our life and daily routine easier?

Firstly we should make a job analysis by listing the CAPS of the candidate. If we do not take the time to complete this process, we will not know from the beginning exactly what we are looking at and by this we will increase the risk of making the wrong choice.
If, for example, we go to the supermarket without our shopping list, what will we end up doing? We will most probably buy unnecessary things or even forget the things that we went in the beginning there for. My point here is that when we decide that we need to hire an employee we should know upfront what we are looking for, otherwise we might make mistakes that will cost us money and time!

Let’s have a look now what does CAPS stand for:
– Capacities: The mental and physical abilities required to do the job. How smart and how strong (physically capable) must the successful applicant be?
– Attitudes: such as customer service, orientation, team player, reliability, honesty, willingness to follow rules, problem-solving, loyalty, safety-consciousness, ability to follow through—Imagine having a receptionist who, although she is doing the job without a mistake, complains about everything all the time. Is that a person that you would love to have as part of your team?
– Personality: traits such as competitiveness, assertiveness, attention to detail and sociability—Also search whether the person will manage his or her personality to get the job done, since as social scientists declare about 60 per cent of our personality traits are inherited and most of them are set by age nine. In other words: personality can’t be taught and it doesn’t change much over time.
– Skills: Expertise required to do the job—Skills are the easiest job requirements to identify. We could do that by asking the candidate to perform certain tests. For example, if we are trying to find a receptionist we could ask her to translate an article, or through role playing to check how she responds in certain scenarios.

Have always in mind the quote ‘we hire them for the skills but we fire them for their attitudes’!

So finally we found our A-star employees and now what do we have to do in order to keep them?
The fourth very essential tip of today’s article that I would love to share with you is the different ways that we can use to retain our A-star employees.

Apply CLIMB to retain your team!

Now let’s explain a little what does exactly the acronym CLIMB stands for:
– Challenge: Studies have shown that the main reason that our employees resign is that they are dissatisfied with their tasks. That’s why we should give them challenging duties to accomplish. And what will the result be? They will feel useful and they will find it difficult to leave from a job that offers them different and unique experiences.
– Loyalty: Be human with your employees and do not be afraid that you will lose your power. Show interest in their problems and lay back in times that they cannot handle any more pressure.
– Investment: Invest time and money to them so they will feel appreciated. During my lectures I get regularly the question that we reward them by giving them bonus and still they are not motivated enough, what shall we do? My answer here is that you must renew your reward system regularly.

Sometimes you can give them cash (as bonuses) or maybe you can offer them other kind of incentives, like buying them a free trip for vacation on Christmas, for example. Research has proven that the more powerful and effective incentives are the ones that are specific, tangible and non-cash.

Also please remember to ‘Reward not the best in sales but the best’ A major mistake that we usually do is to only reward the ones that bring money to our clinics. Instead we should reward the best in our practices, the ones that are completing their tasks in excellence unconditionally to what this task is.
– Measurement: Conduct a fair performance appraisal every six months.
– Building: Demonstrate your commitment to them by showing them opportunities of career development.

During the next issue we will analyse two new tips that will reveal new opportunities and potential of our dental clinics. Till then, remember that not only are you the dentist in your clinic, but you are also the manager and the leader.

You can always send me your questions and request for more information and guidance at:
dba@yiannikosdental.com or via our Facebook account.

Looking forward to our next trip of business growth and educational development!

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A new study has shown that Norwegian dentists' approach to pulp therapy may be influenced as much by what is available in public clinics as by scientific research. (Image: andrey gonchar/Adobe Stock)

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TROMSØ, Norway: Despite evidence that hydraulic calcium silicate cements generally achieve better outcomes in vital pulp therapy, calcium hydroxide has remained widely used. The factors influencing this choice are incompletely understood. A new Norwegian survey study has explored how public sector dentists manage pulp exposure in asymptomatic permanent teeth, focusing on which treatments and materials they choose and why. The findings suggest a gap between clinical evidence and everyday practice.

The study, based on responses from 218 dentists in the public dental service, found that direct pulp capping was the most commonly preferred treatment for both carious and non-carious pulp exposure. Beyond direct pulp capping, treatment preferences diverged by exposure type: for non-carious exposure, dentists preferred pulpotomy over pulpectomy, whereas for carious exposure, they selected pulpectomy more often than pulpotomy.

When it comes to direct pulp capping materials, most of the dentists favoured chemically setting options. Around half of the respondents selected calcium hydroxide as their first choice, while about two-fifths preferred calcium silicate-based materials, despite evidence suggesting these offer better clinical outcomes. Dentists most often justified their material choice by stating that they were satisfied with the clinical results.

The key finding was that the availability of materials in clinics was the strongest factor influencing dentists’ choice. In contrast, years of experience and engagement with scientific literature had little to no predictive value when considered together with the other influencing factors. Although a higher proportion of less experienced dentists had recently read scientific literature on dental materials used for direct pulp capping, and those who had were somewhat more inclined towards calcium silicate-based cements, these influences did not outweigh availability in final decision-making. The authors suggested that cost may partly explain differences in material availability.

The study also examined respondents’ perceived long-term success of their treatment and material choice. Dentists estimated that cases treated with light-polymerising materials carried a slightly lower risk of later requiring root canal treatment, but this difference was not statistically significant. There were also no statistically significant differences in the self-assessed risk of root canal treatment when calcium silicate-based cements were compared with all other materials combined or with calcium hydroxide specifically.

Overall, the research concluded that the Norwegian dentists surveyed continue to rely heavily on calcium hydroxide, even though other materials may perform better. The dominant influence of material availability suggests that improving access to recommended options could help align clinical practice more closely with current evidence.

Set against current European Society of Endodontology guidance, which emphasises pulp preservation, asepsis and evidence-based material selection in vital pulp therapy, the Norwegian survey suggests that the distance between recommendation and routine care may depend as much on what is actually stocked in public clinics as on what clinicians know from the literature. The study thus adds a real-world perspective to the wider shift towards biologically based, pulp-preserving care reflected in Dental Tribune International’s recent coverage of practical guidance on pulp capping and therapeutic pulpotomy as a conservative alternative to root canal treatment.

The study, titled “Therapy and material choices in pulp exposure among public dentists in Norway”, was published online on 18 March 2026 in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica.