“I’ve been working on an exit plan for several years.  I’d always loved clinical practice, but I knew that I couldn’t do it forever.”  Linda M. Douglas, BSc, RDH

 

Highlights from the interview

• Why did you quit clinical hygiene?
• What are you doing now?
• What is your advice to hygienists wanting to leave the operatory?
• Why is it important to work for free?

 

Linda’s background

Mark:  Alright, Linda.  Let’s start with your dental background.  Can you give us an overview of what you’ve done over the years? 

Linda:  I initially trained in England where I was born and raised.  I studied dental hygiene at the Royal Dental Hospital in London and graduated in 1982.  And then moved to Canada in 1990.  I’ve worked in general practice, perio offices and also in public health, so I’ve had quite a bit of variety. 

Mark:  How long have you been doing clinical hygiene? 

Linda:  38 years. 

 

COVID shuts down dentistry

Mark:  Back in 2020 when the COVID thing hit, dentistry pretty much shut down.  In my state of Massachusetts, we were down for about 2 to 3 months.  What happened in your area of Canada when the pandemic arrived? 

Linda:  In mid-March on a Sunday night the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario sent out a directive stating that all dental offices had to close immediately.  We were literally told by our employer, “Tomorrow the office is going to be closed”.  I was quite relieved actually, because I’d been becoming increasingly concerned about the situation with the pandemic.  We were closed until June. 

During that time, I was teaching more classes at O’Hehir University.  I had been teaching there prior to that on a part-time basis for about a year.  We got really busy during the shutdowns, and that’s when I decided to not go back to clinical practice.

 

Why did Linda quit?

Mark:  Did you make that decision primarily because of COVID or were there other factors too?

Linda:  I’ve been working on an exit plan for several years.  I’d always loved clinical practice, but I knew that I couldn’t do it forever.  As you know, I’d been writing for several years and I completed my bachelor of science in oral health promotion with O’Hehir University.  And then in 2019, Trisha asked me if I’d like to be an instructor.  

So all of these things basically came together to enable me to quit clinical practice.  The time just seemed right.  The pandemic is obviously a tragic thing, but it gave me the gift of time to not be so busy.  I was able to think about what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life.  

Mark:  I had the same experience.  The sales for the product I designed, and have been selling for many years, suddenly spiked during the shutdown.  

At that point, I began thinking to myself, if I’m going to get out of clinical, now is the time to do it.  And that’s what I did.  The pandemic basically gave me the final push I needed.

Like you, I’ve been writing a lot of stuff over the years, but I wanted to get more into copywriting.  A style of writing that is designed to sell…basically marketing kind of stuff.  I dove into it in 2020 and now I’m actually getting paid to write, which is very nice! 

Before that, I wrote for 20+ years and I did it all for free.  But those experiences helped me build my skills that then translated into paid writing.

 

Linda’s current focus is teaching

Are you primarily doing the teaching now or are you also doing some writing?

Linda:  My writing projects right now are coming along quite slowly.  I have been concentrating more on the teaching.  The faculty at O’Hehir, including myself, are working on a textbook for the students, but we hope it will also be useful for all our colleagues as well.  The main focus of the textbook is health behavioral change.

Mark:  Nice. That sounds like a big project that may take awhile!

Linda:  Oh yes!  

 

Is making money from writing realistic?

Mark:  Hygienists who want to leave the clinical setting often worry about replacing their current pay.  Hygienists get paid relatively well, so making this change can be a real challenge financially for sure.

I’ve been able to replace my hygiene salary with my product and my copywriting, but it’s the writing part of my day that I really enjoy and want to grow.  A lot of people like the idea of writing, but it’s tough to earn money just from writing.  The reality is that a lot of writing is done for free.  

But from my experience so far, I would say that copywriting is probably the best way to actually get paid to write.  If you’re looking for a part-time income…maybe $500 to $1,000 per month…copywriting is a great option.  I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s definitely a reasonable expectation if you put in the effort.  

Linda:  When it comes to writing articles for dental publications, the main benefit I see is it improves your presence on social media.  It raises your profile.  If you’re inclined to do speaking, your writing will help you get invitations to speak.  So it’s a kind of indirect route to another income. 

Mark:  The writing I do for my product is a good example of that.  My blog posts, email marketing and website content drive sales.  So in this case, the money I earn from writing is indirect.   

I also write content for my personal dentist (monthly blog posts) and a dental marketing company (advertorials and emails).  In these cases, the money I earn is direct.  I get paid a flat fee for each piece of writing I produce.

 

Linda’s advice for hygienists

For hygienists who are thinking about getting out of clinical hygiene, what would you say to them?  

Linda:  I would say you need to give it time.  Preferably, I would recommend transitioning out gradually by reducing your hours in clinical practice.  Once you decide to make a change, you really need to put the time in.  

You might have to come home from work and then still work for a few hours on your own projects.  You won’t have a lot of free time.  

If you’re not sure what you would want to do, then you have to do a self-assessment and think about what aspects of dental hygiene you really love and what you could pursue outside of clinical practice.

 

Linda’s indirect route to a job she loves

Mark:  How did you land the job with O’Hehir University?

Linda:  It was an interesting chain of events.  Trisha has been a great mentor to me for many years, and I was in the first class to graduate from O’Hehir University in 2013.  

I then mentored a couple of classes for my post –graduate mentoring certificate, which I enjoyed immensely.  Trisha, Tim and I stayed in touch over the years, and when enrollment in OHU increased, Trisha contacted me and asked if I was ready to be an instructor.  I responded immediately with an emphatic ‘yes!’  

I think they wanted faculty who enhance the learning experience by facilitating and guiding the student’s own research, rather than giving lectures.  It really is such a pleasure to facilitate experiential learning, and see students become more confident and knowledgeable as professionals.  

I also love how new opportunities open up for our students by the time they graduate, when others in their workplace notice the change in them.

Mark:  Can you tell us a little bit about what you do as an instructor for O’Hehir University? 

Linda:  The program we offer is very interesting because when people hear that it’s only six months long, they often say that it must be really intensive.  They think that we’re just going to teach them a load of facts in that short span of time.  That’s not what we do.  

We focus more on learning than on teaching.  What you’ll find when learning a bunch of facts is that what you learn quickly goes out of date.  It’s much better to learn how to discover things for yourself so that you’re continually learning throughout your life. 

Mark:  So the program is more project based, correct? 

Linda:  That’s right.  The main focus is to improve the oral health of your patients, or for students who are not in clinical practice, it can be people in their community or even their friends and family.  

Students tend to focus on researching the efficacy of a certain type of dental product, but here’s what they often discover.  The health behavioral change aspect of using the product is more important than the actual product itself.  You can buy the best product, but if it’s sitting on the shelf and you’re not using it, then it’s no good to anyone. 

Mark:  Exactly.  It’s the ideal vs. the reality of what people actually do. 

Linda:  The important thing is to find the key that motivates people to improve their health. 

Mark:  The learning style of O’Hehir University makes me think of my own experience in hygiene school because it was the complete opposite.  I’m a visual learner and autodidact, so for me, lectures don’t help much.  I would essentially go home and teach myself the material and that’s what worked for me.

In your program, it seems like the faculty guides the student on what they choose to focus on.  As opposed to telling the student what he or she needs to focus on.

Linda:  Yes, that’s correct.  Hygiene schools are mostly task-orientated.  You learn how to complete certain tasks, with less focus on being required to improve the health of your patients.  

In clinical practice, many dentists also focus on performing tasks, providing services and producing for the practice.  And too often, health is left out of the conversation.  They’re aware of it of course, but it’s not always communicated.

Mark:  We had very knowledgeable instructors at my hygiene school.  We had an oral surgeon teaching oral pathology.  We had a pharmacist teaching pharmacology.  And so on, but…  

Even though most of them had a lot of knowledge, most of them didn’t have the ability to transfer that knowledge to the students’ brains.  For me, this is a perfect example of why it’s important to know how to be a self learner.  

Linda:  And people tend to learn what is important to them.  That’s when people want to learn all about a subject. 

Mark:  Exactly.  If you’re curious about something, the learning process becomes much quicker and much more efficient.  

If you don’t find it very interesting, it becomes a struggle…an uphill battle to learn something new. 

Linda:  And a lot of it gets forgotten if you’re not using it. 

Mark:  That’s right.  Very good Linda.  Is there anything else you would like to share?  

 

A story of how good jobs find you

Linda:  Yes.  Let me share this story.  I was the Clinical Director for HygieneTown for about three years.  Over those years, I received a few messages from hygienists asking, “How did you get that job”?  “How can I get a job like that”?  

I had no plan to work for them.  I was just basically doing what I love doing and then it just evolved into a job offer.  I told them that it happened because I was active on the message boards, I contributed articles, etc.  And most of them basically replied, “Oh well, I’m not prepared to do that”. 

Mark:  My experience was very similar.  Here’s how I got the copywriting gig with the dental marketing company. 

I was blogging, doing podcasts and creating YouTube videos for many years.  In 2020, I wrote a blog post telling my story about quitting my job and leaving clinical hygiene.

I then shared that blog post in a popular dental Facebook group.  Someone saw my post and thought I would be a perfect fit for the company.  I then received a Facebook message asking if I would be interested in writing for the company.

There was no application process.  There was no resume required.  All the free content I created over the years was basically my resume!

Clinical hygiene is very straight forward and obvious.  You need to complete hygiene school, get your license and find a job.  It’s not an easy process, but the path to get there is very clear.

Unlike clinical hygiene, many opportunities outside the operatory have no clear path to them.  Sometimes, you just have to create them yourself.  And many times, if not most, you have to be willing to work for free…for years in some cases.  

If you are not willing to work for free, which most people are not, then your chances of succeeding is slim to none.  That’s just my opinion.

Linda:  That’s it.  You have to be prepared to work very hard, especially if you don’t want to give up your day job until you have developed your other projects. 

Mark:  And that’s the beauty of being a hygienist because you have many opportunities to work part-time.  Many careers aren’t as flexible.  You either work full time or you don’t work at all. 

You can stay part-time as you transition to something else or you can stay part-time and do multiple things.

I personally like having multiple things going on.  If one thing drops off, the other things are still bringing in income.  If you only have one job and you lose it, you then have no income at all.  Of course, there are pros and cons to both with different preferences based on personality and risk tolerance. 

Linda:  Yes.  It’s good to have a safety net, but eventually you have to take the plunge and let go of something.

Mark:  Thank you for your time Linda.

 

Bio – Linda M. Douglas, BSc. RDH

Linda Douglas graduated in 1982 as a dental hygienist from the Royal Dental Hospital in London, England, and in 2013 graduated from O’Hehir University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Oral Health Promotion. 

Linda has worked in clinical practice in Toronto since 1990.  She currently works as an instructor at O’Hehir University, and is also a manager of a Linked in group: Today’s Women in Dentistry.  She was the Clinical Director for Hygienetown, a supportive online community and publication for dental hygienists. 

Linda has published articles in several publications, including a British Dental Journal publication, BDJ Team, Dentistry IQ, The International Dental Tribune, Oral Hygiene, and Hygienetown magazine. 

She has presented at the annual Townie Meeting, the Toronto Academy of Dentistry Meeting, and The Caribbean Dental Program in Barbados, in addition to various study clubs and dental societies in Ontario. 

Linda’s desire to help anxious patients has instigated in-depth study of the issues faced by individuals with dental phobia.  

Linda also writes and speaks on xerostomia management, saliva testing, and caring for dental patients with eating disorders.