After about 45 years working as a dentist and owning his own practice, Dr. Frey swapped the dental tools of his trade for a life of retirement in 2017.
But two months after he retired following a successful career, Frey was nudged back into his former profession when his wife patted him on the shoulder and told him, “Sweetheart, I love you to death, but you gotta get out of the house,” Frey said.
“That’s what sent me back into what I love: dentistry,” Frey said.
Frey partnered up with Barton Associates soon after and became a locum tenens dentist in his home state of Indiana. Since he started working on a temporary basis, he’s completed around 40 locum assignments in facilities from small practices to corporate-owned ones all across the Hoosier State.
“I found locum tenens assignments rewarding from a knowledge standpoint,” Frey said. “You always learn something new when you go into a different situation.”
Adapting to New Environments
For much of his career, Frey knew where everything was in his dental office—and if he misplaced something, he could simply rely on his dental assistants for help.
But that all changed when he became a locum tenens provider.
“In other offices, they have their own setup and you learn to adapt,” Frey said. “So that’s been a good thing for me, just learning how to adapt to different situations.”
Adaptation means keeping an open mind, and Frey said one of the best ways for locums to quickly acclimate to a new assignment is to communicate with new colleagues.
“Right away, you have to let the staff know that you understand this is a difficult position for them, also,” Frey said. “They have somebody new—and in some circumstances, they had more than one locum in short periods of time. So they’re trying to adapt to new dentists. If you’ve been a dentist for long enough you’ll realize each of us has our own quirks and strangeness and things that we are accustomed to.”
Frey found that keeping an open mind in his locum assignments unlocked opportunities to learn new things about his profession he could take to other offices.
“It’s a learning experience, if you’re open to it,” he said.
Taking assignments in different areas of the state also gave Frey the opportunity to see how people of various backgrounds approach visiting the dentist.
“Where I practiced in southeastern Indiana, it was a rural area and I always kind of thought, ‘well, these people just don’t understand,’” Frey said. “I found out it didn’t matter where you are in Indiana, they had the same fears, same problems, same approach as a patient coming in. So people are people, and if you manage to listen, adapt to them, and help them understand where you’re coming from, it works out much better.”
The Ease of Working with Barton
Although all of his locum tenens assignments were in Indiana, Frey traveled for most of them. A self-described travel-lover, Frey said taking locum tenens assignments away from home broadened his horizons.
“You can explore towns and find things you’re not aware of in your own state,” Frey said. “I like to look around where I’m at and find out things about places in my own state that otherwise you wouldn’t be exposed to.”
Frey leveraged Barton’s travel team for help with arranging his lodging and other trip details, which he said “worked out great.”
“I’ve never had any problem that didn’t get rectified real quickly, like within a couple of hours,” he said.
Frey’s Barton recruiter also helped him find locum tenens assignments that worked for his lifestyle—for example, he didn’t like spending winters in the northern part of the state.
“The northern part of the state is flat, the wind blows, and the snow falls sideways instead of straight down,” he said.
Over the years, Frey and his family hosted many foreign exchange students who said Hoosiers were, more often than not, extremely warm and welcoming. He gave this final piece of advice for any locum tenens providers looking to take on an assignment in Indiana:
“If you’re open, and you smile, you’re going to have a lot of friends,” Frey said.
If you’re a healthcare provider looking to take on a locum tenens assignment, check out our open positions and reach out to our talented recruiters to get started.
