Behind a Smile with Dr. Shauntel Ambrose

Celebrating Women's Month: Tebatso Mutibi on the Vital Role of Dental Assistants and Ethical Integrity in Healthcare

• Shauntel Ambrose • Season 2

Share episode

Send us a text

Join us as we celebrate Women's Month with the inspiring Tebatso Mutibi. Through an intimate conversation, Tebatso shares her journey from being inspired by her aunt to earning a Master's in Health Sciences and a BTech in Medical Orthotics and Prosthetics. Discover the critical role dental assistants play in the success of dental practices and uncover the often unseen contributions they make to the healthcare industry. Gain insights into the significance of regulation in maintaining high health and safety standards in dentistry.

In this episode, we unpack the challenges faced by dental assistants and their invaluable impact on dental practices. With Tebatso's first hand experiences, we explore the emotional and mental toll of a dental assistant's absence and discuss the importance of investing in their education and professional development. Dive into the pressures of under-resourced clinics and learn how community service bridges the gap between academic training and real-world experience, ensuring a more prepared and resilient workforce.

Our discussion doesn't stop there. We delve into the complexities of handling complaints within healthcare committees, the necessity of ethical guidelines, and the importance of professional integrity. We highlight the challenges of verifying anonymous complaints and the rise of malicious behaviour among practitioners. Finally, we emphasize the need for unity and continuous education within the dental profession, encouraging collaboration and a commitment to staying informed. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on perseverance, passion, and the path to growth and success in healthcare.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Hello and welcome to Behind a Smile. I am Dr hantal Ambrose and I am a dentist. I host a healthcare business podcast where I interview healthcare practitioners around the world, sharing tips on how to improve your healthcare practice, innovate and grow, while living your best life. We share products and information from healthcare partners that can help you in your practice journey, be it a startup, a family-based business or a multidisciplinary healthcare team. Most of the information provided here is based on personal experience and opinions. Of the information provided here is based on personal experience and opinions, so please supplement what you learn here with approved research, studies and professional advice.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and I invite you to join our community. If you haven't, we would love to hear from you. If you would like to be on the show, drop me a mail at behindasmile2 at gmailcom. Let's make it happen together. So everyone, it's Dr Ambrose here and we have yet another special guest for Women's Month. I have Tabatso Mutibi and if anyone knows Tabatso, she is an absolute fireball. She looks amazeballs. Today I'm feeling rather underdressed. I'm saying Really welcome to our show, tabatso. I'm really excited to have you on.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Good day, dr Ambrose. Thank you so much, and good day to the listeners. Hey, I'm excited to be here to be here.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Yes, yeah, listen, I I must say that when I, like I said, you know, I I get lucky in that the people that are on the show are just tremendous, and you are one of those people that I'm I've really been excited to have on Um for me. I think that your background in dental assisting has been is one of those things that you know. It's almost the fabric of any successful dental practice and I haven't been able to find somebody that is able to talk about a little bit about their dental assisting background, how they've progressed their journey. And I'm really excited to have you on because, like I said, I will always believe that dental assisting is really the fabric of dentistry. It's what makes us look great as practitioners and as practices, and I really would love to showcase the amount of contribution people make to the bigger whole, and often they don't get an opportunity to the bigger whole and often they don't get an opportunity to even be seen. So I I you're an important part of what I believe in. I just want people to know just how qualified you are. So you know we're talking to a lady that has a master in health sciences, in environmental health, as well as a BTEC in medical orthotics as well as prosthetics. You are part of a professional board involvement with HPCSA. You are a board member for dental assisting, dental therapy and oral hygiene of the Health Professionals Council of South Africa and you chair of the preliminary conduct committee of the dental assisting, dental therapy and oral hygiene. You're an education committee member of the board and I think you're a previous committee member of the board as well as a committee member for audit and accreditation process for training institution of dental assisting and oral hygiene programs.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Now listen, I think that you may scare a lot of people. You know I laugh to you because the last Congress we were at together when we were speaking, I often see the HBCSA table as being that one where it'll be the only place where people don't come and fetch your pens and I laugh about it and we can giggle about it. But you know it's a scary thing for us as practitioners. Scary thing for us as practitioners and I love that when you speak you make it less scary for us and you make it about regulation. And regulation is in place to keep everyone safe, everyone safe and everyone healthy. And you know people have different. People have differently different, I suppose perspectives of how to manage that and how to incorporate that in life, and you know. So I'm excited to really go through how you got there. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey?

Tebatso Mutibi:

Yes, the day listeners. Once again, she makes it sound so, yeah, I can't even get to the word. But yeah, thank you for that. It sounds like a compliment, but when I think about it, it's just my work and I love my work. To be honest, it started back, should I say, primary school, when my uncle married my aunt and my aunt was a dental assistant. Yeah, it's in your blood. It's in your blood to bad soul.

Tebatso Mutibi:

It's in the blood. I looked at this lady. It is young and I'm innocent and the world is still a very beautiful place. And this lady, how she wore her uniform, how she addressed herself, how she said because I remember one day she said to me I can't go into this place with my uniform, and I'm like, what is she talking about? And how she spoke about her employer, how she's always on time for work, how much she gave for her work, and I thought this is very interesting.

Tebatso Mutibi:

But fast forward, many years later now in metric, where do I go? Orthotics and prosthetics had popped up, but I was not. So it wasn't there. It was just somewhere there and I thought, let me try this thing out. It worked for my aunt, maybe it could work for me as well. I applied and I got in.

Tebatso Mutibi:

That was 2004. And halfway through the year oh, miss Elise Prince-Lewis and Susan Petershack those are my lecturers they say to me, to us, the whole class, they tell us the pros and the cons of being a dental assistant. You decide. But what they said is that things are no longer the same and they're never going to be the same 20 years from now If you are not. Academically, if you have the opportunity to go and study further, do that. If you don't make it work, I thought, okay, let me go. That's when I applied for medical orthotics and prosthetics.

Tebatso Mutibi:

But during the time where I was a student, I was working as a dental assistant, part-time, after hours from five until eight depending how long the procedures were, and that's about three to four years. Eventually, I qualified as an orthotist and I went off to work as an orthotist. Seven years later. Later, I get a call to say we've got a position at TUT. Would you like to apply? Tut, by the way, is Tsuwani University of Technology. Would you like to apply? You do qualify, you do meet the merits and I applied and I got the job. That's how I got to lecture as a dental assistant, lecture at TUT and the very same colleagues nominated me to be on the board for council and that's how I sit on the board to serve. And now it comes I've got the academic background, I'm a dental assistant, I understand and I'm teaching dental assistant students. So you're bringing that to the table. That was back in 2014. That was the first term and I came back again for the second term. This is my last term on the board and everything happened from there. I think that's why I fell in love with ethics. This is why I fell in love with the work we do, and I also got to understand that, why people have certain challenges.

Tebatso Mutibi:

You read a document, it's in English but it sounds Greek. You don't know how to interpret it. But the lawyers can interpret it, the advocates can interpret it. It's their language. For any other person on the street or any other professionals like, are they trying to trick me?

Tebatso Mutibi:

So what I've been trying to do for the past 10 years is to say, read the document and explain it in a nicer way, in a way that it doesn't sound like the police is at your door, where it doesn't sound like who are these people. So, yeah, basically that's where it's at and that's where I find myself. And also through that, that's what also encouraged me to go do my master's and, yes, my master's is in environmental health and the reason for that is that I needed to find a topic that will link what I do as a dental assistant, or what I teach as a dental assistant, to the environment. So that's how I got into environmental health, and the research that I did in my master's was health care waste in dental practices. So yeah, I think I explained that the short way in eight minutes. Yes, well.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

I think that you explain things with I don't know. There's real simplicity now. Um, of course I'm. I'm fighting the flu here, guys, so so you have to just push through, push through, push through. There was no way I was going to get to Buds or not to be on our show, so I'm pushing through and you have to just excuse that. There will be moments where I am just I'm sounding a little bit worspy, I think it's just a vocal range that I don't usually have. But anyway, the nicest thing about the way you do things is that you get things that are really scary for people to actually think about and you put it into plain English for you, and you're quite right. It's all in English but nobody can understand it. It's often, you know, I'm doing my next Congress. I'm speaking about consent and what goes wrong with consent and why people who sign consents don't know what the hell they're signing, you know, and why it's never explained. And I think that you explain. You just explain regulation well as one of the things that you do really well.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

But I want to talk about something that's quite close to my heart is, you know, dental assisting and where dental assistants fit into the practice at large. For me, I feel that we cannot work without dental assistants and do our best jobs. And you know, know, even though when we go to to dental school, we often now are doing two-handed dentistry because, remember, when we are in dental school there's no dental assistant, you are there in it alone, but you're wanting to do four-handed dentistry with two hands, and often it's not even a real person to, but so it's, it's actually. It's actually a head that we're working on, without saliva and without feelings. And then you get out of uni and you're expected to know now how to relate to your dental assistant. You also expected how to be able to manage a patient that actually swallows, that has saliva, that has saliva, that has saliva, has feelings, has actual feelings, and you expected to know that this is where your boundary lies, quite clearly as a practitioner that signed in ethically to what you know. There are rules, there's regulations, and if you want to be part of the profession, then you know these are the things that you will need to know.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

So there's all of this stuff that you are almost in a very short period of time, needing to learn quite quickly, almost in a very short period of time, needing to learn quite quickly. And when you speak to dental assistants, they often feel that they are part of the dental fraternity, but not in a highlighted way. And yet I can tell you that every dentist, every dental specialist and every dental professional out there, when your dental assistant does not come to work, it is one of the hardest days, you know. It is really one. The day changes its mood on you and you're pushing through. The team is pushing through at large. People are feeling the pressure. Team is pushing through at large. People are feeling the pressure. How is it on the other side? Because what does it look like on the other side? What don't we see that dental assistants feel they often don't say, and you think that it's necessary to know.

Tebatso Mutibi:

That's a tricky one. You know when. It all depends where you are mentally, emotionally. If you are the dental assistant that wants to be there, you're there for a reason, even though you're planning to leave in the future. But you know why you're there.

Tebatso Mutibi:

What I often would want to say to my employees that take me serious, take me serious and appreciate me while I'm here, not tomorrow when I'm not here. And then you tell me oh, how I miss her. No, appreciate me now, take me serious now. And on the other side, if you ever come across a dental assistant that looks like she doesn't want to be there, if you just invest five minutes in that person, you'll see how it changes her life. It might not be working for her to be there for any other reason, but you as an employer, you as a dental practitioner or a colleague, if you just invest daily five minutes in that person, you'll see how it changes.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Whether you, it's five minutes where you educating me on something I do not know, or whether it's about my social life, whether it's about my kids, whether it's just about administration, you will be investing something in that one person that will come back to you one way or another. This is. This is the world. It'll come back to you, just like somebody else during your internship year taught you something. Yes, they were getting paid to teach you, but they taught you something knowledge, skill. Do the same for somebody else. You'll see how the practice around. You'll see how smooth she'll never be sick.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

She'll always be there. You know what? Somebody's going to quote you on that It'll be like, yeah, you know about that.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Eh yes, when I say invest five minutes or 10 minutes, remember we only train for one year. We're only one year in the university. You had four years, three years, six years, specialist, 10 years, I don't know how long you there. You had time to play, you had time to be a university child, you had time to be there and to be taught. I'm only there for one year and I come to your practice and you expect from me you know. And so that's why I'm just asking, asking to say, think of that, to say you went to university. What do you know? You don't know. I was only there one year. I had to do all, learn all of this thing in one year. I might not know the difference between a molar, a power maxilla, which. Give me the time, I'll remember it. It will come back. That's all I ask. Thank, you.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

I love that you're putting it into perspective because I think that we don't get a chance to really see what the criteria looks like in uni and you know clinical practice exactly like us in. I have great respect for community service. I feel that when I got out of uni and I went to community service it really did give me an idea of what I was good at doing, what I needed some help on, what I could think of doing postgrads in. I do think it really. It sets aside learning and then real people exposure, and that real people exposure is not something that is just I take for granted because it can sort of teach you people skills, but it's people skills under tremendous amount of pressure, under huge amount of time pressures. And of course, you know I'm only fair in saying that some people are lucky enough to be in community service, where we have a very balanced perspective. They have well-stocked clinics, they have the capacity to really go and do your 100% of what you've learned for six years at uni. You can actually go and do a denture for somebody. You can even do a root canal and you can do arguably some people in military can do even an implant. But for the most part. You know you're working against clinics that have a very high demand and you just do not have a clinic that has enough of anything Not enough assistance, not enough people on board and not enough equipment. Sometimes your equipment fails you.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

So there's a lot of pressures that come up, but I still have a great respect for our community service, because what it does is it bridges the gap, and there's a huge gap. And so when I went into practice and we were hiring now your assistants and you're hiring your staff, you're not expecting that they too have the gap. You see, yeah, and because we are now, you know you're working on people that are paying you for their services and you're thinking to yourself you know this is not a learning ground. If you, if you, need to learn, we can't expect somebody to pay us for something that's going to be sub-optimum, but at the same time, there is learning that's happening. So you know you have to make that learning with the least amount of error and you know it just depends on whoever that individual is, the attitude that they bring, the competency that they want to get to, and how they're able to develop themselves and see themselves integrate into a practice and into a persona to be able to serve the practice a little bit better. It's an extraordinarily difficult thing to do.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

I remember when I first started off that some dental assistants didn't have any background in root canal. And you know now to set up for root canal as a dental assistant is quite an intense thing, especially when you have no background in it. You know and you're thinking, you know shucks. You know I run the practice mainly on root canal. I need you to be my eyes and my ears for these root canals because I'm just trying to do the actual clinical work. But I need that person to know that. Listen, those are the files and that's what I'm needing on that tray. And oh, you know, doctor, you forgot this, so do you need that? Doctor, you forgot this, so do you need that?

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

But it is definitely a game. That means that you have to start somewhere and you have to cohesively want to build each other. So I love what you say, that when you give someone an opportunity to do it and they show up, then I think that you know there's that collaboration you start somewhere, you just start somewhere and you keep on building. So I really appreciate that. Now let's talk about your scary part of your life, which is HBCSA, and the role that you're in there. Tell us a little bit about it.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Currently on the board. I sit on the board, discuss board matters. It could be anything from another training institution wanting to open a new division, maybe they want to offer oral hygiene, how that process would go, how it gets approval. But that's the easy stuff for me. The other I sit on the preliminary committee. Now that's the interesting part and that's the one I love, because that's where I get to see what practitioners are up to. So on this committee we get all the complaints. Anyone can complain. Employer cannot complain. Patients can complain. Other patients can complain on other patients' behalf. Anyone.

Tebatso Mutibi:

It can be anonymous or it doesn't have to be anonymous, depending what it is. Obviously it can't be anonymous if we need evidence, depending what it is. Obviously it can't be anonymous if we need evidence. But if ever a patient is saying in that practice that they charge for x-rays but there's no x-ray machine, we can go and verify that. It can be anonymous, but any other thing really can't. So on the preliminary committee we see scary stuff. Scary stuff that practitioners do Obviously.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Yes, we do get cases where the practitioner is actually innocent. Somebody was just emotional. They would use the very same platform to make a complaint and we'd go through it and then as you go through evidence you can see, ah, the complainant was actually just emotional. But you also get cases where the complainant wasn't emotional. You get cases of practitioners who claim for services not rendered. The patient was there, but what the practitioner says and what the complainant says is two different stories. Now you have to go. You have to. Only unfortunately, or fortunately, we can only go with what we were given. We also get complaints from medical aides. Yeah, I don't want to say a lot about the medical aides, but they're not always fair. That's all I can say. The medical aides are not always fair, but we do get them. We also get complaints from one practitioner to another where they feel they're taking my business. But they will not say they're taking my business. They'll go find something that you're doing wrong and unfortunately, if they find something you're doing wrong, it will be against you. So those are the kind of things we look into and we try to bring a fair judgment to it.

Tebatso Mutibi:

We do have advice. We do have legal advice that sits with us, that tells us this we can do this we cannot do. And we do sit with investigators that do investigate the matters and I have to say, hpcsa goes out there, they don't find your Tom Dick and Harry to investigate. They actually come out and they bring out the evidence. If it's not there, it's not there, we can't do anything. If there's no evidence, it's always upon the complainant to bring everything to the table. And the legal advice is good advice because we sit with advocates, we sit with attorneys. It's not just an intern, but it's quite interesting.

Tebatso Mutibi:

But what I take from it at the end of the day is to say let's have a road show, let's have a stakeholder meeting, let's educate our practitioners, because most of them are not aware of the small little details. For example, there is a consent form, but the consent form was not addressing me. It was addressing something completely different. So you're using a January consent form to not addressing me. It was addressing something completely different. So you're using a january consent form to address everything and it doesn't have prizes on, or sometimes it doesn't explain what type of treatment you're going to give this patient.

Tebatso Mutibi:

What are the cons, what are the pros, what? So it's? It's those kind of things where you know we need to go back and say, yes, we've, we've picked this up. What are we going to do about it. Are we just going to sit and say, nah, they're not going anywhere? Because what I try to remind my colleagues is that at the end of the day, we hpc, says they, because of these people, as much as our mandate is to protect the public, we have to find proper ways to guide our practitioners. They need that more than anyone else. Remember, when you leave university, you don't know much because they don't really teach us admin, they don't really teach us medical aids, they don't teach us any of that. Those are the things you discover once you're there, and now you're in trouble. So, yeah, that's what we bring to the table to say we pick up the mistakes, we pick up the errors.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Let's not be harsh, let's educate such an important aspect of of of our daily practice. And you know I've been, I've been doing the, the ethics talks and communication talks, for I think it's 16 years now, 15 years this year, and you know we get to see where practitioners sometimes go wrong. But we also get to see that, you know, there's almost this gray area where I don't know if it's a fear-based thing, I don't know if it's just a lack of knowledge or going into something without a full 360. But a lot of people don't want to sort of comply because most of the time they don't even know that they need to comply. And you know, you see it often.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

And the other thing that has come to my attention of late is that there's also malicious behavior between practitioners that is very weird. That's going out. That seems to be I don't know. You know, um, yeah, I, I don't know what's what's going on with our fraternity, but I keep I, if you ever listen to my show, I'm one of those, um, happy-go-lucky people where I truly believe that if you want to be part of a bigger fraternity, then you also have to have a level of integrity about you. And you know you have to subscribe. It's not an option in my book and it's always my perspective.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

And recently I actually had a very weird thing happen to me, even though I've been in ethics, and they keep on saying that you know you live your actual life. Hey, this life brings to you whatever you need and I've never. You know I speak to people about being attacked and having people send malicious things or say things that are unfair about you or things like that. And you know I often don't wear those shoes because I've been in ethics for a while and you know you don't wear those shoes because you know so many of the guidelines and you know what you have to do and you hear about the cases. You're participating at a level of real information. You're participating at a level of real information and I had somebody that was involved, that is very involved in the fraternity of large, of knowing what's the right thing to do and then spurring someone else not to do the right thing is a very weird thing to me. You know and I for the first time truly understood that this is bigger than just a single sentence that people's behavior and level of integrity cannot be spurred on by just fear, by by just entertainment, because in my instance and this particular instance. It was just entertainment. Somebody just thought it was just entertainment, somebody just thought it was entertaining to to sort of defame an image of me and um, I, you know it's, on the one hand, I thought it's really funny because, you know, I'm old enough now in practice to think that things are funny and um, and on the other hand, you know there's a repercussion for it, but it's already guided by people who know better and I truly believe that if you know better, you should do better. So you know, I live that life.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

I understand anyone that's been in those shoes both ways around now, because I felt very done by and at the same time, you feel as though know, um, you need to actually get, get the criteria in place, because now, whether you like it or not, and whether these are your friends or not, we still have to be guided by a level of integrity that we all signed in for. And if you don't know enough, then we have to learn a little bit more. You know.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

You know that's how I live my life, that's how I do my practice, that's how I run my show and, yeah, I love the fact that you're able to just uncover some of those things for us. Now, you know a lot more than me about people who are in trouble. I want to know from you what would you say to anybody that? What are the guidelines that's going to better equip us as practitioners to make integrity and to follow rules and regulations and guidelines as part and parcel of just how we exist? How are we making we're going to equip ourselves, you know, to get better at this?

Tebatso Mutibi:

Thank you for that question. Some of the documents, the regulations, the guidelines. Obviously we haven't read them all, but in order for you just to get in and understand, small small, hp says they have roadshows, either via your board or council itself, where they take all these ethical books and they try to educate the practitioners. Attend, and it's online, it doesn't cost you anything, it's free. It's one hour, two hours. Sit there, listen when they talk about consent, when they talk about BOPI Act, when they talk about anything new, anything new. Just give yourself that two hours once in three months. And you're also not restricted to only attending the ones to your board. You can also attend other boards. It's a roadshow. Listen, it will educate you, it will help you. But if you're looking for a specific matter and it's not coming up call, I'm available. Your board, your board.

Tebatso Mutibi:

A lot of people don't know that your board actually has a manager, it has a coordinator, it has, it has all those things available, but we don't read, read counsel often every three months or every six months. They've got journals coming out. They've got e-bulletins coming out. Give yourself that five minutes just to go through one article once a week. It will educate you in a way that you will never understand, but we often want to be on TikTok and Facebook. It's easier. Maybe counsel must get on TikTok, I agree.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

I will do those TikToks. You know, listen, I really, you know. I think that we need to actually be the education for guidelines. You know, in most things in life, unfortunately, often are those things we don't know well and in the end, if you are caught in a problem, it's because we didn't actually spend the time. You're right, we didn't spend the time. We're spending the time to try to get the patient seen and just trying to pay your bills, just trying to be a person that's working in healthcare, but at the same time, I don't think that I've been lucky enough and I don't know if you agree or not, but I don't think that there are many people in healthcare that wake up wanting to cause a problem.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

It often just happens without us knowing and it's almost like it becomes this shock that happens because the basic things that you're telling us to do. It's almost like when mom says you know, you know, you need to start here, brush your teeth. Of course I don't want to brush my teeth, but you need to brush your teeth. You know there's these things that you're going to have to do and eat your frogs first and get through it and just know that those are the things that are going to make us a better profession at large. I truly believe that we're going to be a better profession at large. I'm very passionate about South African dentists and the profession and where we're going and what we're doing. And you know, you're a woman in leadership and you're a woman in the industry that really you know you offer such a lot of knowledge. So where do you see us in dentistry? Where is the future of dentistry in SA from your perspective? Where are we?

Tebatso Mutibi:

going. I'm in the lucky position because I'm a dental assistant, I can actually say this without fear of being nailed down. Because who's my competition? I'm not in competition with the oral hygienist, not with the dental therapist, not with the dentist. Um, because, when you think about it, even ever, even if my scope ever expanded and I can extract teeth tomorrow morning, I'm still practicing supervised, so I'll still be have to be employed by the dentist, specialist dental.

Tebatso Mutibi:

So, coming back to your question, is that my personal opinion on it is that we often focus on the titles, on the hierarchy, on who is more important than who. But if we ever just sat down, we're facing NHI. If we in the dental fraternity sat down, we're facing NHI. If we in the dental fraternity sat down specialists, dentists, dental therapists, oral hygiene, dental assistants we sat down and said what are we facing? Where are we going? Where do we want to go? We remove the flesh, we remove the ego, we remove the titles and we sit down and say where are we going, where do we want to see ourselves? Because if we don't do that, somebody else is going to come and they're going to, and we're going to be sitting with a maze that we cannot change because we fail to come together and look at where we need to go.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Dentistry is going very far. We need the smile. Think about it. We need the smile. And who can fix the smile? Not the medical doctors, not the physio, no one else. Only we can fix that smile.

Tebatso Mutibi:

So let's come together, sit down and table a way forward, because now we're busy fighting each other to say this is my scope, this is your scope, this is your scope. Does it matter at the end of the day? Because we all want to give a service. Is it about money? Is it about ego? What is it about? But if we come together, we sit down, oh, we're going far. The other professions would look at us and say, oh, how did they do that? The only thing is we did, we sat down and we spoke and we tabled our way forward.

Tebatso Mutibi:

We've got services of excellent associations. I'm not going to single anyone out. I'm not going to single any of them out. Come together with them. Let's not do things individually and we better, we hire. No, come together with HBCSA, with the board, and we table our way forward for everybody else. Currently, what council is also doing is that especially my board the Dental Therapy, oral Hygiene and Dental Assistant Board. They are going to universities where they are educating the third years final years, depending on the degree that they're doing, but basically your final years they're educating them. What are the challenges in this fraternity we're sitting in? What is hbcsa? What is our role? So that we try to break down the monster, the police, so that you see us as your friends. We're not here to police you, we're not. We're just here to guide. So let's take that whole concept and implement it everywhere else and wow, we, we can. We can all live peacefully together.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

This pie is big enough, right, it's just we don't see it yeah, yeah, you know, listen, it's such powerful words, you know, we, we. I don't think that you, you, you truly understand how powerful that is, because I think that we have a lot of potential in SA and wherever I go in the world, I always come back knowing that. You know, I love what everyone's doing as an international community and I think that if we are to really look at our future, we are in control of what we're able to do here and it is magnificent. We do have the skill set. We have very interested and amazing people on board and I think that for me, I've always been very positive about the future of RBSA. And it's hard knocks.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Where we're at Post COVID, we saw some of the best practices going through some of the most difficult times and many closed. Many people had to redefine their boundaries, many people had to go into doing things that they never even thought that they would need to do in practice. Some people had to go and get loans to restart again. You know, things went really awry during those years and the recovery phase where we're at right now, we're seeing the pressure because of economic stress, but as an actual fraternity, I do think that the positives really outweigh the negatives if we're able to come together. Yeah, now, now you're also a mom and you have many other talents in life. I and this is women's month and you know we are celebrating. People like you are keeping the industry in check and going, and you know positive and explaining to us the things that we really need to to have people explain to us. You know you're that advocate to us, so tell me, how are you keeping your balance? How do you keep so positive and look this good all the time?

Tebatso Mutibi:

I don't even need the gym. I got three kids.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Bragging will get you everywhere.

Tebatso Mutibi:

You juggle, you juggle until you realize, ask for help. I've I've come to learn when you, when it's too much, ask for help and it helps because at the end of the day, being a mom, being a wife working, it gets to you. And then once in a while you need to fly out of town because you need to attain something, for counsel, also for your own things. You're not gonna hope, you're not gonna cope. So I've learned to ask for help when I can't. I've learned to speak about what's in my heart, not to keep everything bottled in. I've learned to trust in the process and not wish my life somewhere else. I am here now. I'm doing life here now. Let's do life now. So, yeah, that's basically how I do it and you go on Now and then you take up another, you go to bed.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Yeah, I, I love it. Well, well, thank you for taking the time to be with us today and, like I said, I, I really am a huge, I'm a super fan. I am a super fan and I I think you're doing an amazing job. You must just keep on going and keep on you, you know, inspiring our healthcare to move in the right direction. We need more people that are able to do that bravely and courageously and, you know, not just looking at our egos and our bottom lines. You know beyond that, because, really, you know, healthcare is that vocation as well as that profession. So, yeah, thank you for being that person to so many people. Keep on going. And yeah, thank you for being part of our women's special. It's, it's really lovely and special to have you on.

Tebatso Mutibi:

Thank you so much, and thank you for inviting me. One last thing I'd like to say to the dental assistant out there Don't stop, keep going, do what you need to do with a smile while you're doing it, you'll get there. Thank you so much.

Dr Shauntel Ambrose:

Have you ever wished you could be rubbing shoulders with the best just to get through your worst? Never get the promotion and exceed the requirements. Join us to hear about strategies to build your brand. Diversify your business, pursue your career passions with job crafting and self-care for healthcare practitioners. Hear about great products that can help you to get to where you always wanted to be. So remember you are heard and you are seen, and on this platform you are absolutely invited. Let's make it happen together.