A conversation with dental consultant Janice Hurley reveals profound insights about the challenges and opportunities that come with stepping away from the chair
There’s a moment in every dentist’s career when the question becomes unavoidable: “Who am I without my practice?”
For Janice Hurley, a seasoned dental consultant who has worked with countless practitioners over the decades, this question is as individual as the dentists who ask it. Recently, she sat down to discuss one of the most challenging transitions in healthcare—when skilled clinicians must navigate the emotional and practical complexities of retirement.
The Identity Trap
“I have a client now that I’ve been with for a long time,” Hurley shares, “and the next time we meet, we’re going to talk about that important transition. He’s in his middle 70s and doing beautiful work still, but he knows it’s time.”
The key to a successful transition, Hurley explains, lies in understanding how deeply the dentist identity runs. Some practitioners wear their profession like a comfortable coat—it’s part of who they are, but not the entirety. Others have become so intertwined with their role as “the dentist” that removing it feels like losing themselves entirely.
“The more that they have outside interests—active in their church, outside activities, belonging to different groups—all of that is really, really key,” she observes. “Because nobody else cares whether you’re a dentist or not. Nobody else cares but you.”
It’s a stark truth that lands with surprising gentleness. In a profession where status and expertise are so closely tied to identity, the realization that the world continues spinning without your dental degree can be both liberating and terrifying.
The Perfectionist’s Paradox
For many dentists, the traits that made them successful clinicians can become obstacles in retirement. Hurley has a particular perspective on perfectionism—a quality many dentists wear as a badge of honor.
“I cringe when I’m interviewing a new client and they describe themselves as a perfectionist,” she admits. “They do it with pride. But being a perfectionist really means that you pretty much live in the world of not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.”
This insight cuts to the heart of a common struggle. The meticulous attention to detail, the relentless pursuit of clinical excellence, the inability to accept “good enough”—these characteristics that served so well in the operatory can become sources of self-loathing in retirement.
“What served us when we were 20 doesn’t serve us when we’re 40, and what served us when we were 40 doesn’t serve us when we’re 70,” Hurley notes. The transition requires not just stepping away from practice, but actively releasing the psychological patterns that defined decades of professional life.
The Economics of Emotion
One of the most practical yet emotionally charged aspects of retirement is the sale of the practice. Hurley sees this as a critical junction where financial planning meets emotional attachment.
“Be realistic about the price and value of your practice, and be careful that you haven’t decided that is your retirement fund,” she advises. “You will emotionally be more attached to the value of that practice than what the buyer is going to pay for it.”
This attachment isn’t just about money—it’s about legacy, about the life’s work that walls and equipment represent. The practice becomes a tangible measure of professional worth, making it difficult to accept market realities when the time comes to sell.
The Happiness Imperative
Perhaps most surprisingly, Hurley emphasizes that happiness isn’t just a nice-to-have in retirement—it’s essential for everyone around the retiree. She references research showing that happiness scores below 70 (on a 100-point scale) actually impair professional performance, but the implications extend far beyond the workplace.
“The most important thing that you can be is happy,” she states simply. “The most important thing that will make you have a satisfying life and make other people want to be around you is be the golden retriever. Don’t be the poorly trained angry pit bull.”
She’s observed that this challenge affects men more than women, particularly as testosterone levels decline and professional identity disappears simultaneously. The result can be a grumpiness that pushes away the very people who might provide support and companionship in retirement.
“Every single day there is something that is positive going on in your life, and people don’t care that you’re a dentist anymore, but they sure care whether you’re happy or not.”
The Gifts That Remain
Despite the challenges, Hurley sees tremendous potential in retired dentists. The profession, when practiced well, develops remarkable skills that translate beautifully to other endeavors.
“If they’re doing it right, they have amazing organizational skills, communication skills, they’ve learned body language,” she explains. “They have had this opportunity as a career to have their own emotions fed, because every time they do something nice for someone else, it feeds into their own self-esteem and self-worth.”
The relationship-building aspect of dentistry—knowing generations of families, watching children grow up, being trusted with intimate health concerns—creates a foundation of human connection that doesn’t disappear with retirement.
The Modern Elder
The concept of mentorship comes up frequently in Hurley’s work, but she’s quick to point out that successful mentoring requires wisdom about when to offer advice and when to simply be present.
“We make the mistake as we retire of giving advice,” she observes. “Unless somebody asks you, it’s not your place, whether it’s in your personal life or your professional life.”
This insight extends to the role of retired dentists in the profession. The impulse to share hard-won knowledge is natural, but the delivery matters enormously. The most valuable mentors are those who wait to be asked, who understand that wisdom without context is just opinion.
A Technology Bridge
For those who want to remain relevant in mentoring relationships, Hurley emphasizes the importance of staying current with technology, even if it takes longer to learn.
“If you don’t learn it, you are not as valuable to the new dentist, because they’ll have had all of that in school,” she explains. “It takes us longer. Yes, and that has to be okay.”
The key is self-compassion in the learning process, accepting that slower doesn’t mean impossible.
The Deeper Truth
Throughout the conversation, Hurley returns to a fundamental truth that challenges American cultural values around productivity and professional achievement. The worth of a person isn’t determined by their professional output, and retirement doesn’t diminish their value to society.
“You are much more than just the clinician,” she reminds us. “And I promise you, you’re the only one that cares. You’re the only one that cares.”
This perspective, coming from someone who has spent decades intimately involved in dentistry but isn’t a dentist herself, carries particular weight. It’s the view from outside the profession looking in, and it’s remarkably freeing.
The Path Forward
As dental careers extend longer than ever before, the transition to retirement becomes increasingly complex. Hurley’s insights suggest that the most successful transitions happen when dentists begin early to cultivate identity beyond the practice, to develop sources of fulfillment that don’t depend on clinical work, and to practice the art of letting go while still engaged in their careers.
The goal isn’t to diminish the importance of dentistry or to minimize the very real challenges of retirement. Instead, it’s to recognize that a life well-lived in dentistry can be the foundation for a retirement well-lived as a whole person.
“Every day in dentistry, you have the opportunity to make that person feel good about themselves,” Hurley reflects. “If you’ll let yourself soak it up and give yourself credit and say, ‘I had a good life, and this is an amazing, amazing career.'”
The transition from dentist to retiree isn’t about losing an identity—it’s about expanding into the fullness of who you’ve always been, beyond the walls of the operatory and into the broader world that’s been waiting for you all along.
The conversation with Janice Hurley reveals that the most successful retirement transitions happen not when we figure out how to stop being dentists, but when we remember how to be human beings who happened to have practiced dentistry. In the end, that distinction makes all the difference.