There are two aspects to the phrase “dental office.” There is the actual dentistry, of course. And then there is the office part, or the business of working as a practicing dentist.

Griffin Lynn has had multiple dentists in his family over the generations, dating to a great grandfather who practiced in Eufaula. As a result, Lynn felt comfortable delving into the medical facet of the profession when he enrolled in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry in 2021. What Lynn was not so sure about was the office / business side of things. So at the start of his second year of dental school, Lynn began working on a D.M.D./M.B.A. dual degree program.

“With my family background, I had been around offices enough and seen the amount of business IQ that it takes to run a dental practice, and I didn’t have a lot of business education,” says Lynn, a Birmingham native who graduated from Auburn University in 2019 with a degree in agriculture. “I was fortunate to meet a former (UAB SOD) student, Patrick Young, who had gone through the D.M.D./M.B.A. program, and he had great things to say about it.”

Now, as a D4 student, Lynn says the value of the dual degree is becoming evident. Even as he has focused heavily over the past few years on the daily learning and clinical experiences required of all D.M.D. students, Lynn says he also has been able to begin establishing a foundation of business knowledge needed to eventually open his own dental practice.

“There is so much to learn in four years of dental school that it can be challenging to see beyond just trying to make it to graduation. But these M.B.A. classes help with that,” Lynn says. “Now I’m thinking about things like how to apply an accounting class to future practice ownership. I’ve loved how it forces me to think long-term.”

While the business classes have been valuable, Lynn’s primary goal during his time at the UAB SOD has been to learn as much as possible about dentistry, both in the classroom and the clinic.

“The pre-clinical faculty did a great job of providing us with general knowledge. I was so well-prepared for taking the boards (this year) just because of all the information I had received,” Lynn says. “The transition from the classroom side of dental school to the clinical side, where you are seeing patients and training to actually become a provider, is challenging. But each time you are in clinic, you get incrementally better. After a few years, you look up and suddenly you are much more confident and at ease about seeing patients, and it becomes more enjoyable.

“Many of the clinical faculty take time to come from private practice and have great tidbits to give us for both patient care and personal care. Things such as patient positioning to avoid future neck and back injuries, practice ownership advice, as well as the procedural aspects of being a dentist”

Lynn says he might have one more year of training ahead of him, as he currently is applying for postdoctoral programs. After that, Lynn plans to put both his dental and business educations into practice. Or rather, a practice.