Connect Before You Correct: Rethinking Patient-Centered Care with Dr. Catherine Murphy

Hi, and welcome back to the Untethered Podcast. Today we have Dr. Catherine Murphy joining us. Catherine's love of dentistry goes beyond appreciating the beauty of a bicuspid. She partners with orthodontic facilities to implement her distinctive patient-centered approach and healthcare collaborative approach. As an independent contractor and consultant, Dr. Murphy helps orthodontic practices establish or enhance their orthodontic departments through specialized program-based guidance, including patient care. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Bulkin. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, Podcaster, business owner, and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up-to-date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue, and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest posture: tongue up. Lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started. Kathy, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Appreciate it.

I know. I think it's been about 5 years or so since you were on or something. I was looking, it was like 2021. I was like, how has it been that long?

Gosh, time is so crazy, isn't it?

It really is. I feel like we stay connected on like Instagram and in other ways. So I'm just like, there There's no way. There is no way it's been that long. But it has. So welcome back.

You were in your previous home while you're— while this home was being built. I do remember that because you had that great couch in the background.

Oh my gosh, that's so funny. So yeah, that, that was in Bethesda, Maryland. And we moved August of 2021. So that was 5 years. That's— it's wild. It's crazy to me that I've not been in Florida for 5 years. But here we are. Oh, all right. Since it's been a while, will you tell everybody a little update on who you are, what you've been up to, all those fun things?

So I'm a patient-centered orthodontist. I also use the term holistic, sometimes use the term airway, though we'll get into discussions why I don't focus on the term airway as much anymore. I've been practicing— gosh, I graduated from my residency in 2010. I practiced a more traditional approach until I started having a lot of questions that weren't being answered by my orthodontic colleagues. And then I took my first myofunctional therapy course when I was pregnant. Then I had struggles with my son, which led me to change all my thoughts about healthcare, the healthcare that I was providing to patients. And really, I'm so grateful to my son for helping me have the courage to change my life. I say I stopped shoulding myself because shoulding myself was one thing, but I wouldn't should him. Oh, I should just listen to the physician. And since then, my profession has been so much more enjoyable to me. And I've written 2 books now to help get more connection for those going through this journey. And now I work in different offices. I no longer have my private practice. I think I did when I last met with you, but now I go into other offices and either help transform the orthodontic department or start a new patient-centered orthodontic department in their office on top of presenting, coaching, consulting, that kind of stuff.

I love it. I love it. It's been so fun to watch you over the years on Instagram and seeing all the fun things that you're doing. And I feel we A number of us have shifted our roles. Like, we're still in the space, but we've all shifted what we're doing, where we're supporting, who we're supporting, how we're supporting, all those fun things. And so it's fun to see, to see and learn and hear all the updates.

And likewise, I love that you're doing so much more mentoring and really helping guide these providers so that they— this space can seem very overwhelming to the parents, the providers. Because in the last 5 years, things have drastically changed and so much stuff is so much better. But there's a lot of then, a lot more that you have to shift through to then really know what do you need as a parent, what do you need as a provider. And so I really appreciate the work you're doing and you continue to revise for the needs for both. So thank you so much 'cause I have been watching you and I just, I love it because we need more people that are very clear and know what to follow so that all that noise doesn't—

Yes, 100%. And I think that's a really good topic for us to probably jump into, dive into deeper, because I think burnout starts where— I'll back it up even as a clinician, right? When you have families that are dysregulated and kids that are dysregulated. I know we were talking before we hit record about this. The child's dysregulated, the parent becomes dysregulated, or vice versa. Everything impacts everything else. And I think that what I've seen is a lot of providers who are then left to try and manage treatment with these burnt-out families. And there's emotions, there's communication, Communication struggles sometimes. There's unmet expectations because nobody even asked what the expectations were to begin with. And I just think there's so much burnout that starts right there. It's not even always the clinical work itself. It definitely can be, but it's the weight of trying to carry the entire experience without even, without that communication or enough communication or even collaboration. And then there's the burnout that comes from being the collaborator with all the other professionals. Because like we were talking about, you're doing it on your own time outside of your work hours or outside of treating the patients. And anyways, I've just seen burnout happen in so many different ways, shapes, and forms. So maybe we can start there and just talk about— curious, I know we were mentioning the topic of burnout, what that has looked like for you and what you're doing around that.

Oh, thank you. This could take up the whole time because this is really my sincere passion because I, I'm so excited more providers and more parents are becoming aware. However, with the awareness and with the growth and with The greatness of now, once you go down this avenue, you can find a lot of resources. The resources sometimes still make it seem like there's a quick answer for this. And spoiler alert for both clinicians and parents, there's not just one course, there's not one appliance, there's not one therapy that is going to be the overall game changer. The game changer is actually us ourselves, whether it's the parent realizing, my goodness, okay, I want to help. I want to advocate for my child. But now I also have to advocate for myself. And what are all the things that I'm seeing that my kid needs that I also need? And I feel like that is one of the hardest things, which has been something I've struggled with since the beginning when I first transitioned talking to mothers about breastfeeding and the emotions, and which is then what led to Dear Mama. So the conversation could be in a more supportive way because a lot of emotions go with the breastfeeding discussion. But then as the clinician, like, oh my goodness, I've found the answer for these hurdles in looking at someone's airway and overall health, except there is so many more aspects. There's a continued learning and continued collaboration. And how do I work this through? On top of how things are going in my office right now. And spoiler alert, then lots of things get to shift. You can't keep doing what you're doing and then just add in, if you want to call it airway holistic focus, whatever you want to call it, you can't just add that in because it is looking at every aspect of your care and your team's approach to these parents differently. So I'm hoping parents and clinicians are not stopping listening to me at this point because It doesn't actually have to take a lot of work to make that shift. Number one, recognizing that burnout— there's so many reasons you can feel burnout. And if you're going to feel burned out, it's great if you're feeling burned out because you're getting lots of information about a different path to go on for your child, yourself, or your profession. But with burnout, it needs the proper viewpoint with the proper help, the proper mentorship that we've discussed. And knowing what your goals are and knowing that it might not just be burnout, it might be compassion fatigue. It might be your own trauma that you're carrying with you as a clinician or a parent to the situation. I just happened to get this very up-close personal look with an orthodontic case because I specialize in mostly children. At this point, I'm working 90% on— yeah, maybe 85% because I still have these other cases that I'm working on transitioning. 85%. of my cases are 12 or younger, which for a practicing orthodontist, for those that don't know, that is rare to be 12 and under because most of my cases are now starting in phase 1. So phase 1, my phase 1 varies between 3 to— you can still get some late-stage phase 1s at age 10. So going back to the burnout, I get to see as the clinician these families and what they're presenting. Wanting answers for their child and some just not being able to take everything on because it's too much weight for themselves.

Wow.

But then also a team member because sometimes they can react in just shutting down and sometimes they can be mean. And it's not that they're bad parents, they're just, they're overwhelmed looking for answers. And quite frankly, wouldn't all of us love to have one simple answer and we would have a thriving, happy child, a thriving, happy self and relationships. And if I find that out, I will tell you. But right now, after 20 years of being in dentistry, I was a general dentist prior to being an orthodontist. You just need to keep the goal in mind that health is ongoing and takes work every day. And there isn't anything good in life that doesn't take a little bit of work every day. And how much more joy you can get as a clinician and how much more joy you can get as a parent seeing continued improvement every day rather than waiting for some big symptom to then just get a bandaid.

Oh, that was so good. And I think it's so true and relatable. And I, when you first started talking, as you were talking, I was like, you're describing what we're calling the integrated therapist. It's a new, that's our new program that we're like combining for the clinicians. And I was just like, it's the person who understands like how to get into the weeds and how to inter— it's not just about the one That might be what brought the family to you. That might be the thing that the family's focused on fixing. They want that quick fix, which you're describing as there is really no quick fix. This is a journey. This is a process. We need to know that going in, and we all have to wrap our heads around anything worth fixing and improving is gonna take time and investment, both timewise, financially, mentally, emotionally, all the things, right? And the thing that I think is really interesting is you and I are both— we're having this conversation at the time when we just launched this thing out there, and we're basically saying, hey, and this is more to therapists doing the soft tissue work, right? The ones that are doing feeding or myo or speech or whatever. And we're looking at therapists who are recognizing that regulation, sensory processing, airway— I know it's not your favorite word anymore— oral function, their feeding history, their sleep, the muscle patterns, family stress, patient readiness. Like, all these things can influence how a child and family respond to treatment, right? And they don't work in isolation. Or we also can't assume that every setback is a compliance problem. Sometimes they are, but they aren't always, right? There's just so many variables and so much nuance. And so part of what we've been trying to teach these therapists outside of the clinical side is like, when we can look at everything and connect the dots and figure out what that holistic approach is, I feel like people use the term collaboration and holistic to mean I'm looking at these different things, or I'm referring to these other providers, or it's not just me on the team. And that's great, and we still need that, but it's so much more than that. That's just one piece of the puzzle, and people think it's the entire puzzle. We're coming to the table and going like, and this is why burnout happens, because if you're now case managing as a provider or even as a parent and you have all these different cooks in the kitchen and everyone's telling you something different, even if we think they're working together and you think you're doing the right thing by your child, it's exhausting. And as a parent, I can see why parents burn out. I was the parent who struggled to do myo with my own kid being the myotherapist. I get it, right? We're all human. But It's I think educating providers, at least on our end, that there are like we need to connect the dots. We need to see the patterns of how the muscles are moving. We need to figure out what the root is behind what's going on so we can take the right treatment approach. And that's more of like whole body, whole child, whole family, whole nervous system. That's the approach that we're really talking about, which is different than like it's integrative instead of just collaborative. We need collaborative too, but creative to mean it just means something so. Different to me. And I feel like that's where being that integrated therapist, that's part of what brought me back from feeling burnt out because I was trying to do it all. And when I finally stepped back and I was like, whoa, whoa, let's connect the dots. Let's figure out like what we think the root of this is. We may not know, but we probably can make a really good educated best guess as a team. And then let's try and tackle that together and prioritize like in what order we want to even approach the kid and maybe what we recommend. And let's not recommend everything at once. Let's try one or two things to start, right? It's just all, it's just a whole different way of doing the same thing to achieve maybe the same end result, but in a really nervous system loving way that doesn't burn everyone out. I don't know. So that's where like my brain was going as you were talking about some of this stuff because I was like, we get kids who they're struggling with an appliance, right? We don't deal with the appliances. So normally we would just send them back to the ortho or the dentist. And now we're starting to go, okay, We're not gonna— we're not dealing with the appliance directly here, but we can ask better questions. Why do we think this child is struggling with the appliance? Maybe it has nothing to do with the appliance itself, right? Just things like that. So I don't know, it just—

No, because there's so many stories I could share with that. So just starting with a simple one about appliance, I help my team realize that if a parent conversation is going down a slippery slope where the parent is starting to share all their dental anxiety, okay, Change. You gotta change the conversation in a fun way, not to be rude to the parent, but if they need to share their dental anxiety, it is not to their child.

Yeah.

They don't mean to, they don't mean to do it. It is, they're in a situation that is bringing up a lot of concerns, past concerns, current concerns, and oftentimes sharing it with the child that isn't that concerned until everything goes into their mind. I had, oh, she was such a precious little girl under 4. When she came back to get the appliance, though, many things shifted at home, and the parent went from working really well with me to all kinds of anxiety had bubbled up in this parent, and then put the blame on me, saying, just get that thing in her mouth. That's what I'm paying you for, which is not the conversations we had previously. She didn't want to Opened up to me away from the child, left very much upset, fully at me. If I hadn't done my work on myself of not being able to take on other people's— I felt bad because I want to help this little one, but also there are some things that I'm not the best person to help with. I could get that in there, but I'm not going to take a child who before was fine, now is in the chair, How she was being rewarded from the parent was a big shift from before. So from being rewarded once you actually like, okay, let's take a moment and let's lay back down, then let's take one thing at a time, to almost like a threatening, but then also giving the reward before the behavior. So in a 6-week period of time, things drastically changed. Things had come up for the parent that then got onto that child, and the child Like all of us wanted the things that she wanted. And it's not like she came in and like she really wanted her pretty sparkly butterfly because we were calling it a butterfly and her appliance looked like a pretty sparkly butterfly. She wanted all these other things that she got and didn't have to fulfill. She didn't have to lay back down. She didn't have to let us get the cone beam. And that is not something I can tackle. I can't change that. Obviously there needs to be more support for that parent that brought her in. That wasn't how she had talked to me before. And you have to understand as a parent that we're not judging. We understand that, hey, stuff is going on, but I also can't— I gotta work within what's best for the patient. And then you gotta find what you need. And if this is causing you a lot of anxiety for your child, then it's not best for your child. Because if you're gonna be always upset or very anxious, is this always— Is this gonna hurt? Is this gonna hurt? Is this gonna hurt? You're putting it into that child's mind that it could potentially hurt. Let's work on these conversations outside of the room before you bring the child back. While the child is— we've got these color pads. That's the time. And you need your team to also realize and understand that they're not being difficult. They're just overwhelmed. And it's not just with our office. In 6 weeks, a lot of things can happen. We shared before this about when you lose someone that you love, when things just are hard at home. There's so many things that can drastically change a home dynamic that can become a hurdle in success. So why do I not like the term airway? Let's address that before we go further. Yes. It shifted. I was never really a huge fan of being called an airway orthodontist because I didn't feel my patients would really understand and resonate with that if they hadn't already been seeking out these answers. If they just heard, oh, why is Dr. Katherine Murphy an airway orthodontist? What does that mean? I didn't feel like it resonated right away with those that weren't already seeking out this care. And I felt then it was still narrowing dentistry into numbers. And I didn't want to go down this path of health, like actually treating these crooked teeth as a symptom of underlying causes and still just looking for straight numbers. Oh, I need this margin to then go with this kind of crown. When I was a general dentist, I don't want just numbers. You gotta see how the whole child and whole family unit is reacting, right? And I felt airway was very much like, we need the palate width to be this. Then on the cone beam, we need to be the airway this way, except we also had the understanding airway, how you're measuring it standing is gonna be different than when you're sleeping versus are they mid-swallow, after swallow, getting ready to swallow? There's so many factors that again, just lead us to the same problem that I feel in orthodontics number-wise. And numbers is what got us into this situation where if there's 4 millimeters of crowding or more, start evaluating if extracting Why don't we look at the patient's jaw and see what's going on with them and why they're even having this amount of crowding rather than just, again, looking at black and white concerns? It does seem easier, right? Oh, someone hasn't reached this, we just need to get them to that. But not everyone actually needs 42 millimeters of width. Okay. Not everyone is gonna be at the same considerable concern if they are at 28. You've gotta look at where that patient is. Because again, I've had patients that have huge, what you would call airways, but they're dysregulated. And so they're breathing, they can't breathe calmly in the chaotic environment. And oftentimes they're in a constant chaotic environment that leads them to shallow breathe because they're in a stressful situation. So just getting them to the numbers doesn't mean you've— succeeded in helping them actually establish the breathing through their nose, tongue up to the roof of their mouth. Because you've seen it too, they can have a 42-millimeter wide palate, they can even have their tongue, and it can— but what is causing them to not get that tongue up there and stay up there? So that's what the dysregulation— you can't have that healing happen without connection. You've got to connect before you correct. So that's why airway, long story short, has not been the term I've resonated best with. Patient-centered care is really probably best because I love holistic, but I have had too many parents come in and say, oh, I love the holistic approach because I don't want any appliances in there. And I said, that's fantastic. We've got myofunctional therapy, we've got OT, we've got PT, we've got all kinds of things that don't put appliances in there that will help. But if you want me, I will be putting appliances in. But they— and they will look shocked and I will understand. Term can then lead you to think that I would not need to do something invasive, because it is. You are putting metal and plastic, or just plastic depending on what you do, into someone's mouth. And whether or not it's fixed or removable, it's going to be in there for a majority of the time. And that you are then creating a different environment. Okay. I remind them all, if you've ever built a home, renovated a home, even just rearranged your furniture in your room, It's going to be chaotic for a little while, but then you know in the end it's going to be better. They resonate with that. They're like, okay, yes, it's— it'll be short-term. The shorter the better. The more compliance that we can get, the shorter-term things need to be in there. I don't want to be in treatment longer. You're— you don't want to be. You don't want as many appointments. So let's do what we can. But yes, I will be putting something in your child's mouth if you want my help. And if I'm not what you want. And so I've referred so many patients to start with myo before me.

Yeah.

Because it's going to help the patient, it's going to help the outcome, and it's going to help get the whole family prepared because this isn't your traditional orthodontics where you drop off your child, you pick them up a half hour later, and you go home.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. It's interesting too, because when my girls in this current phase of ortho that they're in, When they fixed appliances, they came out. Now they're in Invisalign, and this should hopefully be the end for both of them. But who knows? Who knows? Hallie's turning 11 in a month, and yeah, Mia's 8 and a half. So I'm like, if we could be done for both of them, that'd be great. The crazy thing is my younger one, her palate is much wider than my older one, right? Yeah. And I think it just goes to show, and it speaks to the shape of their skull and how much room they need for their tongue and what it wasn't measured to. Like you're saying, everyone needs a certain amount in their mouth, and For a while I was like, why is hers— and I can just— you can see it. You can hold the Invisalign up. And Lily also has a lot more Invisalign trays to go over what Mia has. So who knows if we're like advancing towards what Mia has width-wise. I don't know. But either way, functionally, they're much improved, right? And at this point, I'm like, even if they didn't have any more Invisalign trays, I just think function— I look at function, right? Functional. While I know there's a lot of terms that get thrown around, like a biological dentist or holistic orthodontist or dentist, or functional or that. I really love functional for me. And I love what you said with the patient-centered care because I think that's what we should all be working towards is putting the patient at the center, right? That should be driving every single decision that we do. And so just like you, when people say to me, they're like, what do you do first? Do you go to the orthodontist first and you expand first and then you go into myo? And I'm like, it depends. They're always like, what do you mean it depends? I'm like, if you have someone coming to your office and you do an evaluation or a consult, By the end of that, you should have determined what's best for them based on their goals, their needs, how they're presenting. What do you feel? And they're like, what do you mean? It's just like a feeling you get. And I'm like, if you're tapped in, if your nervous system is regulated, yeah, it is. Yeah, I'm collecting data. And so I'm going to have some hard evidence and like reasons why I'm recommending what I'm recommending. But I can tell you pretty quickly within like minutes of meeting somebody, like what I'm probably going to be recommending. By the end, I'm then just collecting the data to support that decision throughout because I see what's going on. I hear why they're here. I'm asking them, how can I help you? What are like— what is the primary reason you're here? What do you know? Different people have different goals. We've worked with adults as well, and I've had adults come in and say, I don't want an appliance. I don't want a tongue tie release. I just don't want this to get any worse. Can you help me? Okay, that's going to look very different than an adult that comes in and says, I'm getting a Marpi. I need you to help me prep beforehand and let's work on myo to the point that I really can't advance any further. Then I'm going to get my Marpi. Then I'm going to come back to you after my Marpi comes out and I'm in clear aligners, and we're going to work on the next steps in myo and making sure everything is where it's supposed to be and functioning the way it's supposed to function. Okay. 2 very different approaches, right? And the same goes for kids. It's going to look very different. Does the kid have an appliance that blocks the palate? Typically, we're not going to be able to do too much while there's a big appliance blocking the way. We can work on some things. Mm-hmm. It's compensatory to a certain degree because once that appliance is out, we have a whole different amount of space in there that the tongue needs to function in, right? So will we do it if the parent's like, we don't want to stop, we want to keep seeing you? Okay, maybe we decrease how frequently we see them, we do more check-ins. But again, it depends on every case. So people are like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? And I'm like, depends on the case, the kid, the reason they're here, the adult, the parent, all the things. So many variables.

Intuition is so Misunderstood and underrated because intuition is really having all of your experiences then be able to quickly come to light. It's often dismissed because it is something that you feel, and they're like, oh, it's just a feeling. Except, number one, why are we— why are we downplaying a feeling? Because that's ultimately all of us. Everything that we do—

Yeah.

Is to feel Better. Every single person either buys something, is going to your healthcare provider, doing something to feel better. So feelings are actually our top thing. And intuition, it is all the things that you can see. How many things are coming into our brain? How many is it? It's like over 1,000, right? When I listen to the podcast, like from Andrew Huberman, we are processing so much information. And the more that you can get in tune and be in the moment, be present with your patient, the more you can take in all of that information. Your brain subconsciously already knows these checkpoints that you've put in and you can move forward. So we need to tap into that for ourselves as parents and ourselves as clinicians. And the only way we can do that is to understand What it means to be in that moment for all of us. If you're a parent and you've got other children with you at a consult and they're pulling at you and you're trying to focus on what the therapist is saying or the doctor, you have— it's tough, right? If you're a clinician and you're going in and you have someone saying, okay, you need to be out in 5 minutes, you got a phone call, you've got this, and you didn't do this before, you're like, oh, you've got all this junk in your head. But it doesn't take that much to then Be able to leave that out the door before you walk in. As a parent, spend a little bit more time preparing. Okay, what can my other kids be doing? Or asking the team members, what can be done? Is there something my kids can do? So understand, I want to say for at least in our office, I would say for most offices, if you as a parent are feeling overwhelmed and you want to be in that moment listening and you have other distractions, please let us know how we can help you. Okay. Just the more that we, especially as women, are more prone to ask for help, you will get better results. Ask, do you have a book my kids can listen to? Can you write this down? What can be done so I can listen to you better? And as the clinician, you— that's why your whole team has to understand, don't bombard me with something right before I'm going into a patient. That can wait. The patient is my top focus right now. And yes, if I only have X amount of minutes, But let those X amount of minutes be totally for this patient and their family right now. And that goes to compassion fatigue, the burnout, all of that. You will be better as a provider if you can have those boundaries with yourself first. You have to set them and then set them with your team. But it also starts with whatever your family dynamic is, because if you don't have children, you might be doing this for your own parents at this point. You might be doing this for Your pet. The more you work on it yourself, then you can carry it over. The more regulated our system is as a parent, it'll be better for advocating for our patient or advocating for a child as a provider. The more boundaries you have set, the better you are as a doctor, but also it's going to roll over into other caring too. So I love when people ask me if I am a better parent because of my profession. I'm like, actually, my profession. Bone gets so much more from me than my kids get a bonus from me because, wow, I want to be such a great advocate for my kids. I had to learn and get rid of so much of stuff that was ingrained in me of how to practice. And by getting rid of all of that stuff to be a better parent, it made me— I'll just say it made me a better provider, in my opinion. I feel better about the care I'm able to give. I understand my boundaries, my limits, that then lets me work collaboratively better and know to not take on what isn't mine. And so this is a message to both parents and clinicians. Everyone wants to be your answer. We want to help. Anyone going into healthcare wants to help you as much as they can, but we can't do it all. Just like as parents, we can't do it all. We need help. Now, the help might look different from if it's grandparents or friends or a nanny. But we need help. We need that support because if you're trying to do it all, you have nothing left for yourself. And so dentists, orthodontists know that there's so many courses telling you should be able to do, tap into CFT, CST on your patient. Great, if you want to, fantastic. But also there are people that is their genius. Send the patient to them. Parents, if you have a provider that such as me, is also trained in myo, don't expect us to also do the myo. Go to someone who can sit down with your patient in a different setting and work on something that's vastly different than your orthodontic care. Just because I'm trained in it doesn't mean it's my genius. I'm trained in it so I can best support my patients and better communicate with my providers. Come to us and expect us to give you the best of what we are great at. And then know, yeah, you might have to add something else, but it will ultimately free up more time because you will feel better, your patient will feel better, and you're going to get a better result from someone working within their genius zone.

Yeah, no, I— and I love that because again, I think it goes back to what you were saying, like healthy boundaries, right? And it makes you a better provider. And I have to say, I also feel like my kids made me a better provider. Like they unlearned a lot of what I was taught, helped— they helped me start to see things through a different lens where I really didn't have a choice because it was happening to me and with me and for me, whether I wanted it to or not, right? And so it was a beautiful thing because it also shifted my perspective as a parent, like living something firsthand that I had no control— I couldn't control like what was being dropped into my lap. I could control how I responded to that. And I think that's what really opened my eyes. And after having certain experiences with my own children and going like, Why am I the case manager? Why am I having to research things? Why is this not working? Traditional medicine is failing in this situation. And I just became this like, I, and I'm very pro like medicine, but I am Eastern and Western and I believe in marrying the two. And I believe I like to do the least invasive, most gut supporting, nervous system supporting approach first before we go to more drastic measures. But I really think that it made me a more of an integrated human where I really learned to trust my intuition going back to like what you were talking about. With intuition and realizing I was a really intuitive person and never really used that word prior to probably 2019. But for me, it was like a lot of pattern recognition. It was like the ability to notice that something is not fully fitting or working or like, and I couldn't always clearly explain why, but then through like experience and observation and repetition and just again, seeing those patterns repeated across like the patients I was working with, the families, my own children, systems, whatever, my brain was just like collecting, like you said, we collect so much information so fast. We can't always put it into words immediately, but like, you just know and you're like, something is off, right? And that to me was like the beginning of stronger clinical reasoning, not absence of it. Right. And it was, for me, the mistake would've been like either ignoring my intuition completely or just treating intuition as like proof. And I really started to respect how I was feeling. And then I used that, I would investigate, right? I'd go down these rabbit holes and that really had me asking different questions. Okay, what am I seeing? Is there a pattern that's making me pause? It was that pattern recognition for me. And then what information do I need that's going to help me either confirm what I'm— what I think I'm seeing, what I'm believing, or that's even going to challenge this and prove my intuition wrong in a sense? And again, going back to what you were saying, is this within my scope or do I need to collaborate or refer, right? Whether it was for my own kid or another patient. And I think so many people downplay intuition because they don't yet have the full explanation. And I just think that we should all learn how to better trust ourselves and our intuition, especially as providers working with these patients, seeing repeated patterns over and over again. I would see patterns in patients and I would see things that I was afraid to say out loud because I would get ripped apart in a Facebook group because there was no evidence to support what I was actually seeing happen in my own child or my patients, right? And I'm like, Okay. 'Cause human experience is not part of it. It's part of the evidence-based triangle, but that's fine. You can believe what you wanna believe. But yeah, it was just very interesting. And intuition is not, was not necessarily a diagnosis either. It was just more of an invitation to pay attention and to dive deeper. Right. And from that though, like when you were talking about the healthy boundaries too, I really feel like that also made me a better provider. And I started coaching, especially female clinicians. And I call it coaching now. I call it mentorship, but it was coaching more so back in 2014 when I opened my practice. And everyone's like, how did you have so much success so quickly? I'm like, cuz I'm really intuitive and I listen to my patients. And that really threw me into having a lot of financial success before I even had an online business. And I was coaching private practice owners and I started to see the pattern there, right? Was okay, like you said, we're all in the helping profession. We all are here, we wanna help, but we all give so much of ourselves where we become so burnt out and we don't have these healthy boundaries. And I saw at that point, that was like the very early stages, like pre, pre-pandemic where everyone was talking about having healthy work-life balance. And I was like, this is BS. There is no such thing as balance. I was like, there's healthy boundaries. And so I started coaching women in business. I was like, stop saying you want healthy work-life boundaries because you get to choose what that looks like. Yours is going to look different from somebody else's. If you want to call it that, that's fine. But I'm like, I don't like that term. I was like, what we need to define are our boundaries and how that's going to make us a better provider. And what are your boundaries at home? What are your boundaries at work? What are your boundaries with your patients? And I think that's where, like, when you are super clear on what they are, then you can communicate that better to others, then they can respect it. But if you're not clear on it, you can't expect anybody else to respect your boundaries, then there won't be any. And that's where we get into trouble, right? And that's where you start to have a lot of this burnout and the fatigue and everything you were talking about. So anyways, another whole tangent, but I was like, this is so good and bringing up so much.

I love how you said that because my goal, I had called my private practice In Harmony Orthodontics because it really has to, everything has to work in harmony. Together, but not just with how your mouth functions, but life. You cannot expect things to be fully balanced. Everything has to work in harmony, like a symphony. Sometimes you want to just hear— no, I love the symphony, but my friend who's the— oh, the maestro, he's going to be so upset. So sometimes you just want to hear the violins, so the strings, but then other times you want to hear more of the brass. But then when it all works together, it's beautiful. But it wouldn't be a good symphony if it was the whole time was everything working all the same, right? So in life, sometimes, like right now, my kids are at camp and I'm giving 100% to you. Other times my phone is upside down, I'm giving 100% to my kids. It has to work in harmony together. I can't be having my kids over here and talking to you. That would be balance, giving you 5 minutes Then hit them 5 minutes. So it's in harmony. We have to have our body in harmony. We have to have our life in harmony. Being present in the moment allows our brains to be in harmony so that we can work within our nervous system and be more calm. Because what gets us out of our calm is having to pay attention to everything else and not what's in front of us. And if we would trust our children more, our children are really intuitive. Our children can be truly the most in the moment. If we would sit back and watch them more and trust them more. Yes, we need to guide them, but relearn what it is like to be fully in the moment, not have to think, okay, in 5 minutes I'm not gonna be able to play with this anymore. I'm gonna have to go over here. They don't wanna hear that. They wanna just be able to play. Just let them play. And sometimes they only wanna play with it for a few minutes and then move on. We get to step back and learn from Our kids, learn from our patients. Stop trying to then put fears into the children that they don't have yet. They can trust the provider and really help enable that trust. But if you don't trust the provider, then don't keep taking your child there no matter what. Don't take your child to someplace that your child doesn't feel comfortable, but also recognize, are you making them feel uncomfortable? Because if it's every office, then it might not be the provider. What's the conversation before you're going into the office? Because if you are just anxious and you're not able to be sitting back, watching, really seeing what's going on between your child and the provider, then you're not really able to best advocate for them. Be there with your child, take a step back, see how they interact. Ask your child, what'd you think? What'd you think? And let them Answer. Let them say, yeah, that was cool, or I love asking my patients the questions and talking directly to them. But, Hallie, can I tell you how many parents have actually been really upset, went to the owner of the office and said, do you know that Dr. Murphy, she was talking to my child about her brushing? She should be talking to me about her brushing. The child was 14 years old.

Oh my gosh, I thought you were gonna say 3 or 4 or 5. No. I appreciate when a provider talks to the child and gives the child the opportunity to be part of the conversation, fully knowing they may not even have the answer when they are really little, but they ask them and then they kind of say, hey, do you wanna— you can check with mom or dad. When they kind of turn, it's like, mom, dad, can you tell us more about X, right? I just feel like it's a full experience. You gotta include them, not just talk over them. But at 14, come on.

At 14, she went and talked with the owner of the practice and said how disrespectful that was to her as the parent and how that was putting way too much pressure on the 14-year-old to be talking with her about her brushing.

Okay.

And it— that's not— it's not the first time I've had others where they're like, she's talking to my child, I'm the parent, why is she talking to the child? She should be talking to me. I'm like, And I've said, maybe this isn't the practice for you because this is all going on in this child's mouth. So when I come in like, hey, Patrick, how is this going? Like, how is everything feeling? Do you feel anything different? Any questions? They're upset that I'm first addressing my patient. But again, that is because they're feeling insecure about the situation. They're feeling overwhelmed. And they probably needed the support At that young of an age that they didn't get, and they're hoping I will give it to them, and I will. But right now, this is my center because I want to hear it from them. And they could also be concerned that maybe the turning isn't going well, maybe the compliance isn't going well, and what the patient will say. Parents, please understand that we are here to support you, and if things aren't going well, we can figure out what Can be done to help. And maybe that is just, again, okay, so what steps are just making it feel too much? And we can work through it because I get it. This shouldn't be looked at another thing on your plate of things to do. Rather, when we're talking about if it's orthodontics and myo and whatever other therapies they might need to support, this is actually helping. So we take care of these things now so it doesn't get more difficult. Because that's the one thing I think we can all agree on, is as we age, if you've ignored the problem, it just takes more effort to address it the longer you wait.

Oh yeah.

You can still address it.

Yeah.

But it just takes— it takes more, and it takes more time, and often a heck of a lot more money. You're being a little bit excessive. A Marpie is a lot more expensive than interceptive ortho at age 5.

Yep. Yep. And I had my traditional ortho when I was younger and it was not this type of ortho that we're talking about. So it really just went to straighten my teeth, not to support function. So here I am having just had my Marpie taken out a couple months ago and I'm in clear aligners for the next year plus. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Been there. I can confirm.

Yeah. So intuition, trusting our kids, taking a step back, letting our kids really help guide us and really Help, help remember what it feels like, because sometimes we just need that little reminder. And I do try. And so for parents, I'm sorry if I haven't fully supported you with this, but I really try to be like, you know your child the best. You truly do. And no parent ever needs to be perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. But there is such a thing as a regulated parent. And the more regulated we are, the better we can be. And just as all your podcasts, all of your guests, we all say there's so many things going against our children. There's so many things that went against us, so many things that are bombarding us that make our nervous system dysregulated. And so that's, that is just part of being in 2026. But there are answers and that's why my big push now is Self-care program that is geared toward clinicians right now, because that's who I, I want to help more clinicians work longer so they don't retire early because they're burned out. But ultimately, I would love for it to also carry over into all the parents I work with. It's just 3 minutes. 3 minutes a day can really reset everything because we don't need to have huge self-care days. Those are great if you can do that. Fantastic. But we need something that's every single day to help us reset ourselves so we can get this reset I love

that. I love that. So if someone wants to work with you, if they're like, oh my gosh, I am so dysregulated, I need your help. Now, are you working with parents as well who are dysregulated, or are you really focusing just on the clinicians and doc medical professionals?

Great question. Thank you. Right now what I'm working on is I'm working on more focus with my clinicians so they can keep working because I'm seeing so many beloved clinicians retire because of the burnout, the compassion fatigue, the moral injury from it all. So right now I'm preparing to launch courses that they can take. They can also work with me one-on-one and a book to support that. And once I get my clinicians that can then keep helping these families, we'll take it to one-on-one with the families. I was doing that one-on-one with the parents. I have put that on pause for right now to be able to be more with my children.

That's totally fair. As we talked about boundaries, there's like certain things that— projects that I'm like, oh, we should do this, right? And the team's like, we are working on this, we're going to launch that, then we're going to tweak this that we already have that we discussed that we were going to update first, and then we're going to do this, and then maybe let's come back in like Q4 and discuss that. I'm like, okay, fine. But also I like super appreciate them because it's like leading a team and it's like wanting to make sure everybody stays regulated, that people are not taking on too much, that they're not burnt out so we can all function at our best, be present for our families when we want to be present. And I'm right there with you this summer. I have just been like, I was thinking this in the kitchen last night as I was like making dinner. I was like, Like, I just love summer. I love when we are not on a school schedule. And like, yeah, we have a camp schedule. It just feels like way more laid back. I don't know, it just feels like, oh, we get to travel, maybe have more time for the family. And I'm like, I was sitting there in my head being like, how do I get this feeling like 12 months all the time? All the time. Like, how do I make it? And my kids are switching to a different school this fall and they don't do any homework and they'll be done at 3:30. So I'm like, okay, This might be it. Maybe I found the solution. I don't know because it's so fun for me when they're around and I can just stop working. And my youngest one loves to cook and bake and I hate cooking, but I like baking. So, I'm like, but I'm cooking again because she wants me to be her sous chef. So, I'm in the kitchen to do the things that she can't do yet. And I'm like, but it's made it fun. And I'm like, this is what I want to do. I want to be present with my kids when they're this age and the They're at such a fun age that I'm like trying to be so cognizant of when those moments can happen and how to keep them built in and protect— keep those boundaries, right? So that I can actually do these things that like light me up. I'm like, because that makes me a better mom, that makes me a better business owner and leader and clinician and like all the things. And so I love what you're doing. I've, I have hired people in the past literally just to help me tap back into my intuition because I was like, I feel like I'm so out of line. Mm-hmm. And I had hired somebody earlier this year even, and all of a sudden it was like this person was like, and you should do this and you should do that and you should do this and you should do that. And I was like, oh yeah, this sounds so fun. And then I was so overwhelmed and I was like, oh, I'm not an anxious person, I don't get overwhelmed easily. I was like, I need to take 10 steps back and really tap back in and see what it is that Hallie is feeling called to do, not what someone else— because I'm not this externally referenced person, I'm very internally referenced. I know in my knowing, in my being, right? And so it was It was just so interesting. And it was such— I was like, okay, universe, all right, 2026, I see the challenges you're throwing at me. I see what you're trying to do. You're trying to knock me off my game. No, but I was very easily able to go like, you know what, we're just gonna go back to the original drawing board, what I said we were gonna do in 2026. And that just opened up so much space again.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, it was that easy. It was that easy to get back to feeling regulated and having time for the kids. And if I wanna just go to the beach today, we could just Go to the beach today, or I can work, or I can do this. And so it's really fun when you have that, that regulation intact and you know your boundaries, right? It's so good. So you guys all need to work with Kathy because we— everybody needs this.

It is the space. We need our kids to have space and ourselves. And so I love that you found a school with no homework for kids. I might have to move to Florida because that's my only thing against my kids' school is my— I just don't feel kids need to have more to do after they've been away at school all day. They get to go explore and just be outside, take the class, like my swim class, all that kind of stuff, do those things. And so I love that. And it just also reminded me in my newsletter I'm preparing. So if anyone wants to connect with me, I would love to have you connect with me. My newsletter does go out monthly and it's not trying to sell anything to you. It is just truly as parent to parent, but also a clinician to parent. Getting prepared for school. Like, how do we get prepared to then go from this fun summer to making school— it is fun. It is so wonderful to learn, but it's so much more wonderful when there's space. So I love that your girls will not be having homework. And I— that's a hill that's a different part of my life, but I would love to speak loudly about no homework for kids.

Yes. Yes. And this whole model, we can talk after we— everyone's gonna be like, wait, what was this conversation? But it's, it's a whole pivot on traditional schooling. They'll be in school normal hours. But it's a whole different approach and I'm super excited cuz I think it's gonna be just so supportive of them stepping into learning life skills and really working at their own pace where their academics are and not being either pigeonholed into the classroom based on everybody else in the classroom and/or figuring out where they need support so we can properly give them support where they need it. Right. And so just, it's really exciting. It helps them shine where they shine, helps give support where needed, and then teaches them a lot of these life skills that I think we've really lost. Even as adults, we don't have a lot of these skills. And so I'm like very, I'm just very excited for them to, and then be done at 3:30, have no homework. And it's, yeah.

And tap into their intuition even more because they'll have the space.

Exactly. Meanwhile, my daughter is, she's, she really didn't wanna go to summer camp this summer because she's in middle school, going into middle school. All of her friends did sleepaway. She didn't like sleepaway. That was 2 years ago. So she's doing a couple one-week camps here and there, and then we're doing some travel, but she's creating a business. And she has the space to do that. And she's been talking about wanting to do it forever. And she finally— and she's created a little small business that made soaps and sold them at a kid market and stuff like that. But this is an online business that she could actually build into something real. And I'm like, and now you'll have the school to support that, the space after school. And this is not something that just has to end when you go back to school at the end of the summer. So it's just really cool to see. And she's so intuitive, but she doesn't know that's what it is. So it's really cool to see this play out in kids, like you said, just watching them and letting them be kids and letting them drive their own ship in a sense. And not really— I try not to stand in the way because it's really cool to see what they do when you let them.

It really then— this whole conversation circles back to what can happen when you have a regulated nervous system.

Yes.

When a child feels secure in themselves, because we really need to trust what they say. They might not always— when they're not feeling right, they might not know how to verbalize it. So we need to learn to ask more questions, not just no. Because I've also had parents say, he doesn't have headaches. I'm like, let's find out what he feels is a headache. And sometimes they will point to, my head hurts here, or sometimes they'll like, it's here. I'm like, it is part of your head. Yeah. So let's investigate. So is that a sore tooth versus what we consider as an adult a headache here or here. But if he's pointing here, let's ask more questions. And when you're not trying to always fall into what someone else thinks you have to say or feel or how you have to describe it, you then get to flourish. And your daughter's being able to have time after school with their mom who just adores them and wants to see them seek out their creativity. They're going to learn way more than if they were doing homework, and our kids are going to thrive more When they feel comfortable that they're going to be healthier. No one knows what it's like to feel— if they've felt dysregulated, they don't know what it can feel like until you set the stage. And then once they feel good, remind them that this is how you're supposed to feel so that subconscious feels safe, because the subconscious is going to want to take them back in. So it all comes full circle. They need to have that space to feel comfortable, the support to know that you can feel good and should feel good every day, and that each provider is just doing their part to help get your child and yourself to be there. So take space for yourself, take space for your children. I love it all. I love how that ended on your daughters. So thank you so much for sharing that, and I love that you are doing more mentoring. So I wish we could just talk for like another 5 hours.

Just keep going all day. But tell— so where do you want everybody to reach out to you? So if they do want to work with you, tell us where to find you.

Instagram's the best. You can also go to my website, Dr. Catherine Murphy. It's C-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E for Catherine dot com. If my website resonates with you, connect with me through the newsletter. Let me know if you want to work on one. My coordinator will put you on a list and then we can connect. I will always chat. My coordinator's really good at then letting me know who might need some extra help just right now, and I will help you as I can. But thank you. I'm just so happy to be here.

Thanks for joining me. Quick disclaimer: All information, content, and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and serves as the informational purposes only, and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots Air. Weight and feeding-related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer at halliebulkin.com or pop over to @holliebulkin on Instagram to get all the latest updates.