The Steps to Starting a Successful Full Arch Practice w/ Dr. Soren Paape

In this episode of Let's Talk Teeth, Dr. Soren Paape shares his journey in dentistry, from his education at Marquette University to becoming a partner at SmileNow Dental Group. Dr. Paape talks about his passion for implant dentistry, his experience with dental surgeries, and the business side of running a dental practice. He also discusses the importance of gaining hands-on experience during dental school, the benefits of digital dentistry, and offers valuable advice for dental students interested in full arch implant dentistry. Tune in for insights on navigating dental school, the challenges of dental surgery, and the future of digital implant practices.

Be sure to follow Dr. Paape on Instagram @drsorenpaape and listen into their podcast @thefixedpodcast 

00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Dr. Soren Paape

00:28 Dr. Paape's Educational Background

00:49 Current Practice and Day-to-Day Work

01:14 Journey into Implant Dentistry

02:14 Business Side of Dentistry

03:35 Gaining Experience During Dental School

05:33 First Year of Professional Work

10:21 Challenges and Learning Curves

14:58 Guided vs. Freehand Implant Placement

18:19 Understanding Implant Failures

20:11 Introducing Smile Now Dental Group

21:44 Digital Advancements in Implant Dentistry

25:46 Ownership and Business Model

29:33 Advice for Dental Students

35:44 Continuing Education and Professional Growth

37:32 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Transcript

Welcome and Introduction to Dr. Soren Paape

Saad Alamgir 0:08

Guys, welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk Teeth. Today we have the one and only Dr. Soren Paape. Dr. Paape, if you don't mind just kinda introducing yourself, where you went to school, what you're doing now, and we could kind of just go from there.

Dr. Paape's Educational Background

Current Practice and Day-to-Day Work

Journey into Implant Dentistry

Soren Paape 0:21

Yeah, absolutely. Guys. Thanks for having me. you know, it's been great working with you guys. If the listeners don't know these guys help us out on the fixed podcast. So I was I happily extended a hand to jump on their podcast as well. But yeah, my name is Dr. Soren Paape. I went to at Marquette. That's where I went to grad school. Prior to that, I went to UW Madison for undergrad. So, lived in Wisconsin my whole life. And I really enjoyed my time at Marquette Dental. And that's where I got a lot of the experience doing what I do now. Right now, I currently am a partner and smile now dental group. It's me, Tyler Tolbert and Dr. Caleb Stott. And we are at 6 offices right now. And then opening up, I think 3 to 4 more next

Victor Razi 1:14

Nice.

Soren Paape 1:15

So hopefully ending 2025 at around 10 locations,

Victor Razi 1:18

Yeah. Sweet. That's crazy, man.

Soren Paape 1:20

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. But what I do day to day our clinic is all implants. So, it's really like, like replacing teeth, right? So we do dentures, snap ins all on fours, which really in our kind of what we've done is all of our cases we do all on six. So I'm basically placing six implants every time. But that's where I focused my dental career too. And I really enjoy it. You know, I had spent a lot of time at Marquette and I was talking to these guys before the episode started, but I had spent a lot of time at Marquette just working in all the different departments to figure out what what kind of dentistry I love to do. And that happened to be surgery. So I worked really hard then my 4th year of dental school, just getting as much surgical experience as I could. And then as soon as I came out of school I jumped into an implant office and kind of Took it away from there.

Business Side of Dentistry

Victor Razi 2:09

Nice. So, so Warren, what made you jump the gun and go kind of on the full arch wave after you graduated? So you worked in an office and what made you want to do it on your own at this point?

Soren Paape 2:20

Yeah. For sure. So I mean, I always was really into the business side of dentistry. I knew I never wanted to work for somebody that was never kind of in the cards for me. So, initially kind of like my first year dental school, I was all about all about, like, getting as much business information as I could. So I would, like, take CE courses around dental business. I read, like, every single business book under the sun. And I was really, like, Going that

Victor Razi 2:50

Right.

Soren Paape 2:50

So I wanted to buy an, a GP, like when I was like, first starting with dental school, I was planning on just like buying a GP office out of

Victor Razi 2:57

Right.

Gaining Experience During Dental School

Soren Paape 2:58

And then I kind of fell down the OS train for a little bit. So, like, D1 was oh, I'm going to do dental business. And then D2, I was like, actually, I think I'm going to go take the CVSE, go do OS and take that route. So, like. My D two year was all studying for the CBSE. It was like focusing on, you know, staying in the top, top percentiles of the class to make sure that I kind of could get into the O. S. But then I kind of hit a point at the end of D two where I was like I don't know if I don't know if I want to do more, like, four more years of didactic schoolwork. And just like knowing myself to that four probably would have been six cause I probably would have done the med program,

Victor Razi 3:40

Right.

Soren Paape 3:41

And I was like, I just don't know if that's kind of what I want to do. So instead, what I did was I started working for Dr. Richard Lowe, who at the time was kind of in the process of transitioning into a new style of practice. So, so he was kind of like doing the implant indenture thing. And I helped him start his first office in, in Indianapolis. So basically my D3 year was helping him get that office off the ground. And it was actually driving from Milwaukee to Indiana. to do all of his conversions for him. So I was doing all of the, he plays all Would come in and do the full prosthetic part. So I would place all the multi units

Victor Razi 4:27

Right. Right. For

Soren Paape 4:29

convert it into the denture and do that whole workflow. So I was getting a lot of a lot of prosthetic experience when I was a D3. But just, I mean, like, you know, I don't know who your guys's main listeners are, if they're dental students or people out in the real world, but if they are dental students like to get that experience, like, it just doesn't fall on your lap,

Victor Razi 4:49

sure.

Soren Paape 4:50

Like, you have to be super disciplined with getting that experience. And I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

Victor Razi 4:56

Right.

Soren Paape 4:56

instead of waiting for it to come to me, like, I was actively reaching out. Probably to the point of it annoying, like being annoying

Victor Razi 5:03

Yeah.

Soren Paape 5:04

be

Saad Alamgir 5:04

Right?

Soren Paape 5:04

I need to get this experience. Or I need, I really want to work with you. But, you know, I also was taking a lot of sacrifices.

Victor Razi 5:10

Right.

Soren Paape 5:11

working with Dr low I would wake up at 5 a. m. every day. Have an hour meeting with him from 5 to 6 to make sure we're like, we were planning out like, his whole

Victor Razi 5:19

Right.

Soren Paape 5:20

And then I was doing like, your traditional, like, clinical load and studying for exams and stuff after that. And then on the weekends, I was driving to Indiana to fricking do conversions at his office.

First Year of Professional Work

Victor Razi 5:32

Doing it all, man.

Soren Paape 5:33

so, so, like, yeah, it's really about, like, you know, if you want that experience, you got to go out there and get it, but expect to work

Victor Razi 5:40

Right.

Soren Paape 5:40

So, basically going into D4, then I knew, like, okay, I really want to get a lot of surgical experience and I wanted to kind of, like, follow in this path of dentistry. So I just worked on, I ended up working under an oral surgeon for that D4 year. And the reason I was able to do that was because I really stepped on the gas my D3 year and got all my clinical requirements done after my

Victor Razi 6:05

Nice.

Soren Paape 6:06

year at Marquette, and this is different for every school, but usually there's in, in every single, like, dental student I've worked with, there's some way to get more

Victor Razi 6:14

Right.

Soren Paape 6:15

But in Marquette in particular, if you finished all your requirements in time they allowed you to work outside of the clinic under one of their, they had, like, certain doctors that,

Victor Razi 6:24

I see.

Soren Paape 6:25

that like would allow students to come work under their under the school's license. But under

Victor Razi 6:31

I see.

Soren Paape 6:32

okay? So I chose an oral surgeon. So basically I was just rounding out of a bunch of hospitals in Milwaukee taking out teeth every day all day for that whole year. And that really prepared me. That on top of doing the prosthetic stuff from

Victor Razi 6:47

For sure.

Soren Paape 6:48

for getting into the more like full mouth reconstruction type of implant dentistry. but, yeah, when I finished school, I was totally confident in my abilities, and I knew that I could jump in and do a pretty good job by myself.

Victor Razi 7:03

Yeah that's a sweet story, honestly. And it sounds like it wasn't an easy path, but you kind of paved it yourself through a lot of hard work and it's kind of made it happen.

Soren Paape 7:12

Yeah,

Victor Razi 7:12

Marquette's a dental experience? Did you get any, I know implants are a part of your day to day. Was that something that Marquette provided you, or how did that go about?

Soren Paape 7:22

no, not at all. The only like, like. Experience that we got in implants at Marquette was shadowing periodontist.

Victor Razi 7:32

I say

Soren Paape 7:33

didn't have an oral surgery program, but they did have a periodontal program and the period. The program would place single implants. Basically, maybe Like some snap ins. But I'm not 100 percent sure. But,

Saad Alamgir 7:45

Yeah.

Soren Paape 7:45

So the way I got my implant experience all through CE. And I also jumped hard on the jumped hard on The game and I basically would call up. Sorry guys. Let me shut this off

Victor Razi 8:01

No worries.

Soren Paape 8:02

I would basically call up a bunch of different CE programs and Say hey, you know, I'm a dental student. I'm really interested in implants. Like What kind of discount can you give me CE? and I also would go as far as like, just let people know, like, Hey, how about this? Like I have no money at all, but you know, I really want to learn like what you're putting out

Victor Razi 8:27

Right.

Soren Paape 8:28

I will come and like, like do video content for you. In order to get

Victor Razi 8:34

Experience.

Soren Paape 8:35

So I would do like a lot of like I would come in and like take videos for them and like edit them together. So they had something to post on our social

Victor Razi 8:41

Right.

Soren Paape 8:42

and then in return I would get to go to that course for

Victor Razi 8:45

Yeah. That's awesome.

Soren Paape 8:47

so like while I was in dental school, I did all of implant pathway. I did all of the implant ninja courses. You know, I read zero bone loss concepts. I read some of the Dan Holtzclaw books. I got a pretty good like implant foundational knowledge for both single implants for all on four, for overdentures. I tried to hit every avenue that I could and absorb as much content as I could while I was in school, because a lot of these places would give discounts to students at that time. And I was so broke. I couldn't, you know, Didn't have

Saad Alamgir 9:23

Yeah, trust me we understand the feeling man, but yeah we do something kind of similar. So it's nice to hear that. That's what you did as well. Just reaching out. I mean, we're here now because out to you. So

Soren Paape 9:37

yeah, absolutely. And

Saad Alamgir 9:38

works out. Yeah. But

Soren Paape 9:41

to put in the work. But when you're a student, it's the best time because people are willing to offer a helping

Saad Alamgir 9:47

right.

Soren Paape 9:47

point.

Saad Alamgir 9:48

Exactly. Cause once you start working this first few years, they're going to, they're going to be charging you full pay for the CE courses.

Soren Paape 9:54

Oh yeah, they'll be charging you full pay and you won't have time. Like once, once you start like working in. real

Victor Razi 10:00

Right.

Soren Paape 10:01

There isn't a lot of time, right? Because when you're not, when you're not at work, then, you know, you might have a girlfriend or a

Victor Razi 10:08

Right.

Soren Paape 10:09

And the last thing they want you to do is leave on Friday to be gone for the

Victor Razi 10:14

Yeah.

Soren Paape 10:15

So,

Saad Alamgir 10:16

Yeah.

Challenges and Learning Curves

Soren Paape 10:17

so yeah you'll see quickly that, you know, it's much easier to get that in when you're in school, because you're kind of in that learning mentality

Victor Razi 10:24

Right.

Soren Paape 10:24

But once you get out of school, it's hard to make time for that kind of stuff.

Victor Razi 10:27

Understandable, man.

Saad Alamgir 10:29

So how was your first year of working like, cause obviously you learned a lot about implants. You were obviously really good at pulling teeth, but how was working in your first all on X clinic the first couple of years of it?

Soren Paape 10:44

Yeah. Yeah. Would say that and I tell that asks me about like what my recommendations are for getting into all on for an implant based dentistry, that the most important thing is the foundational knowledge, like pulling teeth. Right? So if you're able to indentulate efficiently you're able to do alveoloplasty efficiently, big one is flapping. Like, flapping until you know how to do it quickly, it can take a really long time. But once you know how to take teeth out, you know how to flap everything you can alveoloplasty. Implants are by far the easiest part. I mean, all you're doing is drilling into especially for all on four, like you, after the alveoloplasty's done, you have a clean slate, a nice flat plane, and you're just placing the implant in after the fact. I would say that single implants are much harder than all on

Victor Razi 11:39

Right.

Soren Paape 11:39

Because you have adjacent teeth that you're worried about you're trying, especially like immediates, you're trying to find bone to

Victor Razi 11:45

Right.

Soren Paape 11:46

But, so going into because I had all this experience with a denture lading with I. M. D. S. With alveoloplasty, placing the implants was pretty straightforward. I would say the hardest part was managing staff. I did the full build out for my office. Like all the equipment orders and supplies the lease, that kind of stuff. So honestly, like the business aspect of it was much harder than the surgical aspect for me, because I Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. I'm a first year. and you're trying, you're like maybe trying to get into all on four I would tell you that I think that the most important part is trying to get as many of those like denture patients that you can. Dentulate as many arches as you can. And when you're dentulating those arches, don't be afraid to flap,

Victor Razi 12:37

Right.

Soren Paape 12:37

flap everything for that dentulation. And, you know, use it. Maybe you can make the excuse that you're just like doing alveoloplasty, rounding the ridges off really well.

Victor Razi 12:47

Sure.

Soren Paape 12:48

suturing everything. Because these little things. In the beginning, take a really long time. And if you try to jump into an all on 4 and you've never even flapped a maxilla, it's going to be a night. It's going to be a nightmare. Not only for you, but for also for the patient,

Victor Razi 13:03

Right.

Soren Paape 13:04

the longer that patient's in surgery. The one like if you have them just under oral conscious sedation, it's miserable for them in the surgery. But if even if the patient's under IV, the longer that patient's in surgery, the like you will see a drastic difference in the healing of that

Victor Razi 13:19

I see.

Soren Paape 13:20

A patient that's in surgery for one hour versus three. They will look significantly more swollen. You know, there's a lot of

Victor Razi 13:27

I see.

Soren Paape 13:27

factors that come into play. So, so I would say that yeah, that first year was a lot of learning where my boundaries were as far as surgeries go, and then just learning how to manage staff, how to manage payroll, how to Manage patients expectations. I would say that's an that's another really big one You know, it's really easy when you come up when you're like trying to sell cases to tell every single patient Oh, hey, this is gonna go great. Don't worry about it Like everything's gonna go

Victor Razi 13:57

Right.

Soren Paape 13:58

But then you quickly realize that as soon as something goes wrong and you made all these promises to that patient much worse with that

Victor Razi 14:05

For sure.

Soren Paape 14:06

So I'm, so now I'm kind of at a point where I'm super honest with all of my patients. You know, if a patient's coming in to get a denture, I tell them straight up. I'm like, Hey, listen, going to like this. Like dentures are not

Victor Razi 14:19

Right.

Soren Paape 14:19

And it's not going to be a fun experience for

Victor Razi 14:22

Right.

Soren Paape 14:22

That's why we have options that have implants, you know, however, if this is the only thing that you can afford,

Victor Razi 14:29

Right.

Soren Paape 14:29

It is much better than the current situation that you're in, but just be ready for that transitional time. Be ready to have difficulty eating, talking you know, any of these little things because it is going to be a process. But if you tell that patient instead, like, hey, the denture is going to be great. you know, it's just a small learning curve, blah, blah, blah,

Victor Razi 14:49

Right.

Soren Paape 14:50

Like dealing with that patient after the fact is going to make your life miserable.

Guided vs. Freehand Implant Placement

Victor Razi 14:54

That makes sense too. Cause you don't want to sell them on something and then they're just right back at you saying that, Hey, you promised this and I got this, you know, so totally understandable. Soren, do you do any of your implants guided or do you do it all free handed?

Soren Paape 15:10

When I first started placing implants, I would do singles guided. But I quickly like kind of jumped off train at all. So, I think as a dentist learning to do implants you can get a very basic pilot guide. And all a pilot guide is essentially just like a stencil that goes over the teeth that shows you the angulation of where that first drill

Victor Razi 15:36

simple.

Soren Paape 15:37

Really simple. And it's pretty basic to get. They're not expensive. If you want to design them yourself, it's really easy to design them yourself. But once you get into all on fours or even snap ins, I'm very, I'm, on the non guided kind of

Victor Razi 15:54

Right.

Soren Paape 15:55

And the reason why is just one, any kind of like fixed guided surgeries are typically stackable. So what that means is you have a guide that typically will go over a couple of teeth and then screw into the maxilla. And then basically your alveoloplasty guide goes over that. And then your implant guide goes over that. And then usually your prosthetic guide goes

Victor Razi 16:17

I say it.

Soren Paape 16:18

The issue is, as you can imagine, if you don't get that first guide seated properly. And the other thing is you know, a lot of times these people that are designing the guides, they're not dentists, you know, they're just people And there, there definitely can be issues with that guide. It can be, it can get held up on bone. It could be designed incorrectly. Sometimes the pilot screws for placing the guides are like where your implant should be because they're not planned correctly. There's a lot of like issues that can come up about from that. But the big one is like, if you don't place that initial guide, right, all of a sudden. All of your implants are off. Like your prosthetic is off. There can be a lot of things that compound down the line. Additionally, if you don't get stability on those implants in the guide, there's no way to fix the situation

Victor Razi 17:06

say it.

Soren Paape 17:07

that prosthetic is designed specifically for those implant positions. So, you know, at my clinic, we do a lot of these cases. We do generally at least 20 arches a month.

Saad Alamgir 17:19

Wow.

Soren Paape 17:20

Sometimes like you, like just doing that bulk of all on four, you see how many issues occur during surgery. And I'm pivoting. I'm pivoting on So many

Victor Razi 17:31

I say it.

Soren Paape 17:32

Just like change changing my angulation changing

Victor Razi 17:34

Right.

Soren Paape 17:35

implant size Whatever it is to ensure that patient

Victor Razi 17:38

Yeah.

Soren Paape 17:38

loaded denture So for that reason any kind of locators or fixed implant Dentistry, I'm definitely against the guide, but I do think they can be really beneficial for single implant place

Saad Alamgir 17:52

So have you ran into a lot of, complications or I guess reevaluations of people who have placed guides in the past and they come to you? Saying, oh, something's hurting. And then you realize that a guide and you have to like break the bad news and tell'em that, oh, this on four is failing. And I mean, how do you just kind of deal with a patient like that?

Understanding Implant Failures

Soren Paape 18:13

Yeah, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say that the complications that come to my office are necessarily because of guided work. Not something that typically the patient knows when they come in. If they had guided treatment done. So, I would say I don't know necessarily that it was because of that. Yeah, I get patients that come in all the time that have failed failing implants. And those can be from a variety of reasons, right? Like, typically, we see the most implant failures in a patient population who have uncontrolled diabetes. So, maybe those implants were placed without knowing the patient's A1c. That's a big one, right? So, you know, don't do implants in a patient that has anyone see above an eight. Or you're asking for trouble. Big one, right? Like, if that patient you place an implant and they're smoking a pack and a half a day. like you're just not getting good blood flow to that implant for it

Saad Alamgir 19:10

Right?

Soren Paape 19:11

So that's another big one. Like weird stuff, you know, sometimes it's because they have like certain deficiencies in, in micronutrients, So like, sometimes it just means like getting a blood panel done, seeing where their numbers are at and then making adjustments based on where their blood panel comes back in at. But That's what I would say about like failing implants, right? Those are kind of like the Things I check. Are you a diabetic? Do you smoke? Do you have any other kind of medical issues going on? And if those all say no, then it's like, okay Let's get a blood panel. See what's going on. And You know that blood panel comes back Perfect. And in reality, like the patient, the bone in that area, just they didn't want an implant.

Victor Razi 19:56

Right.

Introducing Smile Now Dental Group

Soren Paape 19:56

In cases like that, it just, it's just as simple as taking the implant out, making sure there's no infection there, grafting it, coming back and trying for another implant that would be as far as implant failures go. But as far as complications, I've seen probably every single complication under the sun. As far as implants go you know, some are easier to fix than others.

Saad Alamgir 20:19

So switching gears here a little bit, I know that y'all have just opened y'all's new clinic slash company smile now. Us a little bit more about SMILE NOW and what their model is and how it kind of differs from other denture slash implant clinics?

Soren Paape 20:36

Yeah, absolutely. So me Tyler and Caleb are all partners for Smile Now Dental Group. I mentioned that earlier with our current what we do differently from a lot of the other implant providers that I've seen, or just like, implant groups, right? There's a lot of them now, you know, you got

Saad Alamgir 20:54

Yeah. Mm-hmm

Victor Razi 20:54

Right.

Digital Advancements in Implant Dentistry

Soren Paape 20:55

First thing is All of our providers that we hire, they are required to have all on four experience. Don't want we don't want people who haven't been placing implants in this style of practice because we want to make sure that our patients that are coming in they, you know, they're trusting us. We have implants Our, in our name that our providers have a good amount of experience. So, Ensuring that our providers have good experiences in this kind of avenue is our number 1 thing. and, you know, some of them have more experience than others, right? Like, some of them maybe have done like 10 to 20 arches. Others have done a hundreds, you know, hundreds of arches. But at least having that foundational knowledge is really important to us because we do want them to provide a quality product that way they're not dealing with complications or patients aren't dealing with complications and we're not dealing with complications from like the training period of those doctors. That's the 1st thing. The 2nd thing is our clinics are fully digital. So, How to do implant dentistry I did it analog and if you're not, if you're unfamiliar with what that means, it basically means. creating a denture for the patient and then looting that denture to the implants that you place and then doing a conversion where you basically take the pallet out of that denture, add acrylic to kind of make a fixed arch prosthetic Denture.

Victor Razi 22:20

Right.

Soren Paape 22:21

That's what all in four analog is. And that's Did it, you know, five, 10 years ago before the new digital stuff started to come out. So what we do now, because we found that, you know, it's much better for experience, doctor experience, overhead, kind of checks all the boxes. Doing a

Victor Razi 22:42

For sure.

Soren Paape 22:42

is, That we outfit all of our offices with, you know, top of the line 3D printers. We really like form labs for B. It's a very fast printer. That prints very accurately and it's open source. So you can print any kind of material. So we do that, you know, all of our offices have prime scans, which are really like, kind of top of the line scanners. And all of our offices have photogrammetry. And if you're unfamiliar with that term, photogrammetry is essentially a scanner that its only job is to find. The implants in 3D space. And the reason that's beneficial is because right now scanners just like your traditional dental scanner. It doesn't have accuracy across the arch. So there's no cross Basically, what that means is if you pick up an implant on the right side and you go to scan it. going to be a small amount of accuracy by the time you get to the implants on your left

Victor Razi 23:37

I say it.

Soren Paape 23:38

and that small amount of accuracy is enough to cause a little bit of distortion in the prosthetic, Can lead to micro movements of the implants.

Victor Razi 23:48

Right.

Soren Paape 23:49

If you don't know, During the primary stability phase, micro movements are the number one killer of dental

Saad Alamgir 23:55

Right?

Soren Paape 23:55

So photogrammetry essentially will just get the implant position in 3D space and allow it to align to any of your scans done to make that design happen. and I would say that reason that digital is so important is because 1 It enables you to have faster surgeries because you're not doing the whole conversion process during the surgery. That's a big one. It's much easier and better for the patient to get the initial records. You're not doing impressions. You're not waiting for your lab to make a denture, all of these things Really long time. then the last thing is during the healing phase for that patient when I would do analog, I would see a lot of these prosthetics break it, whether that's because the denture is weaker or maybe the acrylic used to do the conversion is weaker or the prosthetic wasn't totally passive because there's a lot of, there's a lot of different factors that come into play when you're, because you're putting a multi unit on and then you're putting a tie base on top of that or a tie cylinder. And if there's like any kind of like tissue holding up on that, it can cause a passivity issue. So if anything fractures during that healing period, it is a pain in the butt to fix that prosthetic. Because basically you need to take that out and you don't have another denture to loot it to. So you need to find a way to basically fix that denture. And it can be a really long process and it really frustrates patients a lot. So when you're, you know, You're doing digital protocol. You have an STL file of that prosthetic, and basically all you need to do is print the prosthetic before the patient comes, and then the patient comes in, you take that broken one off, stick a new

Ownership and Business Model of SmileNow

Victor Razi 25:45

That's sweet. Right.

Soren Paape 25:47

yeah, so it's much better. So that's probably number two thing that's big in our clinics. Third thing, And probably the most important thing is that if we get along well with our partners, if or like the associates coming in, we will give ownership after the 6 month mark. So we basically do a trial run with that associate. And what that means is we want to make sure that they enjoy their time at our clinic. And we you know, think that they're clinically ready for Then after they're there for that six months, we give them the opportunity to own a portion of that

Victor Razi 26:28

Nice

Soren Paape 26:29

And with that, what that differs from a lot of different groups is most groups have some sort of like Like ownership structure, but a lot of times it's not real ownership. It's kind of like a ownership based on, like,

Victor Razi 26:44

demands

Soren Paape 26:44

it's

Victor Razi 26:45

and things of that nature.

Soren Paape 26:47

right. Whatever it is, like, but generally they're not, they don't own like an actual ownership. Part of the office. They just

Saad Alamgir 26:53

Right?

Soren Paape 26:54

a portion of the

Victor Razi 26:55

I see.

Soren Paape 26:56

And you know, that's true for most of these groups, affordable, new via clear choice. I know that all of them have some sort of some sort of avenue where they're like making profits from the office. But the reality is, It's not actual ownership. And we have actual ownership. It costs the associates money to buy into our

Victor Razi 27:16

Right.

Soren Paape 27:16

Which is different from most of the companies. But Is, if there was ever a sale for that office. you know, they are 100 percent included in that because they own a stake of that.

Saad Alamgir 27:27

Right?

Soren Paape 27:29

I think that's that's definitely a huge difference between us and other groups. Say lastly we really push remote anchorage. We really push six implants on every single prosthetic. And that's, that costs us a little bit more money, right, up

Victor Razi 27:45

Right.

Soren Paape 27:45

we're paying more for these cases, and we aren't necessarily charging more to the

Victor Razi 27:49

Right.

Soren Paape 27:50

but Is when you are stabilizing your prosthetic on six implants, and I'm not talking six implants in the front, right, I'm doing, talking about pterygoids, retroforaminal implants in the back you're providing a lot of support for the teeth and the molar

Victor Razi 28:05

Right.

Soren Paape 28:06

And with that, with why that's beneficial is we're reducing cantilevers. Basically zero cantilever. And We see a lot of the forces on those front implants and where we see a lot of implant failure on those front implants. So by providing six, By putting six implants in, we're not only providing more support for all the implants in the arch, we're giving patients more teeth. We're providing solutions. If there is any implant failure, we're kind of like over engineering

Victor Razi 28:36

Right.

Soren Paape 28:36

ahead of Where that's also beneficial is a lot of our like temporaries and our patients that are healing. We don't, we're not getting a lot of fractures in those prosthetics because they're supported by so many

Victor Razi 28:48

Sure.

Soren Paape 28:48

We don't see a lot of like. issues during the

Victor Razi 28:51

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

Soren Paape 28:54

So that would be kind of like my probably top four between us and other clinics. And the reason that we implemented all those things is because all of us have worked in different fields in the dental industry. And those were all the main issues that we

Victor Razi 29:12

For sure.

Soren Paape 29:13

And by These things, we have kind of eliminated a lot of the huge headaches that we

Victor Razi 29:18

Right.

Soren Paape 29:19

in implant

Advice for Dental Students

Victor Razi 29:20

Yeah, man, that makes perfect sense. And it sounds like it's pretty unique business model that you have. And it sounds like it should be very successful. And I know that you and Tyler both have been putting in a lot of work into this. Area and then the specific niche of dentistry. So I definitely think y'all deserve all the success that comes y'all's way.

Soren Paape 29:39

Boy, I

Victor Razi 29:40

no problem. As we wrap up here final question is do you have any advice for dental students who want to tap into this realm of full arch dentistry

Soren Paape 29:48

yeah, absolutely. I kind of alluded to it a little bit before, but I would say that when you're in dental school, the most important thing experience. So, Sorry, I have like a little bit of a cold, so I'm a little stuffed up.

Victor Razi 30:03

no worries

Soren Paape 30:04

the is, when you come out of dental school, it is so difficult to get experience. It just is. Like, You're gonna get, when you come out of school, you're gonna get Like doc, like owner doctors who say, Oh yeah, like if you come to my office, I'm going to, you're going to get a lot of experience with root canals. You're going to get a lot of experience with surgery. I'm going to be, I'm going to be mentoring you for all this

Victor Razi 30:26

right?

Soren Paape 30:27

But the reality is a lot of times these doctors don't have time to be over your shoulder during a case, right? They're, they need to make money too, right? They're there to make money. And when they're in the op with you, like helping you do a root canal. They're taking away from the production that they have for that hour to help you out. And the reality is they're just not going to

Victor Razi 30:48

For sure.

Soren Paape 30:49

So all of the. The, my colleagues who are in GP offices that are that they went there to get more experience. Like, the reality is, they're still just doing a lot of, like, basic fillings, crown and bridge. They're not getting those advanced procedures that they were promised. So. What are the different avenues to get those experiences? Well, you either get it when you're in school by going to your department heads you know, picking their brain or letting them know, like, hey, you know, head of O. S. Like, I really want to get extraction experience. What can I do to get that extraction experience? And if they say, Oh, well, we have an O. S. Department, like, you know, we don't have room for that. Well, then just tell him, Hey, that's totally fine. Can I take? You know, I don't have a patient this Friday. Would you mind if I come and just assist for these

Victor Razi 31:45

Right.

Soren Paape 31:46

can watch? And going to take time that you could be chilling at home,

Victor Razi 31:51

For sure. Makes sense.

Soren Paape 31:52

But the reality is like, you're not going to be assisting an oral surgeon when you come out of

Victor Razi 31:58

Right.

Soren Paape 31:59

So, getting in as much assisting experience, as much hands on experience really bugging the department heads to get that experience is going to be critical if you want In any avenue, not just necessary implant dentistry, but also endo or perio if you want, like some grafting stuff or you know, ortho, like, whatever it is. And I would really stress anybody who's in your guys's shoes, right? Like, D2s or even D3s to get as much experience as you can you know, you might have an idea that you want to come out and do implant dentistry. But the second that an extraction goes wrong, like. It's not like surgery is not can be very difficult. Right? And that might not be something that you want to do after you do one or two. So I would really urge anybody that's kind of in that D two D three area to not just don't like tunnel vision

Victor Razi 32:51

Right.

Soren Paape 32:51

into one area. Get as much experience as you can. And that way when you do lean towards one area and you tunnel yourself in you're not like thinking. Oh, Man, the endodontist down the street. They're really living it.

Victor Razi 33:06

Right.

Soren Paape 33:07

I wish I would have went that route

Saad Alamgir 33:09

Yeah.

Soren Paape 33:09

that's what happens with a lot of people, you know, they like just get an idea in their heads They just kind of sit down and shoot for that one idea And then all of a sudden if it's something that they don't like Then they're like in a situation where they can't really get out of and they're in a place where they might not like that style of

Victor Razi 33:25

Makes sense.

Soren Paape 33:27

And I really liked OS, but you bet your ass I did more molar endo than any other kid in my class as

Victor Razi 33:33

Right.

Soren Paape 33:34

to, in order to know that I liked the surgical part of dentistry. So, would be my main tip for dental students is get as much experience as you can bother. The department heads really, really? Spend any extra time you have in the dental school. You know, you don't need to be boozing it up at noon on a Friday with your boys you're in dental school. Like, try to get the experience in because it's really difficult when you come out of

Victor Razi 34:01

Makes sense.

Soren Paape 34:02

If you're past that point, right? So let's say you're not in dental school anymore. Next thing Is there's a lot of really good residencies out there whether that's a 1 year residency, a 2 year residency, or going into like an OS program or as an ortho program or a period program. That will get you kind of like light years ahead on that. That see, but it's so critical. To make sure you know what kind of program you're going into and my my recommendation for that is talk to the students in the department. Do not take the word of the head of residency or whatever, whoever

Saad Alamgir 34:40

Yeah.

Victor Razi 34:40

Right.

Soren Paape 34:42

Talk to the students in the program and ask them what kind of experience they're getting because there's a lot of programs out there that say, oh, our students place 100 implants. Like, all of them are placing 100 implants. It's really easy for someone to say that. But the reality is

Victor Razi 34:57

It's happening.

Soren Paape 34:57

of the, a lot of them are just trying to get you in their program. So Students there, ask the department head, Hey, can I get some numbers of the students just to see how they're enjoying their

Victor Razi 35:08

For sure.

Continuing Education and Professional Growth

Soren Paape 35:08

Because that will tell you a lot about that program and a lot about the experience you're going to get in that program. So. So that would be the next step of getting experience for, again, this kind of like hits not just implant dentistry, but any kind of dentistry, but, But specifically implants, and there's definitely residency programs out there that place more implants than others. We just did a recording on our podcast for the Jacksonville, there's like a Jacksonville oral implantology residency. And those. Those students, a two year residency program, they're getting IV certified. All the residents are placing hundreds of implants. They're doing zygos, they're doing pterygoids. You're getting like a very well rounded implant

Saad Alamgir 35:47

Wow.

Soren Paape 35:48

So you're not going to get that without spending a shitload of money on

Victor Razi 35:51

Right.

Soren Paape 35:52

Let's say you're past the residency program and you can't get that anymore. Well, then the next steps I would say are just CE, you know, and if you're interested in implant based CE I would say some of my favorites are, uh, implant ninja is a really good pretty cheap way to dip your toe

Victor Razi 36:09

For sure.

Soren Paape 36:10

It's all kind of, Very like easy to absorb. And then once you're ready to start placing implants implant pathway is really good. Just like foundational knowledge There's a lot of just like basic implant courses, and I don't think you need to spend a lot of money on learning a basic implant education. But once you're starting to get into like fixed and all on four

Victor Razi 36:30

That's when it gets a little hairy on.

Soren Paape 36:33

That's when it gets more expensive. Implant Institute with Clark Damon's really good. Juan Gonzalez does a bunch of really good programs that, you know, I think he's with So they're like through the SIN Implant Company. There's a, Dan Holtzclaw does a lot of good ones. The Atlanta, I think it's like Atlantic Implant Institute. It's really good. There's a lot of

Victor Razi 36:56

Sweet.

Closing Thoughts and Contact Information

Soren Paape 36:57

courses now for all in four base. But, you know, I think that those are kind of like the main things that I would recommend. And just do, you know, a lot of books, take the, take as many online courses as you can. And then once you're kind of ready to dip your feet into actual patients, start with single implants, start guided, then do snap ins on the bottom, don't do upper snap ins, please do lower snap ins, and then after you feel like you can take out teeth well, you can place implants well, you can alveoloplasty, you can flap, then start getting into all on four, all on six remote anchored stuff.

Saad Alamgir 37:38

Yeah. some words of wisdom, man. We really appreciate having you on. Thank you again. And for our listeners if you don't mind, just listing to your Instagram and where they can reach you at. And yeah. Feel free to shout out the fixed podcast. I know are doing that. So

Soren Paape 37:54

yeah, definitely.

Saad Alamgir 37:55

free from here.

Soren Paape 37:56

My my Instagram is Dr. SorinPaape you can DM me on there. I see all the DMs on there and I respond to them myself. That's probably the main spot to get ahold of me. And then, the Fix Podcast is our podcast. We have a ton of information on there about implant dentistry. A lot of the stuff that we're putting out on the Fix Podcast is pretty, pretty like deep, deep in. But we do have a couple podcasts with like Clark Damon that kind of talk about, you know, how to get started in implant dentistry. And there's a really, there's a really good series that we do with Clark Damon that I'd recommend you listen to that's like, Zero to a hundred arches a hundred plus like

Victor Razi 38:35

Nice.

Soren Paape 38:36

into how do we how do I get into implant dentistry? What do I do now that I'm into implant dentistry? What do I do now that I'm running into complications with my all on fours? So that's a good segue. yeah, please reach out. I'm happy to answer questions and If you need anything at all, I'm happy to help

Victor Razi 38:56

Nice. We appreciate your time Soren and we'll catch up with you soon and I'm sure our listeners enjoyed this.

Saad Alamgir 39:03

Yeah. Thank you again, man.

Soren Paape 39:05

Thanks for

Victor Razi 39:05

Peace, man.