Let's Talk Teeth

Unveiling the Dr. Wahan Experiment w/ Dr. Serv Wahan

• Saadman Alamgir

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In this week's episode of Let's Talk Teeth, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Serv Wahan. Listen in as we dive into Dr. Wahan's background, his educational journey from undergrad in Seattle to dental school at Tufts, and his decision to pursue OMFS residency. Dr. Wahan shares how his interest in dentistry was sparked at a young age and his experiences transitioning through various educational stages. He also discusses the intricacies of oral surgery, the balance of work and personal life, and the impact of digital dentistry in his practice. We also explore Dr. Wahan's involvement in his studies, his teaching role at the University of Washington, and his creative outlets like making soap and beginning his own podcast and social media prescence. Tune in to hear insightful discussions on dentistry, mentorship, and the influence of AI in the medical field. Be sure to follow Dr. Wahan on Instagram @drwahan and listen to his podcast @drwahan.experiment! 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Background

00:44 Journey to Becoming an Oral Surgeon

01:58 Residency and Specialization Choices

04:05 Private Practice and Industry Changes

10:38 Social Media and Podcasting

18:23 Personal Life and Autism Studies

21:06 Hobbies and Creative Outlets

22:17 Exploring Antioxidant Soaps

23:20 Podcast Goals and Content Creation

23:58 AI in Education and Daily Life

28:20 AI in Dentistry and Medical Fields

32:34 Challenges in Dental Insurance

34:28 Marketing and Referrals in Dentistry

39:04 Mentorship and Career Advice

39:52 Conclusion and Farewell

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Saad Alamgir:

Everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk Teeth. Today we have Dr. Serv Wahan. Serv, if you don't mind just going into a little bit of background about yourself, where you went to undergrad, where you went to school, and kinda what you're up to now.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. I'm from actually I'm from the Seattle area, Seattle, Washington. And pretty much grew up here and went to school locally for college. And then I always knew since fourth grade I wanted to be a dentist, and so I don't know why. My parents had friends that were dentist and they were doing well. So my mom's you're gonna be a dentist, right? I'm like, sure. So I always thought, Hey, I'm gonna be a dentist. I didn't wanna be a doctor, like an MD or anything like dental. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what the specialties were. Nothing. And yeah, Mike got into dental school. I went to Tufts in Boston and it was good, it was fun. I had a lot of fun there. And, dentistry was pretty good. I didn't think, I didn't know much about it when I got into school, I didn't even know what the specialties were. And so I, in my second year, I did my, I did a perio rotation and I did, they make you go through all the rotations and stuff. And I, and we did the oral surgery one. I'm like, oh, that's, is, this is what I like. And so from after that, after my second year, I was like, yeah, I'm gonna be an oral surgeon. And so that's where that came from. And then, there's four year programs, six year programs. I was like, if I'm gonna do it, might as well just do the six. And so that's what I ended up doing. Finished that, got out and moved back to the Seattle area essentially since then,

Victor Razi:

Yeah. What

Saad Alamgir:

Nice.

Victor Razi:

go, you went from west coast to east coast. What? What was that all about?

Serv Wahan:

I, it's'cause I stayed locally for college and locally within five, five hours or so. Far away from your parents where they can't surprise you, but still like in the state.

Saad Alamgir:

medium.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, they're not gonna just jump up and jump to your fraternity or whatever, at that. So it was fun. I had a great time and I was pre-dental the whole way in college. And that was good. And then dental school was also very fun. I did go to med school through the residency and that was quite different. I didn't have as much fun in med school as I did in dental school. It's just a different cohort of people too, I think. But it was all good. It was all good.

Victor Razi:

Yeah. So you like, so you went to dental school and then you decided you wanted to do OMS and dental school.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

like have your mind set on a residency or one program or you

Serv Wahan:

of, not so much one program, but I was thinking at the time that I wanted to do like oncologic surgery, like cancer resections. And so as an OMFS, at that time when I was interviewing, there was, there were some programs in the country that were doing that. I think Oregon was one at the time. Maryland was one, Allergan general. Where I went, ended up going, was also doing it'cause they, they actually didn't have or ENT residents oral surgery covered their ENT call, which was unique. And so at that time they did that. So they were helping the ENTs do all the cancer and the plastics, do all the reconstruction parts. So that was unique. But there are some other places that did cancer and so that's what I was thinking. So that's why I gravitated towards the six year programs.

Victor Razi:

Gotcha.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. So you had mentioned that in your second year is when you down this OMS train. What about like oncological, because that's a pretty specific like subtype of

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

What In those last two years of dental school to realize oh, like I really or I'm not gonna say but

Serv Wahan:

That facet of it. That facet of it. Yeah. At the time I was married, I'm not now, but at the time I was and my wife was a, was an oncologist. And so I think, just with that in, in the family essentially at that point in time, it just I liked it. I liked the, the fact that it was changing, the meds were changing, but the surgery was typically still pretty much the same. That's the part I liked about I even considered after medical school,'cause in a six year program you do a couple years of med school generally, and you're at that point in time in the residency you're actually a med student for a couple years and so you finish your medical school part. And then I actually considered leaving the residency at that point even and matching it to ENT so I can further my oncologic and do it that way instead of as an OMFS. So I actually did go through the match then, and I interviewed at one place, and then at the, at that time I just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna finish oral surgery. And just, I'm glad I did that. Decided, you know what, this, that's gonna be a lot ENT residency and then a fellowship after that's like adding more time. And I was like, I think I'll be fine. And

Victor Razi:

so you

Serv Wahan:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

and you did you decide to go with the DSO? I listened to your podcast recently, and I know you're with a small private group

Serv Wahan:

Yeah,

Victor Razi:

but how'd that journey go

Serv Wahan:

still private. We have five or five surgeons now and four locations, like in the greater Seattle area, and pretty big practice for our area. I know like down south or whatever, they have mega groups that are private even, that are still like huge, like multi-location, multi, surgeons and stuff. But we're still fully private. At some point we're probably gonna end up,'cause it just makes sense financially. That's why people are doing it. And I think if you look at what happened with medicine ENTs and ophthalmologists, there's no private practice anymore. There's no. Everything's, everyone's affiliated with some group, like medicine wise, right? So I think the same thing is happening with dentistry. So

Victor Razi:

Did the idea of like just opening up your own shop, cross your mind ever, or was it just too

Serv Wahan:

But it's just, that's more hassle than I even wanted to take on. As a specialist, it's like you need referrals and so you'd have to build that up. So I did think about it, but I ended up just lucking out and getting into this spot that the older surgeon that started the practice was retiring and I just basically took his spot in the group at that point. So it worked out.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, so you had mentioned how dentistry is all privatized now and speaking to a lot of older dentists. They always say the dentistry's changing and, there's not as much in dentistry, essentially what's your opinion and take on it, essentially.

Serv Wahan:

It's tricky, I don't know what your guys' tuition is there and how people cover it these days depends on your family, on whatever else. But it's a lot like you get outta school. Like I had full loans, like I didn't have, my parents didn't have a lot of money and I basically, I. Got a bunch of loans for all my schooling, and even with med school, like you add that on, like it's an extra few years of that, right after dental school. So by the time I got out, at that point in time it was like three, 350,000 in loans or more. I know now people are getting more loans because tuition cost is a lot higher.

Saad Alamgir:

Oh, it's unbelievable.

Serv Wahan:

right. Like some schools are like 1 25 a year. And then you add on some living and some other stuff, right?

Victor Razi:

You go to NYU for 900 K?

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, that's what I heard. It's 1 25, then you gotta add on some living stuff. And your fireball and whatever you guys do there. But

Victor Razi:

that

Serv Wahan:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

that you escaped from college. SA and I both, our college was like three hours away, so it was that perfect medium of you can drive home, but like you're still away.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

it was great. And

Serv Wahan:

It's like a five hour drive for me, but it's yeah, it's over a mountain pass and the winter's little so yeah, it's,

Victor Razi:

So you

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

in Greek life at your college. What got you into that?

Serv Wahan:

Because it's a college town, I, I went to a college town essentially. It was just a big. Big university and not much else around, and so it was just, for me, it made sense and it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it. But Mo I was the only, I think I ended up, actually, there's another kid ended up being pre-dental, like after the fact. But everyone else was like, education majors and other things, but not nothing to do with science medicine,

Saad Alamgir:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

both were in fraternities too, and it was nice seeing like the who took school serious and the guys who did it, and the guys that like tried to balance both.

Saad Alamgir:

You meet so many different types of people in a fraternity, I'll tell you that.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

brilliant people and then you meet other spectrum of it,

Serv Wahan:

it's good to see everything so you know what's out there,

Saad Alamgir:

I loved it.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. I loved it too. And it was fun for me. And it's funny'cause I, I ended up being like one year I ended up being president of our college at the time only had one club for pre-med and pre-dent. It was a combined pre-med, pre-dent club and my second, my sophomore year, I'm like, I should probably go to this club. I am pre-dental, I. So I ended up going to one meeting, and it was three people. There was like three people at the meeting and it was like elections for officers for the next year's meeting. And there was only three people there and they're electing three officers, like president, vice president and treasurer. So I ended up being president the next year'cause I was at this meeting. And ended up being fine. I built the club up. It was good. But that's how I ended up being the president of the pre-med, pre-dent club at my college for one year. Just showing up to one meeting. But Good. And then, ended up just, I did some more pre-req stuff. I was a student assistant in the gross lab in college. I did some other stuff. I volunteered in the er, whatever you can to build up your CV or stuff for dental school.'Cause dental school is harder to get in. Like it, even now it's a lot harder to get in. If you guys know more about that, but yeah. So

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah it was a grind for sure, as many extracurriculars as we could, but, ends up working out one way or another, and. If you just put in enough time and try enough,

Serv Wahan:

what were your guys' like CV builders for dental school? Did you have any, some bogus stuff in there?

Victor Razi:

What do

Serv Wahan:

volunteer at the animal shelter, like maybe one day or something? I don't know.

Saad Alamgir:

I know for my application, a big part of it was like there was an organization that like taught kids how to read basically. And so I did that for like probably two years

Serv Wahan:

Oh that's a good, that's a good chunk of time

Saad Alamgir:

it was

Serv Wahan:

you're putting in the work there. Yeah. All right.

Saad Alamgir:

And then I TA'ed a bunch of labs

Serv Wahan:

I did that too.

Victor Razi:

told you this, but we, so I was like, man, I need to get some so some like volunteer hours and I was like, dude, I'll just adopt a dog. And the dog lives with me 24 hours a day, so that's like week. I'd get all my hours that I need for like service.

Serv Wahan:

you could do that. You can adopt an animal and that counts.

Victor Razi:

no, you can't.

Serv Wahan:

Oh,

Victor Razi:

but at the time I was like, yo, this is like

Saad Alamgir:

This

Serv Wahan:

I foster cats. I fostered a lot of cats. It was, it's just for the cv, but yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

yeah, exactly. I ended up adopting two cats my senior year, so definitely did that for the cv.

Victor Razi:

got those

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, I did. One of'em ran away for a little bit for two days a month ago and me stressing, I'll tell you that.

Victor Razi:

So Serv you're a big cat guy, huh?

Serv Wahan:

I would say I'm a big cat guy. I I have two cats, but I actually like dogs too. But I don't wanna leave a dog at home when I'm at work, I just feel bad. And cats are easier. Cats are easier that way.

Saad Alamgir:

two of them, that's why I had one initially, and then I got another one just so they could keep each other company and be friends. And don't know how it was when you're introducing your cats, but whenever I introduced one to the other, they were fighting for two

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. Mine still are like frenemies. Not even friends, but more enemy frenemy. Yeah.

Victor Razi:

How long have you had your cats for?

Serv Wahan:

The one I got eight years ago, and she's super fluffy. The one I got was gifted to me last year. It's a tiny little Devon Rex cat with like barely any hair and so weird.'cause one's like super fluff ball Siberian and one's like a Devon Rex. And the Devon Rex is the guy, and then Annie's the girl and he always messes with her and he's like half her size, but

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

he's bossy.

Victor Razi:

Yeah. What got you into the podcast game? I know a new-ish trend, people do it, but I feel like now it's really picked up.

Serv Wahan:

You are right. I think it's really picked up. I didn't even get into social media until like after Covid. So people were on it, for years before that. Got really big when the algorithms really supported that kind of content, so when I got on it I think the algorithms had changed quite a bit'cause it was censored more and, the censor pages sensitive content and then you'd get shadow banned and. All these community guideline violations wherever for surgery videos. Meanwhile, if you're jumping around with no shirt on, and you're fine. But it's like the educational stuff gets flagged, right? So even when I got on it after Covid in 2020, like it was, I could tell the trend was my, the ceiling is gonna be hard for that kind of context because if you've seen my stuff, it's like a lot of it's just I wear a head camera and show videos of stuff a lot like surgical procedures, right? That content's tough, and it's even worse now, like it's harder

Victor Razi:

white now, huh?

Serv Wahan:

on TikTok. I do black and white. It's not all black and white. I take out the blood colors, orange and red, and leave the rest, and that seems to get past their algorithm on TikTok.

Victor Razi:

Or you

Serv Wahan:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

or you ran into it or what?

Serv Wahan:

No it, i, it tricks their algorithm better to not black it out.

Saad Alamgir:

Not flag it or

Serv Wahan:

So I have to do that. And then tiktoks a little, it's fun in a way'cause it's the stupid comments and people are like, don't know what the hell they're talking about and just commenting. But it's nice for trends and audio and little things like that. Like you can pick up stuff there quickly that'll probably be on reels in two months. So that kind of stuff is helpful. So I think people that get older on TikTok, they're gonna end up on reels or whatever. I don't ever barely get on Facebook,

Saad Alamgir:

of

Serv Wahan:

but

Saad Alamgir:

there.

Serv Wahan:

yeah. So whatever the new thing will be from TikTok,

Saad Alamgir:

yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. But yeah, so like I was doing that and I was hitting a wall. I could see like the algorithm not supporting it. And so I was like, last year I was like, I'm gonna do the podcast. It's like more pg 13 stuff. And it's a whole different audience usually. There's some people that, that follow you there. But, it's different. And I like it. It's a lot more work, honestly. It's easier to put a camera in my head, like a dash cam and do surgery and just edit the video. That's super quick for me now this is a lot more like work, getting it out, like putting the show out, and like the hosting sites and like uploading and the thumbnail, like everything you gotta do for it.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. And sometimes it's frustrating if your internet's messed up or it's not uploading and you got those.

Saad Alamgir:

if your audio gets corrupted. I've

Serv Wahan:

Oh.

Saad Alamgir:

one or two episodes where that happens

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, it's like it outta sync or whatever, and there's an echo or something like that. You can't fix it. Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. I get it.

Saad Alamgir:

Serv, you mentioned that, like you said, you wanted to into cancer for your residency. Is the PR practice you have now, is it a full scope oral surgery? Is it focused towards cancer or

Serv Wahan:

There's no we, yeah, none of us.

Saad Alamgir:

at

Serv Wahan:

none of us are fellowship trained in cancer. So we do pathology, but it's benign pathology, so cys, things like that. Those are well within our scope. Orthognathic surgery. We do have a guy in our practice now that does he did a fellowship in TMJ Orthognatic, so he likes to do that stuff more so we're like, just, you can do it. So whatever you wanna do, it's, oral surgery is cool that way. You can, you train and you learn to do all this crazy stuff, but, and when you get out you can pick and choose what you wanna do. You don't have to do it all. You can be bread and butter, you can be a different way, you can do perio whatever you want to do, you can do, which is nice. And so if you wanna do orthognatic, TMJ, you wanna do facial cosmetics. It's funny'cause when I first got out of residency, I moved to Seattle and just for four months I was with another surgeon who was dual degree. And 10 years older than me and he was doing full scope stuff. He was even doing like breast augmentations and like stuff like that, like hair scalp restoration. Like you know everything. I know. And so I was like, oh, this is cool. I'll learn how to do all this stuff. And. It was just an s show and it was just like not anything, practice-wise that I wanted to be in. And so that didn't work out, but that was a good thing. So you can do whatever you want almost. So it's nice. So you have a lot of, leeway that way. And we don't kill ourselves. Like you can work five days a week or you can work like two or three days a week,

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

I know that. You may have mentioned on one of your podcasts before, but I know like full arch and digital dentistry has really picked up the past, like 10 years or Has your workflow changed any around that, some or not

Serv Wahan:

yeah. The workflows, we're getting more, digital with the photogrammetry and all that stuff. Like everyone on Insta and stuff kind of says they do or do. But again, it's, there's more protocols instead of just the four people are doing OIDs, routinely now and or zygomas and things like that. So I think you gotta be careful with any of that kind of stuff when you see everyone just jumping on bandwagons and things for, because it, there's still a role for basic cases and, not. Putting like nine implants up there or double zygomas and or whatever, for some cases it makes, it can make sense. You don't always need it, so I'm always, I always do stuff. I feel like it's not for Instagram, like whatever I show a root breaking, like when I'm taking like a bad section on a tooth, I show it because I want to show people how to get past that and deal with that. I don't make it perfect on purpose because it's really not. What we do is not perfect. It's, you gotta go with the flow in a lot of cases, and so that's how I do it.

Victor Razi:

you mentioned that you went to a residency and I was wondering like, did you get a lot of implant training during your residency

Serv Wahan:

Not a lot. And I don't think a lot of residencies still probably don't do a lot. You're probably gonna learn more when you get out.'cause dental schools, I don't know if a lot of dental schools do much either. And dentists come out and do implants. So I think the implant training in dental school it's for depends. It's not that great. So I think you're still gonna learn more on, on the job training on real people that are, your patients not the school. Yeah.

Victor Razi:

That's fair. And then I know too, like all the digital stuff, is it pretty hard to keep up with the, learning curve of all that?'cause I feel like it's all, there's just new technology every single day coming out, so it's

Serv Wahan:

yeah, you can't just, yeah, you can't jump on everything that comes out because you'll just go crazy and you'll spend all your money investing in stuff that's outdated in a year and a half. Long as you have a basic workflow going and you're working with other people that also help you out. I think you're all, you're in a good space. Dentists that go out and do full arch that's fine.'cause they can essentially do implants and restore the case themselves so they have their own workflow. At that point you don't necessarily need to jump on every new thing that comes out. I. Just because it's new and you see it on Insta, like someone's doing it doesn't mean it's good. That's the thing about Insta and stuff like that, I'm gonna actually do an episode on this topic essentially at some point soon. But seeing what people do and then thinking like that's what everyone's doing and trying to copying it or comparing yourself to other people that are online doing that stuff. I think it's tricky. Don't get caught up in that. I make a point not to like. See a bunch of other cases on socials. Just because I don't want it to influence me in what I do. I'm like, yeah, I don't wanna really wanna watch your stuff, but watch mine. It's but no, it's just, I just don't like to be influenced that way. And I feel so I rarely get on other people's stuff unless it's on the top of my feed that's different. It's easy.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

I am not searching for it, if it's not just right up front.

Victor Razi:

be like a rabbit hole of just comparing yourself to others,

Saad Alamgir:

yeah,

Serv Wahan:

It is it?

Saad Alamgir:

Everyone's trying to just be like Instagram sexy, like you said, essentially, and

Serv Wahan:

Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

only post their big cases and nice cases, but they don't show you as a year later when they're coming back for a re-treatment'cause an

Serv Wahan:

exactly What you said is exactly true. I've even caught myself, sometimes I show a case and a year later like that, some part of that case may fail or something. It's not like I'm going back there and a lot of cases, this case failed. This is a post. Like you don't, a lot of people don't do that kind of stuff every time,

Saad Alamgir:

Right.

Serv Wahan:

So that's definitely a thing, right? It looks really good for the picture. It's bloodless. Whatever you did for your photo is great. End up with a fistula in six months and you're not gonna throw that up on your story,

Victor Razi:

yeah.

Serv Wahan:

it's it's gotta beware. It's just take it with a bunch of grains of salt. What on there is what I feel

Saad Alamgir:

Serv, I was I just randomly happened to find you on a LinkedIn the other day, and I saw that you went back to school for like autism studies or 2016 or 17. What was what was that about?

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. So I, so I have I. Twin boys and one is autistic. And so I went I enrolled at a SU online, they have a grad program and autism studies. And so I just did a couple courses through them. Essentially it's a grad school and so I had to apply and so I had to get like my transcripts and like from college and high school and it was weird. I'm like, I don't wanna see these again. I had to request them. I'm like, do you guys still have these,

Saad Alamgir:

yeah.

Serv Wahan:

like the.

Victor Razi:

instead of

Serv Wahan:

yeah, they're like, I'm like, are they on micro fish? Like, where are they? And so sent'em in. I got accepted and then I ended up doing some courses with autism studies, A, BA, like to be A, B, C, BA that kind of stuff. And so it just helped me relate to the therapist and figure out things on my own. So that's why I did it. It wasn't anything else,

Saad Alamgir:

No, that's

Serv Wahan:

but it was weird. Yeah. Doing that.

Saad Alamgir:

yeah, my cousins have autism and

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

I think, they're like 15, 16 now, but. remember, like they're the same age as my younger brother, and it's just, it's very you feel very grateful, but at the same time, you like feel bad that, they can't function

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

normal person,

Serv Wahan:

no I totally get all that too. But a lot of, in a lot of, not every case, but in a lot of cases. They can still be very happy with their functions. And just that's unique about it because they can still be super happy and super productive and feel good about themselves, if given the right environment. And so that was all part of it, I'm like with my son, I'm like, do whatever you want. Just be really productive and happy about it. And he totally is. And that makes me happy that even though he's limited in a lot of ways. He doesn't really feel that as much because he's supported. And so I think the family dynamic, learning about all that stuff is helpful. Putting him in the right environment, that kind of stuff is super helpful.

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

That's awesome and kudos to you for, taking that extra step to understand your son and being able to relate to him. That, that takes a, that takes an awesome dad to do

Serv Wahan:

that was,

Saad Alamgir:

to you,

Serv Wahan:

oh, thanks man. It was just strange having to go back and go through school again. Working full-time as an oral surgeon, like I would've assignments, group projects and I had to use Excel. Like I had no idea how to use Excel. Like we didn't have to do that in dental school at the time in med school. I'm like, I had to watch YouTube videos, how to use Excel on my version of the PC version of whatever, to do the assignment. Like I would have to. Find out how to use it and put all the things in before I could actually do the assignment. It was like a crap show at the time, but it ended up doing pretty good.

Saad Alamgir:

There we go.

Victor Razi:

go. So what are you doing like with your hobbies now? I know you've I feel like you've been in the game for a while. You're

Serv Wahan:

yeah,

Victor Razi:

doc.

Serv Wahan:

no.

Victor Razi:

So I feel like you've gotten into a groove of things. So what do you typically do for fun? I,

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, for fun, like we had talked about before, we got on just briefly like the social media stuff has been like a creative outlet and then jumping into the podcasting last year, it's a lot more work. It's a very low paying job

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

or no paying or actually a lot of people like your negative, Your ne with your investment in.

Saad Alamgir:

the red.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, with your time and energy and investment on all these subscriptions you gotta get and editing stuff and like your hosting sites, all that stuff, right? You're paying monthly fees and just to get up and running. So yeah, I. I'm lucky now I have two sponsors from my podcast. So that's, it's not paying, I'm not gonna quit my other job. But

Saad Alamgir:

from

Serv Wahan:

it's something,

Victor Razi:

though.

Serv Wahan:

You gotta start somewhere. So that, that's been a huge creative outlet. I make soap, I make my own soap. That's not hard to make. It's not hard to make soap. Oh, I actually have some here. Sorry about this little guy. I, this is one of'em. This is a really ratchet way to show soap.

Victor Razi:

Oh,

Serv Wahan:

one of them. That it's like a skull.

Saad Alamgir:

That's

Serv Wahan:

This is charcoal in here and some other stuff.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah,

Serv Wahan:

And then for the ladies, I got a little dragonfly and

Saad Alamgir:

The

Serv Wahan:

a little

Saad Alamgir:

are there for

Serv Wahan:

little lady bug

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

for the ladies. I put I put every little thing I can research that's antioxidant in them. Sorry, I don't want, I want you to see his butt. But I put every little thing I can that's antioxidant worthy in them. I don't sell them, I just use'em on my own, like my own face or whatever. So this guy's killing me.

Victor Razi:

Nah he's a feature.

Serv Wahan:

yeah,

Victor Razi:

though. I feel like, yeah, doing the antioxidant stuff I feel is pretty cool too.'cause it's let me make something that like is actually as

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

for you.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. I've never used Botox or anything like that, and so like I just make my own soap.

Victor Razi:

Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

that's the cheat code to youth right

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, I know.

Victor Razi:

do you like carve it yourself or is there like molds

Serv Wahan:

just molds now. They're just molds. It's like basically like dentistry. You're putting, something in mold and

Saad Alamgir:

Just,

Serv Wahan:

plastering it up.

Victor Razi:

Yeah. So

Saad Alamgir:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

what are your goals for this podcast? Is just keep it, how it's rolling or you have some things you're thinking about.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, I feel like it's, getting topics is interesting.'cause sometimes I'll read a journal article, I'm like, oh that's interesting. I'll talk about that. Or I get a bunch of questions on all the socials and people sometimes ask the same questions like, oh, that's a good idea for a topic. Or people give me ideas. So I've been, I have, there's no problem finding content. So my goals are essentially just keep it going and see what happens with it, To be honest with you.

Victor Razi:

I listened to your one of the more recent ones you had with a periodontist, and it was. Pretty cool, just seeing how y'all do things differently. And was talking about AI stuff that she's

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

and

Serv Wahan:

I just jumped on AI a little bit this week. I'm so late to the game with ai. What do you guys use it for in school?

Victor Razi:

SOD uses it more than me, I'd say. But I I have just the typical Chad GBT Pro I'll do, Honestly, man, with the pro. The pro, unlimited stuff. But yeah,

Serv Wahan:

that the one you have it like 20 bucks a month or something? Is that the one?

Victor Razi:

It with some friends'Cause dental school life.

Serv Wahan:

yeah. I, no, I get it. Trust me, I.

Victor Razi:

yeah. But yeah, I'll split it with some friends and then I don't know if I don't get, it makes learning so much easier. Like in class it's instead of Google like you, you can explain your thoughts rather than Google. Like the other day, for example, I was like, I'm thinking of a YouTube video

Serv Wahan:

Yeah,

Victor Razi:

know anything about it other than like this one scene. So I was like, JGBT me a link to the YouTube video and the only thing I remember is this one scene and it gives me a URL to the exact video that I was thinking of.

Serv Wahan:

that's pretty cool.

Victor Razi:

like Google will do that rarely, but J-G-B-T-I think

Saad Alamgir:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

Has better outcomes doing

Serv Wahan:

That is, that's actually cool. Yeah. I liked it.

Victor Razi:

what I've learned with JGBT is if you can explain just like your thought processes to it, it's so much friendlier to like navigate than just like black and white searches per se.

Serv Wahan:

True.

Saad Alamgir:

for sure.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Saad Alamgir:

yeah, I use it for purposes. Honestly, a lot of composing emails if I'm trying to I. Sound formal, I'll like let it know. And like Victor was saying, I think the best thing you could do is just learn how to talk to chat GBT or AR in general and it'll give you everything you want. And even for dental courses, there's AI dental, we're in removable partial dentures right now,

Serv Wahan:

Oh.

Saad Alamgir:

there's like a quiz mode on RPDs with like different classes and you put like, where you think like class was gonna be, where you think the indirect retainer, all the stuff. Components of an RPD. And you'll put what you think and then it'll give you what the answer is and it'll give you like a score. Like you got six outta eight or seven outta eight, and this is what you got wrong. So that's been really helpful. Like me and Vic, we we've been studying that today actually, and

Victor Razi:

to

Saad Alamgir:

we were just ripping that AI generated quiz for like probably an hour

Serv Wahan:

That's good man. I can probably learn the Krebs cycle probably. That'd be great.

Victor Razi:

Serv? What are your ai

Serv Wahan:

I literally just start, I only have the free version. I haven't buckled down and bought one of'em yet for monthly. Was it, Brendan was telling me grok is pretty good, or I guess chat. So I was looking at both of those. I'll probably get one of'em at least and figure out,

Victor Razi:

sod's our behind the scenes tech guy for what we use sod, what

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

our

Saad Alamgir:

We use for our podcasts, we use DS script.

Serv Wahan:

yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

for clips we'll use Opus clips. So yeah, for as far as yeah, for the podcast, like the, I guess I'm outing our podcast right now, but like for the bios and everything, like you can on d script, it just clicks. You can click generate YouTube description. It'll give you a description, it'll give, go through all timestamps and everything, and. It's really useful for the podcast especially. It's definitely brought my time down on editing and whatnot. A lot,

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, that's nice. I use Riverside. Yeah. I use, I was thinking about, I, I think DS script is probably better.'Cause you can make it so your eyes are always looking at the camera. Do you do that? It's

Saad Alamgir:

we use like the automatic multi camp, so like whenever

Serv Wahan:

Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

I edit

Serv Wahan:

the smart cam.

Saad Alamgir:

show the Yeah,

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Only show the active speaker. So it's kinda know, kinda like a movie,

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. I do that. Yeah, we do that too. But with dsrip, I heard you can make it so your pupils are looking at the camera and just switch'em all the time.

Victor Razi:

That's wild. That

Saad Alamgir:

really I need to explore it more for

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

It's really useful for

Victor Razi:

that is

Saad Alamgir:

everything editing for this podcast. I.

Victor Razi:

Serv, the future is you're gonna, we're gonna sit down for 30 minutes and AI just analyzes how we talk and all. And then that's our that's our artificial self. And then we just

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, you can do that now pretty much. Yeah, I do that. At least with your voice and other things you can, yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Oh, I've seen some. Yeah.

Victor Razi:

even like getting on social media sometimes because I'm like, I don't even know if this is the person that like is saying this.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. You don't know. It's, and a lot of that stuff, even just regular TikTok stuff, I feel like is staged now. Like a lot of it. So just to get views, it's just, I don't believe it. It's how it's kinda the world we're in now.

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Have you incorporated any AI into y'all's dental practice?

Serv Wahan:

no, nothing like that. Other than just whatever is in, embedded in like our implant software editing. So it's not real great. So nothing like that? No.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, I don't use it.

Saad Alamgir:

See?

Serv Wahan:

I don't use it for taking notes or anything like that.'Cause our EMR is pretty good with templates and stuff. It's all already in there, so all the same procedures are there and

Victor Razi:

sure.

Serv Wahan:

Put in little tweaks. And it's nice because honestly our assistant will type everything in. I'll just sign and edit before at the end so I don't have to do much.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. That's sweet.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

you see any type of AI be like coming, mainstream or, coming on the forefront of dentistry in the next i's say, let's say 10 to 20 years?

Serv Wahan:

Even right now with ai people are diagnosing things. They're using it as their lo as their attorney. You can use it for a lot of things, right? So even just putting a bunch of symptoms in there and getting a diagnosis, quicker because, like for the longest time and it's still being used today, most doctors use something called up to date. Have you ever heard of that? It's a peer reviewed subscription base, like really expensive. You can look up anything medical for the most part, and it'll give you the current. Treatment plan, summary, medications, everything for it. What we did in med school and stuff, and residency and doctors use it all the time. You have a patient with something you haven't seen in a long time. You go back and look up to date and figure out what it is and what to give'em. But now with ai, I feel like it can grab some of that stuff also like chat or something can grab that information.

Saad Alamgir:

for

Serv Wahan:

For free. So it's really changing the way that people are, treating and being treated and seeking care. I dunno, it's evolving. Dentistry is different because it's physical. There's a lot of hand stuff that needs to be done. So I think they're immune from all that stuff for a while. But, medical doctors, things like that, that's where it's gonna get tricky,

Victor Razi:

Yeah,

Saad Alamgir:

No, definitely.

Serv Wahan:

Radiologists? Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, even in our pharmacology class, they were, they like, were teaching and they mentioned this app. I have it on my phone, I forget what it's called. Seeing patients in Jackson, Mississippi, they're gonna be taking a boatload of medications. But with this app, you could just put in all the medications and see the contraindications are, what medications they should and So even in that aspect it's pretty useful.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, a lot of that EMR has that in there already. And most staff will have that in there. Just, it's, they flag things. So that's nice. I also teach at the dental school here. I've been volunteer, like we're affiliate faculty at the University of Washington. So it's like third and fourth year dental students essentially. So I've been doing that for I don't know, nine, 10 years or so.

Saad Alamgir:

Wow.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

that it's raining all the time over there? Or is that all meth

Serv Wahan:

Dude, it sucks.

Victor Razi:

is just

Serv Wahan:

I'm like, I grew up here. I'm like, I hate it. I'm like, I just can't anymore. It's, yeah, it's just cold and gloomy, like most of the fall, winter,

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

even now. It's not great.

Victor Razi:

fair.

Serv Wahan:

This is the worst time.

Victor Razi:

dream

Serv Wahan:

like warming up. What was that?

Victor Razi:

Your dream place to live? If you

Serv Wahan:

I'm.

Victor Razi:

the States?

Serv Wahan:

No, I think at this point I'd probably go somewhere super warm.

Victor Razi:

really.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

very warm

Serv Wahan:

Not, yeah. Let me just clarify. Warm a little bit closer stuff to it. A little more cosmopolitan maybe, this, I,

Saad Alamgir:

Maybe not Mississippi then.

Serv Wahan:

yeah.

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Saad Alamgir:

But did you ever consider moving outta Seattle, or has it always

Serv Wahan:

I'm still considering, yeah, at this point I, I'm open to.

Victor Razi:

Yeah,

Serv Wahan:

Moving somewhere warmer. So

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

out of my system at all. Yeah, no. Why not?

Victor Razi:

Yeah. Is that hard for, I guess no mess is your, your industry slash field, is it? for you to relocate or it just depends what you want,

Serv Wahan:

It's different because I'm in a private practice, so it's not easy for me to just leave. I'm not an employee, I'm an owner.

Victor Razi:

Right?

Serv Wahan:

would to figure out how to sell my shares and where, how, there's more tricks to do that. Yeah. It's not like you're an employee somewhere where you can jump ship.

Victor Razi:

Understandable.

Serv Wahan:

trickier when you're an owner.

Victor Razi:

And then

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

all new to us still, but is it like. see these things online with just like working with endurance and like the pros and the cons and mostly cons. Have you seen a big I guess or change amongst the past like 10 to 15 years while you've been working where it's dude, some of this stuff's not worth even doing.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, if you've seen all the backlash that Dental Delta Dental's been getting over the years, for the reimbursements and I know there's more, it's always coming up and it's like it's true and it's just, it's not really even insurance. If the people think, I saw something that, Dr. Brady Smith put out dental insurance is a scam. It's not insurance. And he's right. It's not, it's like a coupon. It's basically what he said. And I agree with that. It's just 1500 to$2,000 a year for something and you have all these exclusions. It's like ridiculous. What are you gonna get?

Victor Razi:

Yeah,

Serv Wahan:

That's why like sometimes or surgeons will get like consults for take out this wisdom tooth. This partially impacted lower wisdom tooth. And they just got a, the patient also just got a new crown on the second molar next to it. You're like, oh man, he gets, they did that first because the insurance would cover that. And then they're like, yeah, get that wisdom tooth out. Like then they ran out of insurance and now they're, bitching at you.

Victor Razi:

It,

Serv Wahan:

you gotta take this wisdom tooth out next to this fancy crown and not mess their margin up. And yeah, it was just it forces people into strange treatment plan decisions sometimes. So basically what I'm getting at, yeah.

Victor Razi:

sure, and I know, or actually I might not know like I know some general dentistry practices are set up, fee for service. Is that feasible for a specialty practice or not as

Serv Wahan:

It can be, it's possible. It depends what area you're in. Unfortunately, in our area, we have some huge mega companies around like Boeing and Microsoft, and they have these huge insurance plans and so there's so many patients on those plans because of that. And so it would be tough. So I guess it depends what area you're in that you could do that,'cause Boeing is, but between Boeing and Microsoft and other Amazon and other places that have these huge mega. Populations of They're on these insurance plans, and so that would be, you're excluding all those people.

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

that's tough. That's tough. That's not a good business decision.

Victor Razi:

just had a random thought that hit me, but now that we have, I have, we have you on, I've, I guess I can ask you'cause you're in the game a little bit. So I was wondering like. So let's say you're let's say you're a specialty practice guy that moves into town and like a dentist already has a referral base. Is it like common for like the new guy to approach a dentist that already has a referral and be like, Hey, I'm a better referral. Like, how does that work?

Serv Wahan:

Oh, for a specialist.

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Oh yeah. It's common. Yeah, you have to do that. How you gonna get people to refer to you?

Victor Razi:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, you gotta do it. Do whatever you want. Give'em some,

Saad Alamgir:

buy some cakes. Host a

Serv Wahan:

know what you gotta do.

Victor Razi:

yeah. So it's pretty common for you first for anyone to be like, Hey I know you already are referring to this doctor, but this is what I have to offer too. So if you ever want to refer to me.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

like generally how it

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, you got to, you have to. If I would leave here and I went, go somewhere new, I'd be doing the same thing. Yeah,

Victor Razi:

the, like leverage there? Like how do you,

Serv Wahan:

I think the

Victor Razi:

most

Serv Wahan:

leverage is I think you're a decent person. You're not gonna screw up their patient pool, and you're accessible. Maybe the wait time to get in your office is quicker. There's other little things that play into that. Your location is it. Convenient for their patients. What insurances do you accept, PPOs, whatever. So all that plays a role.

Victor Razi:

I,

Serv Wahan:

I think it's the relationship, like in my years of practice now, like I've seen a little bit of an evolution with people having huge relationships with the same doctors and specialists. For years now it's more fickle. I feel like it's just, more disposable. And so it's just whatever works. So I don't. I don't think that, you kinda have to do that. The other thing is now there's a mixture of corporate and private. So maybe the corporate offices are referring to their corporate surgeon or specialists. And then also a lot of private practices have their own specialists rotating through now. Like they'll have a periodontist there for four days a month. And they keep everything in house, right? So that there's more of that. So it's a lot more competition.

Victor Razi:

yeah, that's pretty technical with all that comes into play.

Serv Wahan:

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot more competition now, so there's. Corporate, private, in-house specialists at dental practices. And so yeah, it's all there. So whatever you have, if you have social media going for you, you have other things, like all that helps, I think.

Saad Alamgir:

Definitely. So as a, again I just thought about this once Vic asked it, but for marketing purposes for a specialist specialty clinic, it's, I'm assuming pretty different than a GP clinic'cause. I guess whenever I'm driving down the highway, I'll see like at least two billboards for dental clinics, but I've realized I've never seen a billboard for a specialty clinic. So I guess does most of your patients come off of a referral basis and y'all try to build the connection with a dentist, or is it

Serv Wahan:

Yep.

Saad Alamgir:

direct to consumer as well? In a smaller aspect?

Serv Wahan:

It's more direct con to consumer with social media now than it used to be like 10 years ago. That's true. It's still not a big chunk of what we get. Most of what we get is still referral based. Now there's more people finding me, but that's still not a huge chunk of, I know, but it's still not a huge chunk. Like most of it is still like direct referrals from dentist.

Saad Alamgir:

right?

Serv Wahan:

still how we operate. Yeah. You have to.

Victor Razi:

too, like what's preventing specialty practice from just doing more like marketing?

Serv Wahan:

Nothing. You can do what you want. I think what people get caught up in they have some company run their marketing and it's really tacky and stupid. I. Trivia Tuesday, whatever they put out on their it's like I mute them, get them off. Like I don't wanna see that

Victor Razi:

yeah.

Serv Wahan:

away, now you gotta be more like unique, and people were getting caught up in that for a long time. We'll manage your marketing, we'll put, we'll do your socials. And they're just the worst things I've ever seen. So I think there's less of that'cause people are like, that sucks. So people are trying to be unique and I think it's nice because. Like I said I teach at the dental school and it's, I get a lot of dental students that end up following me and when they get out and they start practicing, they still follow me. They also have social media, right? So they may have started a dental school account, my dental school journey, like whatever they call it. And then when they get out, they transition that into their work account or they create all new work account. So they're really in the flow of all that. And I think that helps because that's how people get a lot of information now. If you wanna learn something really quick, it's easy to get on socials and try to find it. Procedure, YouTube, Insta, whatever you're doing. TikTok like you guys are talking about it's easy to find that. And for the most part, there's a lot of people that are on there putting that stuff out that are more approachable because they're putting it out. If you message them, they make it back to you and say, Hey, what instrument is would you recommend for this? They may, they'll talk to you and they'll tell you because they're putting stuff about themselves, so it it's a lot different.

Victor Razi:

For

Serv Wahan:

Getting information quickly. So

Victor Razi:

So surf as

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Victor Razi:

Wrapping up here another question I was wondering is, did you have any like mentors when you first got out or was it all like mostly you figuring it out, you're on your own? How'd that go?

Serv Wahan:

yeah, I didn't have a lot of mentors to be honest with you, coming out at all. That's why like I've been teaching at the dental school. Like I said, it's volunteer as affiliate faculty. They don't get paid for it. But I've been doing it for nine, 10 years. And it's nice. So I always tell the students, I'm like, yeah, when you get out, you can message me, ask me what instruments you, you should get, or techniques. I'm totally open to that. And so that's. How I've been doing it.'Cause I didn't really have anyone, so I'm like, yeah, if you need any help, doesn't matter where you're at in the country, I don't care. And for the most part, I answer pretty much almost every message I get on socials anyways. And and there's people like around the world, right? So you don't know. So it's a lot.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah.

Serv Wahan:

up being a lot.

Victor Razi:

Yeah, for sure. We we appreciate you joining us today. How can like what's your podcast? What, how can people like,

Serv Wahan:

I mean it,

Victor Razi:

to you?

Serv Wahan:

the good and bad thing about having a unique name is it's like unique and it's easy to, to Google. So if you Google to Google Wuhan or Dr. Wuhan, you'll find a lot of things that way. But yeah the podcast, I'm really bad at thinking of names. It's just Dr. Wahan experiment and it's easy to find. But yeah, thanks for having me on. It's nice to get in touch with students. Like I said, I like mostly my interactions are with third and fourth years and it's nice to help them through their oral surgery journey. So you'll have fun with that, I'm sure when you get there.

Saad Alamgir:

yeah. Looking forward to getting in the clinic, man. We

Serv Wahan:

yep.

Saad Alamgir:

will look forward to it until all one day. We don't look forward to it. I'll put it like that,

Serv Wahan:

Yeah, it's sad though when you leave dental school, it's oh man, now I gotta work.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah. Crazy that we put in all this work, all this school, and the goal is we get to work a nine to five.

Serv Wahan:

But then you gotta start paying back those loans, baby.

Saad Alamgir:

Oh man. Don't get me started. But

Victor Razi:

appreciate it,

Saad Alamgir:

Serv, it is been a pleasure, man. We appreciate having you.

Serv Wahan:

yeah. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it.

Saad Alamgir:

Yeah, of course.