The Pacific Aesthetic Continuum's Podcast
Wondering what other dentists are experiencing and what solutions there are to the challenges in dentistry. Listen to what your colleagues are doing to improve the quality of their lives.
The Pacific Aesthetic Continuum's Podcast
PAC Podcast with Dr. Michael Miyasaki, Garrett Caldwell and Dr. Yasmine Peterson: Navigating Early Career Challenges and Embracing Continuous Education in Dentistry
What if the key to a successful dental career lies not just in clinical skills, but in continuous learning and mentorship? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Michael Miyasaki, Garrett Caldwell, CEO of Corr Dental Lab and the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, along with Dr. Yasmine Peterson, a 2020 Loma Linda University graduate, to uncover the unique challenges faced by young dentists today. You'll hear Dr. Peterson's inspiring journey into the world of dentistry, how she navigated multiple practice models post-graduation, and the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on her early career.
We explore the evolving attitudes of new dental graduates towards continuing education, contrasting them with those of previous generations. Drs. Miyasaki, Peterson and Garrett discuss the substantial value of revisiting foundational courses and how postgraduate programs like those at the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum can bridge educational gaps left by traditional dental schools. The conversation also touches on the financial pressures and the quest for work-life balance that new dentists face, comparing paths of advanced specialization with those seeking stability in salaried positions. Let's not forget about the modern-day pressures of social media and the necessity for new dentists to find seasoned mentors who can guide them through their professional journeys.
Finally, we dive into the aspirations and realities of opening a dental practice, from solo ventures to larger group practices, emphasizing the blend of clinical excellence and business savvy required for success. Dr. Peterson's upcoming participation in the PAC's live patient aesthetic program highlights the importance of hands-on training and mentorship. As we reflect on her growth from a young dental student to a proud mother and accomplished professional, this episode underscores the enduring value of continuous education and mentorship in shaping the future of dental careers. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and advice from a rising influential figure in the dental community.
For more information contact the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum at https://thepac.org.
All right, welcome everybody. This is podcast number 14. So we made it past number 13. And today we have Garrett Caldwell, ceo of Core Dental Lab and the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, the education arm of Core, and our guest today is Dr Yasmeen Peterson and we're excited to have we call her Dr Yazzie.
Speaker 1:Dr Yazzie on today because I think she represents a lot of the dentists that are out there Kind of a younger dentist. She's a 2020 graduate from Loma Linda and that was a tough year to graduate from because there was this weird thing going around COVID at the time and we were all transitioning through weird times because that's when our practices were shut down and we didn't have patients when we opened back up. So it was a weird time. So she graduated, has been in practice and has had the opportunity for the last four years to work in a lot of different practice models, from private practice, fee for service, to DSOs and just owners that had multiple practices and kind of was running that model. So she's had a chance to work in a lot of different situations and she has friends that she keeps up with and she's on, just like everybody else who's young social media, so they all kind of keep tabs on what's going on in the industry. And then you got us that are the older generation and we look at the younger generation, we're trying to figure them out. So we brought Dr Yazian to help us understand what the up-and-coming dentists, what their challenges are and how I think the PAC and CORE could help the dentists as they grow Real quick.
Speaker 1:We just had a real brief conversation before we got started and you know, talking about the young dentists, I've had four associates in the last 13 years of my practice. None of the associates really invested a whole lot in their continuing education, unlike when I graduated a long, long time ago. Kind of Star Wars to Jedi nighttime, there was my dad when I graduated said just take as much CE as you could, and back then it was all live CE. So his advice to me when I graduated from dental school was take 200 hours of CE a year. And I thought 200 hours of CE a year that's one a lot of time out of the office, a lot of travel, but you know, the first couple of years of doing that, I think, kind of set the stage for the rest of my career. So I think that's a large part of what we'll focus on today, too, is just the value of education and how that can change the path of your career. Dr Yazzie, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:And we were just joking about it. You know it's kind of that line like what's your sign. But one of the questions I put in there is looking back at how because it's still fresh in her mind you know why she selected going into dentistry and was it a good career choice. Do you have any answer to that?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so I I picked dentistry in college before that, I think, when I was 14, I decided I wanted to be an anesthesiologist. That's what I really wanted to do. And then in college I guess I was lazy but I realized that to become an anesthesiologist you're in school till you're about 32. And I didn't think that I could do that much school were shocked. But I applied and luckily in the first year I got in. I pretty much said if I get in this year I will go to dental school and if I don't get in this year I'm going to take a gap year. I don't know what that meant at the time. I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do. But yeah, I'm lucky that I caught in and I got into Loma Linda and I think I got into Loma.
Speaker 2:I applied really late to dental school, since I kind of decided late. I remember I applied in November, but I think applications open in June or July, something like that, so I didn't think that I was going to get in. I found out that I got into dental school the week of my graduation, my college graduation. So I was very excited about that. And, yeah, I applied to.
Speaker 2:I applied to a lot of dental all the ones in California, I think. I applied to some in Florida, unlv, just anywhere. That was warm weather basically and um, but I got into Loma Linda so I was happy about that and um, I'm not seventh day Adventist, so I learned about that. But I think Loma Linda was a good school. Uh, I'm glad that I went there and yeah, I think I think Loma Linda is a good school because it does focus heavily on clinical. So I really I think that was helpful. But I just think dental school in general everything is so new that nothing makes sense until you're out of school, at least for me. So I think I kind of wish that I paid attention a little bit more in dental school and maybe it wouldn't have felt so hard after dental school, because it was kind of a shock coming out when we do our hands-on courses.
Speaker 3:What we hear all the time is I wish I could take the course level one again Now that it's over. Now I want to take it again. And that's when we do our postgraduate programs at the Pacific Ascetic Continuum. Our first course and our second course are literally the same and the second one. They get really excited. After the first one's over. They want to go back and do the first one again.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that's really what you're saying. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:Because I mean after you've done it, and then you do it that second time it finally makes sense. All the principles that you've learned, everything that you learned, finally you can put the pieces together. So that's that's what makes it. I guess dental school hard in the sense is just because it's just an overload of so much information and it's just the first time that you're seeing it and, yeah, you're in clinic a lot, but still not enough to put it together. We learned a lot in dental school but we still don't know everything either. There's so much that you can get better at.
Speaker 3:A lot of the doctors don't really. I'll be truthful, they don't really believe it's important, because if they knew how important it was, they would be beating the door down to get into these courses. Yeah, yeah, the reality is that I think you see it, you see the importance, but you know the colleagues around you obviously don't see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean just going off of that, I would say there's a lot of my friends from dental school. They haven't taken many courses. I like taking courses. Like a lot of my friends, they're not Invisalign certified or like they're not doing any ortho. Most of them are not doing any endo at least my friends aren't. What else like surgical extractions, like very limited.
Speaker 2:On that too, I feel like most of the people, at least that I talked to, are still doing bread and butter. But then I'll go on my Instagram. There's one guy in particular that I follow that he was an IDP student from uh at Loma Linda at the time that I was there and he's taking every single implant course. Right now he's doing implant pathway, um, one that I just saw that he's taking, I think like last weekend, arch club I had never heard of that before in Portugal, um, I saw that he I know he's gone abroad to do implant courses over there, um, so it seems like he's trying to do like uh, all on four type of stuff, which I think is pretty cool, so, but it seems like he's investing a lot into the courses.
Speaker 2:And then there is one other guy that I know of too. That was a year ahead of me. He did the entire COIS series already and he owns his own practice. He's in San Diego. So it just kind of depends on the person, I think. But it seems like a lot of people are very comfortable with just doing bread and butter, or they just don't like dentistry and they're still trying to figure out what it is that they do. Like now, with social media, everyone just wants to be happy or like their happiness and work-life balance and, um, those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:They want stability. They want a lot of people want like a daily, they want that base. They don't want jobs where it's solely production because they feel like it's unstable. So I feel like that's just a lot of dentists, these days at least, coming out of school. And I think it also has to do with loans though, because it can be scary, since it's such a high number if you're taking out full loans almost $500,000 and up sometimes depending. So I think that makes it kind of scary and I think a lot of the dentists nowadays that are graduating are just looking for stability and trying to find something where they can keep up with the payments of their student loans but also have a work-life balance. So I don't think they're working as hard to get better. Yeah, I think I mean there's always the outliers that are going to succeed and want to do well and keep pushing themselves. But I think right now I feel like that's the trends.
Speaker 2:Or I mean I have other friends where they didn't like dentistry and you know, graduating school. So now they're going back to specializing because they think that they'll like that. So I have a friend that went into ortho. That's what she always wanted to do. But she tried just being a general dentist for two years before she could get in and she realized that she didn't like it. And I have another friend that I knew same thing. He went into endo. He didn't. He just didn't like dentistry. I think it was just. I think for him it was more about the pay and then for her it was she just didn't like the work. So I mean everybody's different.
Speaker 3:So here's my question, Yazzie, you may not know exactly the answer to this, but my question would be so the dentist would like the dentists now that are the younger graduates would rather go in, and they want to make a salary for the day and not take on the responsibility of any peripheral activity, whether it be responsibility for the patient, responsibility for managing the practice. That's what it sounds like you're saying. Is that correct? Is that? That's kind of what sounds like you're saying so? So what is the expectation in your group of of friends and colleagues?
Speaker 3:for daily pay for daily pay. Now, just in general, what do you think is the expectation right now?
Speaker 2:I think now our expectation is at least. I mean, I feel like everyone is different give me just a ballpark, I realize probably like eight hundred dollars at least. I'm just saying because I feel like my friends in uh orange county I think their pay it's a little bit lower their dailies okay I feel like just higher, okay, and so eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 3:And then do you feel that they have as sharp of an understanding of what they have to produce in order to be able to receive that eight hundred dollars? No because I see on my side, I see the practice owners having difficulty hiring staff for hygiene and hiring associates. Associates want to get paid, but when I say they don't want to produce, they just we're here, we want to get paid and don't ask me to produce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think they realize.
Speaker 3:The overheads related to that. Yeah, Pulling that amount of money out.
Speaker 2:They're just saying that they're an employee that I should. I'm spending my time here.
Speaker 3:So pay me by the hour, basically.
Speaker 2:Basically.
Speaker 3:And is it still three and a half days a week Pretty much? Or is it four and a half days a week that most dentists Four. Four days a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:That that's interesting. It's an interesting statistic because the average dentist in the united states right now mike, tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think the average dentist salary united states is sub 140 000 dollars really it's over that now is it?
Speaker 1:yeah, for a gp now. I think it's like 240 or something like that oh, is it that high?
Speaker 3:okay, yeah, okay. Well, we have dental practices that are in the 800, 6 to 800 thousand dollar range in gross and if you factor in overheads, which are obviously much higher, in a lower, in a lower volume practice like that, I guess they wouldn't be having an associate in there, but those doctors are taking out about 160,000. Our listeners can glean whatever they want from that. So if you have a $2 million practice, you can afford to hire Yazzie, but if you have a $1 million practice it might be tough, but if you have a $1 million practice, it might be tough.
Speaker 1:No, I was just looking on it. Indeed, they say the dentist salary in Sacramento is 238,000. That's the average dentist. Average dentist in Sacramento 238.
Speaker 3:And so that's why it's so tough for us to hire associates right now. It's a tough situation.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are a lot of not all, but some dentists probably are looking for loan repayment options, like at least new grads in rural areas. I'm on this Facebook group called Dental Nachos. I don't know if you've heard of it, but they talk about everything dentistry business, all of that stuff. But it seems like rural is hot in the sense that if you go to a rural place you're going because you know that you're going to make more money. Interesting Okay just because there's no doctors or no dentists out there.
Speaker 1:Again, we're talking about the young dentists A lot of the ones that I taught to. They're not ready to own a practice. They don't really look to own a practice. How do your friends and you feel about all that today?
Speaker 2:None of us want to own a practice. I mean, the only thing is we joke about, oh, we'd own a practice if we could do it together. I don't think they're actually serious. I'm pretty sure I'm like I've been the closest one out of the people that I speak to on a daily basis or a weekly basis. I think I'm the closest one to buying practice. But there are other. I know some people from my class that already have practices, like I know one guy in Riverside. He has his. But yeah, I think most, most of them don't. They just like it's. What they like is going home and not worrying about anything else.
Speaker 3:Yazi, let me jump in. So you said that as a group, you said that maybe we'll all buy one together. What is the single fear that you guys are worried about? What's the concern?
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know. I think it's just that we're afraid, that we just don't, we don't feel like we know anything about business. I mean, we haven't really talked about what our concern is. I think for me, I and it's just kind of a personality trait for me I feel like I'm always fearful of just failing, and so Is it the failure or is it the commitment?
Speaker 3:Is it the commitment to the unknown? Is it the commitment to the big expenses? Is it? Is it commitment to Probably?
Speaker 2:more the unknown.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:The unknown and not not exactly sure. How would I, how would I start it? Who do I go to? What do I ask? I feel like I wouldn't even know exactly what questions the ones that don't do well are. They don't have systems in place, so would I be able to be a good enough leader to put those systems in place and make sure that they're being followed? So I think, for me personally, those are my concerns.
Speaker 3:So you're putting in the time is not a concern.
Speaker 2:No, because I know, if it was mine, that my kids can go, they can be there, I would make room for them. So I would make sure it's close to home, that type of thing. So I don't think time is the issue. I think more the unknown.
Speaker 3:Okay, interesting that's for me. Yeah, I think it. I think a lot of the doctors that we talked to we we recently did a seminar and your dad was talking to the group and asked the group to go around and talk about what their fears were as graduates and I think money and and the unknown how to run the business were the two biggest things that I heard about 30 doctors in the room. They made it. They made it very clear that they were learning the clinical but they weren't learning about the business. They didn't know how to pay back their student loans and they weren't comfortable getting into something they weren't comfortable driving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I think also just now with like Yelp and Google, I even like question would I be a good enough dentist? What happens if I got a bad review, like because that's so heavily weighted these days? That also scares me too.
Speaker 3:So there's some minefields out there, Mike, that Yazzie's talking about. So it's the chicken or the egg, Yazzie. We always tell the doctors we know that dentists won't diagnose, or what we call prep and pray. They won't do something on a patient. They're not 100% confident. And so the question becomes once you're out of dental school now you have to learn these new processes and procedures. How do you do that and when do you take your first steps? Which is why we think the live patient hands-on programs are a great way to do it. Yeah, and investing that time and energy and doing that over, and over and over again until you're you're naturally comfortable, then you can do it in your practice. If you don't do it in a postgraduate setting live patient hands-on where else are you going to develop the courage or the expertise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what I don't get, because I feel like some people will take one course and then they already feel comfortable and they're placing implants or doing veneers and it only takes them one course and I'm like, wow, I wish I could feel that gutsy, because for me, I feel like I need to take three different courses, because for me I feel like I need to take like three different courses or like I need a lot of repetitions before I feel comfortable enough to talk about it with the patient and to make sure that I understand each part of the or like all part of the processes. And I just want I feel like I want to know, I want to have all the answers for a patient if I'm going to be providing a service for them.
Speaker 3:I think you need to be in control and, like you said now, maybe 20 years ago there wasn't so many people watching or so easily to get the word out, but yeah, you're right Now. One bad review. It really has a major effect on your reputation. Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the things that we talk about is you know, if you go out and you take your education, that you get in dental school you'll get your daily wage. You know you can make a living. But if you expand your education, if you take that step to biopractice, then you move out of the wage now to profits, and so I you know I was talking to my wife I said it goes back to the story of the monkey and the banana, the bananas and the pile of money. Right? So if you had a pile of bananas and you had a pile of money and you let the monkey stand in front of both piles which probably the monkey choose it'd be the bananas, because it's that's the immediate gratification, that's what the monkey needs is the bananas. But the. What the monkey doesn't understand is that the pile of money is going to buy way more bananas than that pile of bananas.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of us we just get. So you know, we get out of school and now you're making a little bit of money, which feels kind of good and you feel comfortable there, and you know, let's say, you're making a thousand dollars a day. You think, oh, that's pretty good, you know. But when you look at the wage of other, what other people are making these days? Maybe it's not the best and so, but in order to grow from that you have to have the education so you have the skills that you can do the higher production services. And then then, when you move into having your own practice, instead of just getting a daily fee now, you're making a profit on what the practice does as a whole. So I think that's where we encourage the younger dentist to think a little bit bigger. It is scary, because when you get out of dental school, you don't know everything. When you've been in practice 50 years, you don't know everything. And that's, I think, what makes dentistry exciting is that every day we wake up and we get to learn something. So I don't think the young docs don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:I think what makes it harder today, garrett, is that social media, just like everything else. You know, we look at our phones and our social media and we think, oh, this person has this life. And then you start watching dentists on social media and you go, wow, they know a lot. How come they know so much more than I do? So we're always comparing ourselves to other people, whereas before we never did that, at least it wasn't as prevalent. So I think, garrett, your point is the pack and the core.
Speaker 1:We're trying to provide education. We are I look at it now that I'm at the end of my career, possibly as far as a real high productive part of my career I've got to unload everything before I forget it so that we can hand it down to the next generation. But I think yeah, I think it really. You know, the education part is something that Garrett and I really value, and I think you can only learn so much on YouTube. I mean, we all look at YouTube to figure out how to use a product or how to provide a service. But I think, like Yazzie's saying, it's a repetition. I can watch YouTube and I can see how ideally you'd place, let's say, a dental implant.
Speaker 1:But when I take a course from an instructor who's there with me and something doesn't follow that protocol, then just ask the instructor okay, what do I do now? And the instructors are like okay, now, so doing what you learned before, this case a little different. So we're going to adapt that approach and I think that's why the mentorship, especially through the pac, the pacs programs or if you're a young dentist and you're listening to this, I just find a dentist that you trust because a lot of them will mentor you, a lot of them will let you shadow. But I will tell you, I get a lot of dentists as I go out and they'll go. Can I come watch you someday? And I'll go sure Nobody ever does.
Speaker 1:Or just like with speaking a lot of people in the pack we talked about last week where we said people, the doctors that go through our courses, what we'd like to do is train them to be our instructors. So you know, because when you become an instructor, that's really when you learn it. You learn it as a student doctor, so to speak, the first time you take a course and the second time you take a course, but when you teach it the first time, you learn like 10 times more when you teach it the second time. Now you begin to master what it is that you're teaching, and so we're trying, trying to just provide this education in lots of different ways. You know, in the pack I tell the doctors, you know, whether it be occlusion or aesthetics or restorative or endodontics or implants or so much more. These days I think, I think, find a mentor to help you learn, because it is hard, it is, I know it's hard.
Speaker 3:What does success mean to you and what do you see as your goals for your career? That's a tough one, I know that's a hard one to ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Especially if you're a mom with two young kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. It's hard, I think. Out of all the practices that I've worked in, I think I want to own my own practice. That's the goal I guess, just like and. But the thing is, when I think of owning my own practice I have no idea if I just want just me by myself in a boutique office or a big practice where I have associates working and I don't have to work so I can go do whatever I want while everyone's making money for me.
Speaker 3:So is that I'm going to, so I'm going to jump in. So is your goal? Is your goal financial freedom and time? Is that your primary goal?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, financial freedom of time.
Speaker 3:But I do like dentistry.
Speaker 2:I do like it. So it's like I guess I would want to work a little bit, maybe, like I think three days would be great if I could do that. I haven't decided if I want to go after implants and become an implantologist. I was talking to my husband about maybe I want to do the Is it the fellowship for the AAID? I forgot it's called the American Academy of Implant Dentistry Maybe becoming a fellow? I know it takes a really long time, but I think I can't decide if that's something that I want to chase after or if I want to become more cosmetic and focus on smile, like full mouth rehabs through, like smile transformations. So but I feel I think I have more an inclination towards implants, um, but I think I'm also just. It also just seems so scary because you're doing it's like a lot of jaw surgery and you're putting implants in places that I didn't know I could place implants in. So I don't know. Those are the two paths that I want to explore more right now.
Speaker 3:Okay, a lot of unknowns out there. You always have to. You always have to. Are you a risk taker? Are you a mountain climber?
Speaker 2:No, what's your favorite hobby? Oh gosh, just going to the gym. Going to the gym.
Speaker 3:Do you talk to folks when you're at the gym or you just Nope? I do work, I work out alone.
Speaker 2:I do work. I work out alone, I get in and I get out.
Speaker 3:So you have to have a great. You know my feeling of what makes a successful dental practice is sometimes different maybe than the clinician, but it's. You have to be very good interacting with people. We call that the chair side manner. Yeah, you have to be a salesperson, although that's a four letter word, because you have to be able to really feel the value of what you're doing, to be able to share that effectively with your patient. If you believe in it, they'll believe in it 100 percent. I can sell anything if I'm excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that means you have to get the clinical knowledge and clinical experience. You have to be able to have a business background so you can set up, not just do it maybe necessarily all at once, but be able to work with, be excited with, your patients. So if they have that quiet confidence in you, then you and I think you have that great personality for that Then you have to have the business background to tell them that we can do a treatment plan we don't have to do it all at once and also understand how that treatment plan works within your business model in a positive way. So we don't have to do it all today, but if we have 10 patients doing a little at a time, you forecast income and profitability over the next three, six, nine, 10 months and how that works into your general practice, then you have to be able to deliver. Then you have to be able to actually physically do the work that you're treatment planning and you're talking to the patients about, and so that's that three legged milk stool.
Speaker 3:And we see a lot of doctors that have great chair side manner that don't have the clinical skills. We see a lot of doctors that have the clinical skills really great clinical skills, but are cold and the patients don't have confidence in them. So it requires all of those, I think, to achieve the goals that you're looking for. If you're going to be independent and run a practice where you don't have to spend all of the time there, you're going to be the one having to sort of lead that group. So that requires postgraduate education, a lot of confidence and a great personality. I don't think you can build that. But if you're excited about dentistry, if you really enjoy doing great dentistry and if you enjoy seeing people smile we always talk about you know, when you get your heart surgery done, when you wake up you just thank the doctor so much, right? Because they just saved your life.
Speaker 3:But they don't always do that to the dentist. They don't want to come see you because you're going to hurt them and when you're done they're hurting, so they leave and they don't like you. They're the last person they want to see. In fact, they don't want to have their teeth cleaned every three months. I love going to the dentist, but most people hate going to the dentist.
Speaker 3:But when you have a dentist that gives you a beautiful new smile or takes spaces in your mouth or takes your pain away and puts implants in, that's fun to go to work. So doing the more profitable work actually becomes more fun. And you don't want to do the crown and bridge. You don't want to do the crown and bridge. You don't want to do the drill and fill dentistry. You're going to want to do all the ortho and all the things that people say hey. And that's why I asked you what are your goals in the practice? Because do you feel, do you really want to be enriched by that patient experience as a doctor? Is that something that's important to you? You get? You enjoy helping people like that. Yeah. I don't like the sales us. You enjoy helping people like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't like the sales. You don't like the sales.
Speaker 3:No because working in a DSO, we had to hit numbers. Yeah, and those aren't the numbers I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:No, I know, but that sort of sales, that was just. I hated that.
Speaker 3:I get it. No, I'm saying when you do a $17,000 10-unit interior case, when you do a $4,000 or $6,000 implant, you really know that you're delivering something great for the patient. They're going to enjoy that work that you did for them. They're going to enjoy that. That's going to change their life and it's going to be very profitable for you. So you explain to them the value of that because in your heart you know you're helping them. That's the sales that I'm talking about. Talking about dentistry that you really believe is going to help your patient tends to be the more profitable dentistry.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, because they can see it. I mean, they can't see the crown usually that you did on in the back, or the fillings. They can't see those. So if they can, if it's something that they can see I mean, just like when you do implant supported dentures, it's, you know, huge, big changes like that I think that would be a lot more exciting and a lot more fulfilling than what I've been doing right now. So just trying to take more courses and taking them more often, like you know, as my dad said, of taking 200 hours of CE which I have not done but kind of just reiterating everything and getting those repetitions in a lot faster, I think young doctors could progress a lot sooner.
Speaker 3:Mike, I think when I think of dentistry, it must be what it must be like. You can speak about this, you learn a little here, you learn a little there. And also one day you wake up and you go wow, I'm really good at crown and bridge, I'm really good at full mouth and I can apply this to implants and I can apply this to the occlusion, I can apply occlusion to interior aesthetics and pretty soon, pretty soon, you realize I'm pretty good at doing all this. You know what's your experience with when that bell went off for you, when you realized you had control, because I think that's what we're talking about. When you feel confident and have control, then you'll diagnose. And when you diagnose, that's when you really start becoming a profitable dentist.
Speaker 1:So well one you know, I think, for where Yazzie is, I think she has, garrett, all the tools that you mentioned that we need. We need the chair side, we need to have the knowledge, we have to be able to have the clinical skills to deliver. But I think she's in a unique position because I think she has all the skills and all the qualities it takes to become very successful. I think it just takes getting over that apprehension of will it succeed. And I think I've always had the feeling, because I've felt the same way too. You know, when I take on different projects is it going to work out? And I just always feel like, well, if you work hard enough, you can work through anything. So I think that's something that she'll learn. I think the confidence comes about year five.
Speaker 1:So back in the days, back in the early 1990s, I was taking courses from Peter Dawson, and Dawson was, you know, occlusion, but he was really about restorative, everything from removal to fix prosthetics. I mean, he was into doing all of it and I remember when I took his course and it was a live lecture course and he just told us all he said you know, you're going to get the most out of this if you've been out of practice for five years, because the first five years everything works right, every crown lasts five years, every feeling that you place lasts five years. But then around the five-year mark you start to see your patients back and then you have to replace that crown or you have to. You know something didn't work for five years and you start to question why did it not last for five years, and things like that. So it's like now you have that experience to build upon right around year five and then I think, just like talking about going dental school the second time, so that's like your second wave. You've been in dental school, but in clinical practice you've been doing everything that you were taught to do, but then you'll start to see things that didn't work out the way they taught you in school. They didn't last forever. And then you start taking your CE. And when you take your CE now, like you were mentioning before, it's like you're in school the second time. It's like, okay, I'm here because I want to figure out what I didn't get out of the lecture when I heard it in dental school the first time. And so I think it's really around year five that things really begin to gel. And so, like Garrett's saying, I think you have the experience Now you know what you don't know.
Speaker 1:You take the courses to learn and fill in the holes of your knowledge and then it all starts coming together and you know again in the pack we talked about it. The first level course, like Garrett's talking about, it's really around aesthetics, but it's restorative dentistry. How do you bond restorations properly without having sensitivity? How do you get veneers to stay on? And you know, I've taught both courses on no prep veneers and prep veneers and minimal prep veneers and a lot of clinicians won't do both or you know all three types. But we go through and discuss why you need to know how to do a prep veneer and a no prep veneer. You know, I think everything will begin to gel. Everything starts to come together.
Speaker 1:We bring together occlusion and then talking about, okay, aesthetics or implants. If you place an implant, you have to understand aesthetics. If you are doing aesthetics, a lot of people are missing teeth and they want that implant. So they go together. I think the bridge that brings everything together is occlusion, because the other big thing is how do you do a full mouth rehab? Do you arbitrarily find a bite or the objective ways to find the bite.
Speaker 1:Why do implants fail? That's kind of why I had to learn occlusion, because the first occlusion courses I went to way back in the in the eighties. They said implants in the eighties. They were really bad back then but they said they were failing because of the load, the occlusion, and I didn't know anything about occlusion. Nobody understands occlusion when they get out of dental school. So then that's one of the reasons why I had to learn occlusion.
Speaker 1:But then again that path led into okay, let's take these aesthetic restorations where I can minimally prep down a tooth but I can change the bite because I have my occlusion knowledge, and then we can move teeth with our ortho knowledge and we can replace teeth with implant knowledge. And I think that's really when dentistry for me becomes really fun, because you're just pulling all these things together and all of a sudden it's like, wow, wow, you know, this patient comes in with just a few teeth and we don't have to do all on four, all in six, because I can save these teeth and I can implant these teeth and pull everything together and I think we have a minimally invasive approach. But, as garrett and the pack say we're. We take a comprehensive approach so that we're. It's an aesthetically pleasing smile, but we pull everything together.
Speaker 1:So I've done a couple of YouTubes in the last couple of weeks about endo and today just being a general dentist. We have patients that come in. They need a root canal and tooth number 30. And what we're able to do is we're able to prep the tooth, scan it, the crown's being milled out. Well then we do the root canal and from start to finish, in two hours the patient comes in, they get their molar root canal and the final restoration place all at the same time. So again, it's just pulling everything together and making it work and that's what makes the days fun. It's around year five For most. It it all kind of gels.
Speaker 2:I think it's just realizing that you just have to get over that hump and it'll come eventually, as long as you just keep practicing, keep learning, and like going back to the loans, I think before I thought my loans were scary, my student loan debt. I thought it was scary.
Speaker 3:But now I don't know, it doesn't scare me anymore, it's just I know that's because Biden's going to pay it off for you.
Speaker 2:I know it's there and I know it'll get paid off eventually, so I'm not. I don't know that part that doesn't scare me.
Speaker 3:We're going to do our best to make sure you're paid off quicker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the, that's the goal. That's the hard part is just paying it off quicker. But the loan or the debt doesn't scare me like it did when I got out of dental school, I think before, and I would say it's probably only changed recently. But I think also because having another child, I just got more motivated, because now it's like okay, I really have to make this work. I can't go back to school and change things. I need to find what I like and I need to become proficient in it in order to make the money that I want to make. So I think I guess I kind of did things backwards, but I feel like that kind of helps with my motivation and desire to learn more. But now my loans don't seem scary.
Speaker 3:Your dad always talks to me about that, to the other doctors about that. He's like what are these younger doctors going to do, or younger people going to do when they're in their 20s? Again, we're older, but we graduated, then right to work and career and family and blah, blah, blah. Now everybody wants to. I don't want a house, I don't want a career, I just want to. I want a mountain climb, move into Utah and then pretty soon you wake up and you realize you have no retirement. You have a family you have to take care of. At some point the rubber's going to hit the road. I think what I'm hearing from you and it's great to hear is that okay, I've got to, I'm going to get all this. The Instagram stuff is all cool, but now I got to get serious about life. I've got responsibilities and I'm going to move forward in my career.
Speaker 2:That's great, it's just you after dental school. It's not very expensive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:No, life's not. I mean it can be. You can still travel, you can do this, you can do that and still have, you know, money left over. Now, things become a little bit more tight when you have two other mouths to feed and you want to give them a good life too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know us already. You know, you know Dr Miyazaki obviously pretty well. So do you have any anxiety thinking about this upcoming course at all?
Speaker 2:No, I'm really excited. I'm excited to. I'm just I've been busy, but I'm. This week I was planning to get, get everything ready and make sure I have everything, so I'm excited. I think the only thing I'm nervous about is my reduction, my three planes of reduction. I think that's the only thing that I'm worried about, but I'm actually I'm really excited for it.
Speaker 3:So you're going to be our poster child after we finish this program. We're going to finish this interview.
Speaker 2:No, and I think, timing wise, I'm like okay, I don't think I've ever done 10 teeth ever, so You're going to be, you're going to be dangerous after this and you'll probably hopefully do it again.
Speaker 3:Hopefully in the spring you'll do one more. You'll do a little, you'll do a little bit more on your own, but everything that comes in in the first course you'll hear it again and it'll all come in loud and clear. You get to take dental school twice. I really am a big I'm not just a believer whether it was the Rosenthal program's Aesthetic Advantage, whether it was PacLive, whether it was LVI the first and second program by the time the second program was over, these docs couldn't get enough because they're in a safe environment. They know the players, they know their instructors, they really enjoy the camaraderie and they really understand that they're getting it. I think after the first and second program everything else comes very quickly and very easily with the group. So I'm excited to have you in the program and I think you'll do this first one great. Hopefully you'll sign up for the spring program.
Speaker 1:I'll wrap it up here. We can have Dr Yazzie back on maybe after November, december, when we finish out the course, so we can see how her experience is like. Hopefully it's good. What we didn't fill in is Dr Yazzie is going to be attending the PACS live patient aesthetic program. It's a mini residency, we're calling it. It's going to be. The first week in October is a prep session and the first week in November is going to be our seat session and it's the first live patient treatment program we've done with the PAC in quite a while because of COVID and everything else that hit.
Speaker 1:But we had been doing a bunch of these. We had different levels, everything from a veneer course to a full mouth rehab course, and we were having a lot of fun doing them and then that COVID thing hit. So this is the first program right after that. So she's going to be participating in that course and, like she was saying the first time, prepping out 10 teeth and temporizing 10 teeth and cementing 10 teeth, and I think, um, uh, I was telling the group last week that when I attended the first course on aesthetics it was doing 10 veneers and for me it was the same way. I'd never, I don't think prepped out maybe more than three teeth at the time. I'd been playing it super safe in my first five years and and then, once I got to do 10, it was like, okay, 10 is pretty easy now. And then we did 14 to do a full arch, and then we were doing 28. And it's like, well, if you can do 28, 10 is nothing.
Speaker 1:So hopefully the young dentists listen to this and understand that as time goes by in this career it's just a thing of perspective, and so when you look down that path in dentistry sometimes it does look kind of scary, because on Instagram I see things that docs are doing and say, wow, that's pretty cool. But it's just one step at a time and as you do that, one step, one foot in front of the other, find a good mentor and just enjoy the journey. And if you enjoy the journey, you'll be doing this for a long time, and I think that's that's the message. So, garrett, no thanks for joining us. Yazzie, thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and feelings and we look forward to seeing how the course goes.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're going to do very, very well and, like I said, you know in your career you've got every skill and every quality a successful clinician needs. I think. Just have faith in yourself. Things always work their way out and take some big steps. So you know, I said, take one step in front of the other. For you it's like take big steps, just jump and you'll. You'll do fine. So we're not not worried about your future. But I hope that I mentioned early to Garrett that you know, I think you're in a pathway to influence a lot of your peers and I think that's going to be something that is going to be a good thing for the dental profession. So we wish you the best.
Speaker 3:I would love to have your goal be an instructor with us.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's my goal. Yeah, great us. Oh no, that's my goal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great, because I'll tell you what, like, like your dad said, once you can teach it, then you're going to be, then you're going to be rocking and rolling in your practice. But more importantly, hopefully you can reach out to some of your colleagues and peers and say hey, come on, I'll work with you, you know, and I'll get you through this, because they don't understand that value and they need to hear from somebody like you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited about that. I definitely think that they would do it. I offered them the course before because there was one seat available, so I offered it to them, but they don't want it.
Speaker 3:So I got lucky.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, you don't know what you don't know. And, like I said, once you become an instructor, I think it'll change your whole perspective and your delivery to them will be. We in the past have actually had dentists tell other doctors you're coming, you're coming and I'm paying for it, and and if you don't have to pay, if you don't like it, I'll just pay for it, and not one time to the doctor, not say thank you for dragging me. Thank you for dragging me in here, Because a lot of our students come that way. So anyway, Yazzie, you're a beautiful young lady, Thank you.
Speaker 2:You've grown up and done well.
Speaker 3:I remember you when you were on the boat sailing with us, when you were geez I don't know, was it going to say 14 years old?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Probably something like that, something around there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, proud of you. You look great.
Speaker 2:I can't believe you have two kids. You're geez man. Slow down a little bit, I know.
Speaker 3:Thanks, mike, again, it was great, great, great information today.
Speaker 2:And thank you, thank you.