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
Beautiful Comprehensive Dentistry: The PAC's Evolution
Dental education is evolving rapidly, and the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum (PAC) is leading the way with innovative approaches tailored to today's dental practitioners. Dr. Michael Miyasaki and Garrett Caldwell, CEO of PAC and Corr Dental Laboratory, reveal how they've transformed their renowned live patient training program to meet the needs of modern dentists who often can't easily take time away from practice.
The cornerstone of this transformation is an affordable tuition model that creates a win-win scenario - patients receive extraordinary value on comprehensive aesthetic treatment while doctors gain invaluable hands-on experience with complex cases. This approach has proven wildly successful as the PAC rebuilds momentum following the pandemic pause, with course participants actively recruiting colleagues for future sessions.
"When doctors complete our program, they never see dentistry the same way again," explains Dr. Miyasaki. "They stop seeing individual teeth and start seeing comprehensive possibilities." This shift in perspective represents the fundamental value of PAC education - teaching dentists to deliver beautiful, functional restorations that address the entire stomatognathic system rather than isolated teeth.
The PAC is expanding geographically with courses in Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago, while simultaneously developing what Caldwell describes as "disruptive" online education unlike typical webinars. This innovative approach aims to create an educational pathway that meets dentists where they are, removing barriers to advanced training while maintaining the hands-on experience essential for mastering comprehensive aesthetic dentistry.
Whether you're looking to elevate your practice with comprehensive aesthetic techniques or seeking affordable continuing education that fits your schedule, the PAC offers a unique educational journey that transforms not just how you practice, but how you see dentistry itself. Connect with the PAC community at www.thepac.org and discover why participants describe these courses as career-defining experiences that create lasting professional relationships built around excellence in patient care.
For more information contact the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum at https://thepac.org.
Hey everybody, I'm Dr Michael Miyazaki, again with Garrett Caldwell, ceo of the PAC and CEO of Cordell Laboratory, and the two of us want to talk about today a little bit about the developments of the PAC education program and all the changes that are going on. So we're really excited about sharing what's developed and what we kind of see the future of education being in the live patient arena and just in general. So welcome, garrett, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mike. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Doing good over here.
Speaker 2:How was your day today? I?
Speaker 1:was good. You know just clinical practice and you know it's amazing, our practice today we have a lot of patients coming in for TMD. I think everybody's under stress because every day of the week I have a TMJ consult and yeah, it's turning into one of the biggest parts of our practice, even though I don't want it to be. But it's all good.
Speaker 2:Good, we're glad to hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know one of the things. Yeah, again talking about that subject, I think one of the things that really sets the PAX program apart is we do stress function with our doctors. So you can have great looking aesthetics and they don't function very well. It's not going to last. So we've always looked at function as a key part of successful aesthetic cases, whether it is to figure out how to reestablish facial aesthetics because you have a patient that has a worn dentition and overclosed bite or they've got a great smile, but a lot of aesthetics is you've got worn dentitions with chipped edges and the patient comes in saying, hey, can you fix my teeth and make them look beautiful? And say, yeah, we can make them look beautiful, but they're going to break if we don't take care of the functional issues. So as a sidebar, I just want to emphasize that that I think that's one of the value-added things that the PAC offers. But what we wanted to talk about during this program, really briefly, is the changes going on.
Speaker 1:So Garrett and I we've been doing programs together now for about 30 years, different hands-on programs, some of the Garrett and Cordell Laboratory. They were involved with Larry Rosenthal and the Aesthetic Advantage over on the East Coast. On the West Coast in Nevada, we had LVI, but most of that time the labs that Garrett's been associated with have also had their own live patient treatment programs, and so we've been doing these programs for decades now. They were doing really well. You know, I think what we've learned is the doctors, like in my generations, 30, 40 years ago, if we wanted to take a course, we knew we had to take a live patient treatment course. We knew we'd have to take a course. We would. We knew we had to take a live patient treatment course. We knew we'd have to take some time away from the office, but we had the ability to do that. So if it was a Friday yeah, if it was a Friday
Speaker 1:yep, we'd pay for ourselves. So if it was a Friday Saturday course, we knew we were going to have to shut the office down. Maybe on a Friday, travel somewhere Thursday night, be there Friday Saturday, treat a patient and then go home. But we knew and we always saw this is that when the doctors went back to their offices on Monday they more than produced that next week enough to cover the costs of being shut down on Friday and pay for the tuition and the courses. So most of the doctors back then we were sole practitioners, we could govern our schedules and we could take the time off. Today what we've seen is, with all the differences in practice, that a lot of practices now aren't sole proprietorships. They're somehow maybe a multi-doctor practice or maybe a DSO type of practice where the doctors don't really own the practices. So now to take a course and shut down the office is more difficult and then to pay for the courses is more difficult. So the Pacific Aesthetic continuum, working with CORE, we've adapted our curriculum to make it easy. So we have Friday Saturday courses and this year we may even be doing Saturday Sunday courses. But the tuition we brought way down and the way that's been working is the tuition for the course is around $5,000. And the way that a lot of the doctors have been working this is talking to their patients saying, hey, if you want 10 veneers, that might be. Let's say, the doctor typically charges $1,500 for that case. That'd be $15,000 or $18,000 or more. Well, the doctors will do that case for the patient for $5,000. That covers the course cost, which is basically just a lab fee. The patient gets a 10-year veneer case done for a third of the price. So it's win-win all the way around. And so that's how the pack has kind of adapted.
Speaker 1:As of today and one of the reasons why Garrett and I wanted to talk about this is in 2023, I think it was we were kind of tiptoeing back into live education because doctors after COVID were still kind of timid about putting 20 or 30 bodies in a room and being that close to each other. We did it anyway and we had quarterly meetings and the quarterly meetings had a good draw because I think we were all missing the live interaction with our colleagues, and so we started to see the rooms filling back up and then, after doing that for a year, we said, hey, next year we want to have these live evening courses, but we're going to do live patient treatment courses with that format that I just discussed and we saw that there were doctors that wanted to sign up for that. So now we've done two of those courses and during our last course we did the course in the Sacramento area and we told the doctors hey, we're in 2025. We're doing courses maybe in the Bay Area of California and in Chicago, so we may not hold a fall course in the Sacramento area.
Speaker 1:And all the doctors that have been taking the courses said, no, we want you to do a fall course in the Sacramento area and we'll help you fill the course. So it's kind of the snowball's kind of picking up. It's growing. We do have courses now where we were tiptoeing back in the live evening courses. Now we have two live patient treatment courses under our belts in Sacramento. Now we're launching Bay Area this summer. We'll be doing Chicago in the fall and we have other associations going on with other groups to kind of bring us into a new crowd.
Speaker 2:To be announced. Exciting stuff happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be announced soon, and one of the reasons why we're looking at this is for us to say sign up for this course. It's very affordable, but sign up. It's still a big step for some of the young docs especially. So what we're doing is we're going to design some more online education to go along with the live classroom type education that will go into the live patient treatment education. So we'll have different ways for our doctors then to tiptoe into this. So we're really excited.
Speaker 2:And atypical online education, something that no one's ever seen. I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say this is going to be so disruptive, it's going to be so different. It's not going to be the same noise. It's not going to be the same webinar. It's going to be so different. It's not going to be the same noise. It's not going to be the same webinar.
Speaker 1:It's going to be pretty exciting stuff, yeah, so, yeah, I agree, and so we're adapting to the times. We're not going to say, okay, we know how to do things one way, that's the way it has to be. So we're going to force everybody into our way. What we're doing is we've got our programs and we've been doing it the way that we've been doing, but now we're adapting our education style to the way dentists today are used to learning. So start off with some of the live online education, then maybe some short day type lectures and from that, get into live patient training programs and everybody will feel comfortable. It'd be very easy and I think this way it's going to be like going instead of jumping into the hot tub or jumping into the uh, the chill bath we're going to we're going to get everybody in the water and then slowly dial the temperature up and down, so nobody will even know that the change is occurring.
Speaker 1:but when they get done with the educational program they won't be the same. So I think that's that's the fun part of doing it this way is that you know, when we look at the doctors that we've finished the programs with now, they are not the same doctors. When I look at the photography they took during their, when they submitted their case photos for the first live patient program, you know I looked at the photos and turn it different ways to try to figure out where the teeth work.
Speaker 1:And if we got the photos, if we got the photos and turn it different ways to try to figure out where the teeth work. And if we got the photos, yeah, if we got the photos. And now when I look at their photos I go, wow, like these photos you could put on the front cover of the aacd magazine and, um, the the doctors have come so far in just a few courses that we've done so. I'm really excited about what what it'll do for the profession and for those doctors are really looking to provide that quality dentistry to their patients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know, mike, we talk about veneer course. You mentioned veneer course, but the big change here is obviously material. Science has changed so much in the last 10 years, in the last five years, in the last two years. You're always introducing and delivering new and different systems for cementation, for bonding, and it's more comprehensive, restorative, because it's not just yours, it can be combination cases.
Speaker 2:In our last course we did bridge work, but comprehensive, restorative, with aesthetics in mind and, I think, for the younger doctors, like you said, them changing. I think it's great that we're going to be able to now, if they're an associate and they can't get out because they're working, they can step in and this new program that we're announcing, that we're launching with some exciting new partners, is going to be really up to date I'm going to sound old when I say this but hip and different and connective and allow everybody to really want to drive into the next step, because there's a lot going on. When we did the courses 30 years ago, we were cementing veneers. We were prepping veneers that went into more minimal prep, that went into no prep in some cases or on rate, and now it's just comprehensive.
Speaker 2:And that adds seven layers of complexity to the learning process, or confusion or fear, however you want to put it.
Speaker 2:So I think what's so great about the pack is breaking it down simply to a process that's predictable simple, predictable, systematic approach to doing a eight or ten unit case, regardless of the restorations.
Speaker 2:I think that's what's so unique. That's been the cornerstone of what the pack has been all about is simplifying it, making everybody feel comfortable and learning the process from designing a smile to prepping the case, to choosing the material, to temporizing it, removing the temps to seeding it, to contouring it and then post-patient care Simple, predictable, but in a systematic approach. Now, with all the new materials and new bonding, it can be overwhelming. So I'm excited that our programs are still addressing it at a fundamental level and allows our doctors not to go to level two and level three and level three being a full mouth case into occlusion, which you were talking about, you were doing today, which is obviously so important, and then into the other paths that we have in education and then again being able to really connect with some of the younger doctors and deliver the education the way they want it delivered, not the way we want to deliver it. I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think you know. I think you know we talk about comprehensive dentistry delivered aesthetically or whatever we say about that. But I think we can simplify that. It's just beautiful comprehensive dentistry.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that's just that's what we're creating now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to update that, yeah, beautiful aesthetic or beautiful comprehensive dentistry. That kind of embodies everything. But I think the that's a good description of what we're trying to teach. And you know, when we talk about dentistry today it's I think it's conservative dentistry, as you mentioned. You know, now we can do full mouth without prepping all the teeth down for crowns per se. You know, if we're trying to add vertical and I think that's one of the things that we've seen already there's a first course live patient treatment course we did.
Speaker 1:We had 10 cases that were all 10 unit maxillary veneer cases. With the second one we had lower veneer cases which are different than upper veneer cases. We had full arch upper cases that are basically full mouth but one arch at a time, and then we had the 10 upper unit kind of cases. So we had really we're starting to get that mix.
Speaker 1:So, like you were mentioning, level one, two and three, where now the doctor's doing one arch at a time, that full mouth one arch at a time, we're looking at doing two arches full mouth, a full mouth one arch at a time. We're looking at doing two arches full mouth of full mouth all at the same time, as long as we understand how the cement nathic system works. That's kind of where we started off with this interview. But if we understand how that works and we can prepare the case, then we take our time, we get the bite stable and then then we can just prep everything and build everything back to where we had the orthotics or whatever it was that we had in the patient's mouth. And that's the exciting part is, like we were saying, is once the doctors do this, they never are the same doctor again. I mean, they see everything totally different and I think that's our goal.
Speaker 2:Our goal is to have a doctor never look in a mouth and see a single tooth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I would say that that's pretty much universal. I interviewed some of the doctors after the last program and said so now when you look at somebody's mouth they're like, oh boy, I just see so much now. Now I have to figure out how to address it. But that's what's great, because the back has a path that they can do the next program.
Speaker 2:And again, it's so great and I know sometimes it's challenging for the doctors to explain to a patient we're going to be taking you into a group where we're going to be learning on you but the reality is they're they're getting the highest level of treatment and patient care that they could ever possibly get world-class dentistry delivered by not only their doctor but a team of doctors, and the result they're going to get might be a $20,000 or $25,000 case in any of the offices of the more senior instructors that have been doing this for a long time. So the real winner in this not just the dentist. Real winner is always the patient.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes it's the toughest thing for the docs coming into the program to talk about, but certainly when the course is over, the patients. I talked to two of the patients in depth and they were just ecstatic.
Speaker 2:They were so thankful. We had some crying and some tears, but I think there's some trepidation for the doctor how to explain to a patient I'm going to take you into this course. That word's scary. What do you mean you're learning? I don't want to be the guy hanging on the wheels of the airplane outside the cabin. What do you mean you're learning to fly here? It's not that at all, and I think the real winner is the patient. And when the patient and the doctor have a success that I think the pac always delivers, and I think the rosenthal group always delivered that and I think lvi always delivered that what happens is that patient becomes a cheerleader for that doc and then you start seeing more and more referrals coming in, so it's a never-ending payback and again, the difference is the patient's paying for their restorations, for the lab and the core dental laboratory is fundamentally paying all the clinical fees, all the educational fees, through a grant.
Speaker 2:So there is no hook there. We hope that we create relationships with our doctors that will last a lifetime. That's the bet that the laboratory makes, and if it wasn't a winning bet, I think we wouldn't be doing this. But really, the goal here is just to deliver great dentistry and great information and then at the end of that, hopefully, the doctor says wow, I met Gary Vaughn, the CTO of the lab, and he did such a great workup on my case. I want to work with him in the future. That's the goal of the laboratory is. It's just to deliver great clinical care. And that's the difference between, I think, an educational program that's based on financial return as a business as opposed to what the PAC is now.
Speaker 2:It's completely changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope everybody listens to this that's been wanting to learn how to do dentistry. I think, at a different level, we'll inquire about taking courses because we have a lot of fun. I mean, it really is a fun way of doing dentistry. Everybody gets to be really good friends and I think when I look at the group that we've had go through so far, they really have created this bond between them, which is really nice. And I think you're absolutely right in dentistry a lot of times we think of tooth dentistry, whereas after we take these courses we think of tooths dentistry, so multiple tooths and we're good to go if I I don't, I don't want to to my own horn, but yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 2:That's what we try to get the doctors to see so we have sacramento coming up again, we have Chicago coming up again, we have San Jose in the Bay Area coming up again. We have our new program, which I can't talk about right now but we're super excited about. We're going to be announcing that which is going to be just killer coming up. So we have a full funnel of programs available for our, our listeners. I'll let you say it's wwwthepactorg.
Speaker 2:You can go to the website yeah you can go to core dental designs and you can go to the website there or contact us or you can call that guy. Yeah, he's available. He stays up at night, so you give me a call anytime yeah, I'll be good dr mike anytime and he'll be happy to talk to you about the programs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, we'd be glad to talk to you. But, yeah, these programs the reason why I do it after doing this now for 35 plus years is just because it's so fun to see the doctors and see how they evolve. And it could be 20 years later and you talk to them again and it's really impacted their dentistry and their career. So that's what kind of makes it fulfilling to do what we do. Yeah, no, I think that's what we wanted to share during this interview and I think in future interviews we're going to talk to Gary Vaughn, who is the chief technician over at CORE, and we're going to talk about the value of quality dental work and I think from the lab perspective, you know, when we're doing cases like this.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that creates trepidation I know it was for me is when I, when I placed a crown, I used to always have to adjust the mesial distal contacts and the occlusion, and I remember the first time I started to do multi-unit cases, like six units or who I never thought of doing a 10 unit course until I took my first live patient treatment course. I was trying to figure out how would I ever adjust those units to fit, and one of the things that we'll talk about in an upcoming program with Gary Vaughn is how they do that amazing work, where it's faster for me typically to cement 10 units than it would have taken me years ago to seat one unit, because the lab work is so good and it's just right there where you need to be. I think one of the things that we talked to Gary Vaughn about is just the aesthetics. Because you want to use a lab, the patients don't know what our preparations look like or what our shortcomings were, and a lot of times we look at our preps and we think, oh, maybe I could have done a little bit more. A little bit more there, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:But the patients, when they smile and they see the final restorations there, if we've gotten the shade that they wanted and we get the shape that they want, they're happy.
Speaker 1:They don't know what's underneath all that nice lab work, but it's the lab work that they see and it's the lab work that they judge us by, and so I think it's really important that we use labs that make our multi-unit cases easier and they make us successful, because they make us look successful, and I think that's what we'll be talking about in the next program and I'm really excited about that. So, if you're here and you like this material, hit the like button. If you don't want to miss any, hit the subscribe button. And, yeah, we'd love it if you shared this information so that when we do our next one, that we have this valuable information that again, I think, will impact your career. And we're creating this community of like-minded individuals that want to do more comprehensive dentistry and have it look beautiful, like we talked about, and do it in a conservative way so that it's better for our patients teeth definitely so.
Speaker 2:The title of our next program is prep, don't pray yep yep with gary on ctl yeah, that's right. That's right, I agree right, exciting stuff going on yeah, and then I think we have some other guests that will be announced next time, that we some really exciting key opinion leaders, uh in the country that are going to be coming on and joining us in the future or two.
Speaker 1:So it's good stuff yeah, yeah, it's really good to have this time with the audience just to kind of share our views, and I think the biggest part is for everybody to get to know us, and so that's, that's what. What, uh, we've been trying to do. But, yeah, it's fun to have outside speakers come in because it's entertaining.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. Well, Michael, sign off. I'll say thank you. I will say one thing you mentioned earlier about camaraderie and I'll tell you it was so nice at the last program to see so many of the past doctors. We had a couple, a doc or two come in and hang out with us that have taught with us for years, that weren't technically part of the program but love hanging out and teaching so much that they came in and saw it. So a shout out to those guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, definitely. It's always great to see them and you know they're. They're helping us out too. So, yeah, it's really nice to have those friendships that we developed over all these decades.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. All right, we'll let you finish your glass of wine, Dr Miyazaki. It's time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're ready to go back. All right, thanks very much. Everyone, take care. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:See you next time.