Learn Faster, Practice Better, And Love Dentistry Again With Live, Mentor-Led Training

If dentistry has felt flat lately, you might be missing the one ingredient videos can’t deliver: proximity. We sit down with Dr. Jack Griffin and master technician Gary Vaughn to unpack how live, mentor-led training turns theory into muscle memory, and how those real-time reps reshape your cosmetic cases, your team’s confidence, and your patients’ trust.

Across the conversation, we dig into the details that make or break outcomes: seeing finger rests and bur selection up close, hearing the words used to calm a patient, and learning how to sequence veneer preps so the lab can nail contacts and occlusion on the first try. Gary shares the lab’s vantage point—why most technicians never see finished results, how chairside collaboration sharpens shade mapping and records, and what small prep changes unlock stronger, more aesthetic ceramics. The result is predictable seating, often with zero adjustments, and a workflow that saves hours and stress.

We also talk numbers and mindset. Live courses carry a higher price tag than a webinar, but the ROI can be immediate with one well-planned case—and the compounding payoff shows up in fewer remakes and smoother deliveries. Dr. Griffin highlights a path out of professional burnout through talent stacking: get solid across prep design, materials, presentation, and leadership, and your whole practice rises. That shift from isolation to community makes dentistry feel fun, ethical, and sustainable again, especially when you focus on conservative, adhesive restorations that patients value.

Ready to trade passive watching for active mastery? Hit play, then share this episode with a colleague who’s on the fence about hands-on training. If you’re finding value in these conversations, subscribe, leave a quick review, and tell us: which skill do you want to level up next?

For more information contact the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum at https://thepac.org.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intros

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, Dr. Michael Miyasaki here today, and we are really excited to have you listen to this program because we have, by popular demand, back Dr. Jack Griffin. So uh Dr. Griffin, again, is one of the most accomplished dentists in the United States. And the PAC, the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum, is very lucky to have him as one of our main um instructors. So we'll we're gonna come back to him real quick. But we have a different um guest here. We have uh Gary Vaughn. So Garrett Caldwell, the CEO of the group, could not make today. So we have Gary Vaughn, and Gary Vaughn is the master technician for everything that Core Down Lab does. He has he's at the uh Pacific Aesthetic Continuum courses. He's been doing education for almost a hundred years, I believe. Well, it's been about 40. But you know, whenever I'm with when whenever I'm with Gary, we always joke about his experience. So he's got a thousand years of experience kind of condensed in about 40. But if you ever come to a course, Gary's the one that makes sure that everything fits, looks great, and he's really um in charge of what the core dental lab does. So welcome, Dr. Griffin, and welcome, Gary. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Appreciate it.

Confidence Gains From Hands-On Courses

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah. Well, what we're excited about is, you know, Core Dental Laboratory is really focused on providing their clients with the best of education. And the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum kind of follows that. So this weekend I had the privilege of working with Dr. Griffin. We're we'll be doing another live patient course in the Bay Area of California. And um I will tell you, I'm looking forward to it because I get to sit through all of Dr. Griffin's lectures, and it's gonna take me up a couple notches in my practice. But I just wanted to ask you, Dr. Griffin, um the what what you have seen, the importance of dental education in your personal life and practice, and then you know, those of the that you've taught, the thousands that you've taught over the years, how's it changed their lives?

Learning In Community, Not Isolation

Overcoming Fear And Cost Barriers

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Well, so I I think it's yeah, you always have to step back and look at the big picture. The big picture right now in dentistry is online learning. And I think that a lot of dentists today feel like they're on an island, they're all by themselves, they don't have anybody to share the experience with. So they log onto a computer like this, they look at somebody on a two-dimensional screen, and they totally miss out on the four-dimensional aspect of dentistry. In other words, they don't get to see a doctor really work. And when you get in a live patient situation or a hands-on situation, and you can watch your mentor or your uh the instructor do what he or she does, that's way different than watching what they do on a computer, because you get to see how they interact with the patient, how they interact with the staff, how they interact with other doctors, even. And I think that in today's world, unfortunately, with the online learning, which is wonderful in its own way, it just misses a whole big aspect of the relationship side of dentistry. And let's put it this way I I can be a very mediocre dentist and do just very average work. But if I know how to talk to the patient, know how to motivate the staff, know how to get the best out of everybody around me, I can get by with that probably. Now I don't want to just dwell on being mediocre. I want to I want to push myself to get better. But there are so many aspects to dentistry that you cannot see on a two-dimensional computer screen. You gotta see somebody do it. You gotta feel it almost. It's just not as simple as logging on and picking up what you need to know. It's kind of like if you're doing going to drive a car for the first time. I can't imagine a 16-year-old reading a book and saying, aha, I know how to drive, without ever seeing their parents drive, or without ever seeing a friend drive, or without taking a driver's ed class. But we have dentists out there that are looking at basically looking at a driving book without ever seeing it performed. So once you get out of dental school, you kind of think you know it all and you you got to figure it out. And it's amazing how little you know about what you thought you knew a lot about. And so personally, Mike, with me, um, every time I hear you or any other speaker speak, I always pick up something that I think, wow, how didn't I figure that out? Why didn't I know that? How could I have practiced this long and not know that point of view? And so every time we're around other people, even teaching, we learn stuff, as you know. And anytime you can get around other people, Gary and the the guys we have at the lab, it's amazing what you pick up and you didn't even try to. So I I I just think that it's having live patient courses and any kind of course where there's interaction with other dentists, watching them, listening to them, that's where you really learn the stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, no, absolutely. And and Gary, we we have your, you know, we're lucky to have your perspective because you've you've attended a ton of these courses. And from your perspective, you've seen the change in the doctors that you work with from their understanding of maybe what a veneer is, then taking a course and actually doing very predictable, very aesthetic veneers just by, you know, just from what they learned. Um, how would you describe that change?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Well, to me, I think more than anything, I see confidence in the doctors once they participate in a program like this. Um, I've invited a number of dentists that I've worked with over the years to do single-tooth dentistry. I've invited them to come to the courses, and I found out once they come, they can't even believe what they didn't know before about about cosmetic dentistry. Some of them have even said, Well, I don't do that kind of dentistry. And I said, Well, if you come, I I guarantee you you'll have patients in your practice who will want it if they know that you provide it. And sure enough, you know, it it seems to happen like that. Plus, they gain the confidence, they're watching people that do this all the time, and all of a sudden they understand and gain some respect for the people that have done this. And that the sociality of a course like this is is as critical as any part of the learning, I think, is um for them to come and rub shoulders with you guys that to know what you're doing in this in this line of work. Um some of them are just used to doing you know, a crown or two on a patient. They're not used to doing uh a nice set of veneers that are gonna give you a predictable result. So that's what I've seen. I've just seen some confidence after they've taken a course, which which I don't think you're gonna get just watching a you know, a video.

Lab Collaboration At The Chair

SPEAKER_01 7:07

So yeah, no, you absolutely right. You know, uh Jack and I were talking before we started the recording, just saying, well, you know, it if online training was so good, you wouldn't need dental schools, right? Because dental schools are where we bring patients in actually work on them. But Jack, I think you're absolutely right. Like going back to when I was learning to do a lot of different things, I remember the first time I signed up to take a live patient course. I was like really nervous before I went out there because up until that point, just like you were saying, I was kind of siloed. You know, I was working in my practice, but not with other dentists looking at the work I was doing or me watching other dentists work. It was just kind of so isolated. And then when I was taking these live patient treatment courses, I could see what burr the instructor used. I could see where they had their finger rests, I could see you know the different angles they were looking at the preps. And I picked up so much more than if I had watched a video and the tooth was on here and the you know, the video camera was just kind of locked in, showing the burr going around the tooth and putting a margin on there with some reduction, it would have been a totally different experience. So then for me personally, I got that bug and I started just wanting to do live course after live course after live course. And then, you know, being around guys like you, and I know this weekend, just the inspiration I'll get by looking at how you do your cases, how you set your cases up, how you do that communication will inspire me to go back the following week and do much more dentistry and do better dentistry.

ROI, Fulfillment, And Career Longevity

SPEAKER_02 8:36

And so Yeah, well, it's sort of, yeah. Well, I appreciate the kind words. However, um, if you ask every dentist if they're good at doing injections, every one of them is gonna say yes. Every single one's gonna say, oh yes, I give great injections. And and if you ask them, there will be one staff member that works for them that will say, Oh yes, Dr. So-and-so is the best at injections. Okay, same question. Prepping. I oh, I prep great. My staff thinks I prep great. Until you see other people do it, you don't really have anything to compare yourself to. And the reason you need to do that, because there's no way you're gonna get better thinking you're the best at anything. And it's there's a guy named Scott Adams that talks about talent stacking. Instead of being the absolute best at any one thing of veneer prep, or being the best at dental materials, or being the best at case presentation, if you could be in the top 25% of each one of those and stacked them up together, you'd be an incredibly successful dentist. Way more than if you thought you were the best at any one thing. It's putting it all together. It's trying to develop the skill and the confidence. Like Gary said, if there was one thing that we do well at our courses, I think, and that's inspire confidence. Because after they see a few cases go well and they see how other doctors do it and see how confident we are, I think it rubs off on them. I think it's easy for that them to take that back to their practice and probably do better than we do. At least in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, no, I I think you're you're you're spot on. So, you know, in your mind, what is holding more of our colleagues back from taking this type of education? And um, what kind of encouragement can we provide to get them kind of over that obstacle?

Comprehensive Cases And Zero-Adjust Fit

SPEAKER_02 10:33

So I was the master track chair for the state of Missouri for the AGD program for 10 years. And what my job was is to put on live patient courses. So, in order to get your master's with Academy of General Dentistry, you have to earn so many hours of hands-on participation courses. Having a patient take a um just a regular online course or just a regular course, that was easy. But getting them to commit to doing hands-on and live patient, that was a whole nother level. It was like pulling teeth almost. They're nervous to work in front of another doctor, they're impatient, they want things to go perfectly well the very first time they try it, and they're not willing to go through the learning process. And you just have to understand that no one was perfect on their first case, nor their last, but you get better each time. And by watching other people model um how we treat patients and how we work on patients, how we talk to staff, how we communicate. You add all those little things together, you're stacking talents on top of each other. And that's what makes you a great dentist, a good dentist, compassionate dentist, confident. And all those things put together is what separates you from your other colleagues in the area. And that's what you're trying to do. Have a niche, something that separates you from everybody else in the area. Not that you're the best at any one thing, but that you're very competent at lots of different things. So to me, seeing live patients, hands-on stuff, that's by far the best way to gain confidence. Get over the nervousness that you feel when you think that somebody's gonna be judging your work. No one's at our courses judges work. We may offer um advice, we may talk to you in a private, confidence-building way of how we might have done it different, and we might offer some suggestions for next time. No condemnation, no nothing that would lower your self-esteem, not like dental school, where they prided themselves on taking your wax up and smashing it between their fingers just to watch you squirm. Yeah, that is not how courses are today. It's about building confidence and showing you what might be a better way for you. That's it.

Closing And Course Invitation

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. Um, I'm gonna cover a couple things, thoughts that that came up as you were talking. One is um, you know, going back to do I give a good injection? You know, I think we tried to give the best injection we can, but I think the mindset that I always have when I'm with a colleague is can I do it better? So, you know, I think when you come into a course like this, I think you're absolutely right. You know, we're not there to judge you. We're just there to try to figure out is there a way to maybe do it better more efficiently. And it goes both ways. Like I've probably taught 10,000 doctors, live patient, whether it be implant courses or aesthetic courses or occlusion courses, whatever it may be. And I will tell you, I've seen clinicians that do amazing work. And as I work with those clinicians, they make me better. And it's one of the reasons why I like doing this. I think another obstacle to taking these courses is when you look at like an online course, you might be able to sign up for a free webinar or maybe an online course for 49 bucks. And you look at taking a live patient course, which is a much larger commitment, as you're saying, Jack. And it might it might cost thousands of dollars to take the course. But one of the things that's always um intrigued me is you know, the doctors will say, Well, I can't afford to take that course. And I tell them, okay, one of the things, or one of the ways you can afford that is by charging your patient for the work, right? If you're gonna do 10 veneers, that could have a value of between$15,000 and$25,000. And if the course were, let's say,$5,000, well, the patient could pay the$5,000, which is the cost of the course, and um they'd still be saving$10,000 to$15,000, which is an incentive for them. And then I know other doctors that charge twice as much as the course. So they're they're actually making money, but the patient's still getting a deal. And so that really helps kind of mitigate the cost. And then I think um, you know, Gary, you know this well is that it goes back to what Jack was saying, is when we're in these courses, I think one of the advantages is that you get to work with an instructor who who's done this many times. And so we we learn from that doctor. But then we have the lab technicians here during the course. And so they're able to help us learn how to do better lab communication. They can look at our preps and say, you know, it would help if we change the prep in this area here. And so you really get a lot of feedback that in everyday practice you miss out on. And I think those are all kind of invaluable factors that people don't think about when they are thinking about taking a course. Uh, Gary, do you have anything to say about that? Because I know you've had a lot of experience uh communicating with doctors and you do such a great job.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Well, I appreciate that. Um, we do the best we can, but it it is gratifying, it's also humbling to be in the presence of a bunch of of doctors that have uh spent a long time in their lives uh providing care for their patients. But uh the the thing that's gratifying to me is that that we get to see the results of our our cases. And typically most laboratories don't get to ever see the finished product. So it wants it it wants us, uh it it kind of tries for us to step up our game too, which is exciting for me. Um when we started doing these courses, I it came it was like a reinvention of of uh myself, and I really enjoyed it because you know you can sit in the lab all day pounding out cases, but to to uh focus on you get to meet the patient, you get to see what they're going through. Um I actually had the opportunity to go through the course myself sitting in the chair at one point because one of the dentists had a patient that decided to cancel out on them at the last minute. So I've I've had the experience to sit there and know what the doctor and their team is going through, what the patient is going through, and then I know on the lab end what what we go through to try to make sure that you get a beautiful predictable result. And uh so yeah, I I I can't even say enough about it. Those are exciting times for us to get involved and and come to these courses because we learn tons also.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

But say along those lines, Gary, I agree with you. Having a ceramist in the operatories with a doctor as they prep their case and they think about planning the case and all that, it's invaluable. There are very few dentists in our country who have had the experience of having their ceramist or lab technician in an operatory with them while they pick shades or do bite registrations or get photos or anything else. That is that is a incredible benefit of doing a live patient course the way we do it. The other thing, Mike, is exactly what you said. Supposing that you treatment planned a crown on a patient, and your assistant was presenting that treatment plan to the patient, and the assistant kept apologizing for how expensive your crown was. That patient's not going to do that crown. With our courses, yeah, there's a little bit of an investment to it as far as not even so much money, but time, you know, two two-day weekends or or whatever. There's an investment, but the return on investment is great. People just look at cost, it's X number of dollars. But that's not what it's about. It's about the return on investment. How much do you multiply that investment by value in your practice and about your personal fulfillment and your enjoyment of practice? There was a study done by the ADA, it was released, I'm thinking, in the late 90s, early 2000s, I can't remember exactly. They used to talk about in practice management courses. They pulled so many hundred dentists, 70% of the dentists that they pulled would not do dentistry if they did it again. On the other hand, 90% of dentists who achieved some sort of status in an organization, 90% said they would do it again. Masters in the AGD, accredited by the AACD, a diplomat in something, or fellow in the American Board of Uh Implant Dentistry. When a dentist is motivated to work towards something, in other words, they want to get better, they want to commit to learning, they want to prove that they've achieved a certain status or whatever. It doesn't mean they're better than any other dentist out there, but it motivates them and it makes them happier in what they do. If 70% said they wouldn't do dentistry again, I'd rather be in the 90% group that said they would do it again. And so CE and learning and motivating yourself, challenging yourself to become better, that's that's a that's a game changer to me.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

You know, Jack, that information that you just gave really gives credence to what you started out the podcast with today. The fact that a lot of these guys feel like they're on an island. And uh when you're associating with all these people at a course, it it removes all that.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

But yeah, I agree exactly. So the thing is, is that we're there to share the experience, we're not there to act like we're superior. Or that we know everything or anything. We're there to share. And so, like I said, we learn from each other. We talk through things that don't work out exactly as they were supposed to. And then we get better for next time. And that's what it's all about. When you're isolated, that's not a good way to go through life. You can't feel like you're the only one that's going through this. You have to understand that we all go through the same challenges, the same successes in a way. Um, and whenever we can share the experience, it makes it better for all of us. Just in in every regard.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah. You know, and talking about just the level experience that you'll get. I know in this course, Jack, that we're doing this weekend, we've got everything from uh veneers to full mouth um full mouth cases. So it's really gonna be a very comprehensive course that we're holding this weekend, and I'm super excited about that. And I'm again, I'm I'm gonna learn from you.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah. Well, so the um well, gentlemen, now I I really uh appreciate your input. I think um from this, those that are watching or listening can can gather that, you know, the the education provided by the Pacific Aesthetic Continuum is really about comprehensive dentistry restored aesthetically. And and the reason why that's so important is one, um, we have to do comprehensive treatment planning that is, I think, ethical treatment planning. You know, there's a lot of dentistry being done that maybe is trying to generate revenue, but we want to always remember to do the best for our patient. And I will tell you, if you've got the eyes to see what's going on in a patient's mouth, you know, the orange initiation or the smiles that they're not happy about, and you can restore those, you will do fine just doing dentistry that our patients need and actually want. Then we do the aesthetic restorations because many times we can be more conservative because we're doing adhesive dentistry, much different than if we're trying to cement crowns on everyone's teeth, then we have to do more um tooth reduction. And that's why we have a lab like Gary works with over at Core that he uh makes sure that the quality is there so we have the fit, when we have the aesthetics, and just to get people, I think just to go back, because when I, you know, we talked about the cost, we talked about working in front of other dentists. But Jack, I remember the first time I took my first veneer course, and the treatment plan was to do 10 veneers. And I sat there and I think we had three hours to uh prep, and then we had another session, three hours to seat. And I remember where I was in dentistry at the time, when I would do a single crown, I would try the crown in, and invariably the contacts would be too tight. So I had to adjust the mesial and distal. Then I got to seat down and the floss was clicking through, and then I had to check the bite, and the bite invariably was too high. So then I had to adjust that. Then I had to polish everything back up. And I remember, and this is this was um a true recollection, I sat there and said, if I have to do that for 10 restorations, three hours is not going to be enough time. Brutal, brutal. Yeah. So, you know, when when you think about how do you get around that? Well, if you're worried about that, one, you know, come and listen to what Dr. Griffin talks about, about prep design and to getting the impressions and working with the lab, and then working with a lab that will, before they send the case out, they'll make sure that your contacts are where they should be on a solid model, they'll make sure the occlusion's there. And I will tell you, we put cases in 10 units, 28 units, where we have to do no adjusting. And then that's possible if you're really careful. So if those are some of the things that you're worried about, I hope this um brief interview kind of helps to align some of those fears. And um, you know, if you have a chance to come out and take a course with Dr. Griffin, there's nothing better than doing that. And if you have a chance of working with Gary Vaughn either at a course or with the lab work done at Core Dental Laboratory, I think you'll find that it will make your dentistry, whether it be these larger aesthetic, full mouth rehab cases, or just your straight crown, single crowns, inlays, onlays, whatever it may be, it'll make your everyday dentistry a lot less stressful. So I hope you gentlemen agree with that. And I really thank you for your input. Uh any last words?

SPEAKER_02 24:08

No, Mike, thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

I'm looking forward for this weekend too.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah, can't wait. You're gonna you're gonna be there, Gary?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I'll be there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Good. No, that's great. We look forward to seeing I look forward to seeing the both of you.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, you're being nice, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

All right, guys. Have a great evening. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Thank you. All right, take care. See you soon, guys. Okay, bye bye.