Early Adhesive Dentistry: Materials and Key Opinion Leaders

As new dental materials are developed, manufacturers and key opinion leaders play a role in how widely those products are adopted. Manufacturers market new products, but key opinion leaders and teachers also influence practitioners by comparing the benefits of various materials and lending their expertise.

In this episode Dr. David Alleman discusses his early introduction to adhesive materials, how his role models and mentors led him to a growing network of key opinion leaders in the dental materials community and his own experience of growing from a young dentist to a teacher and key opinion leader in the field of biomimetic restorative dentistry.

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Transcript

0:33

All right. Welcome to the Six Lessons podcast. This is episode eight in season three, and we're going to talk a little bit about manufacturing dental products. Manufacturing dental products is something that I have no expertise in. But every one of us who use products require, some confidence in the quality control that the products are being developed under, But the product that we sell in six lessons is not a material. We recommend materials, but we can make any materials from any company work with the right techniques. Let me just give you a personal example of how I came in contact with one company that I've worked with. Their company is Ultradent and Ultra Dent, is in the same city that I've lived in for 38 years, South Jordan, Utah. But how did I meet Dan Fisher, who is the founder and president? when I graduated from dental school in 1978. The dentist who inspired me, actually to be a dentist who I met when I was in 10th grade, in 10th grade, I go to this graduation dental school. And I met, Bob Heath. fast forward, I go to, pre dental school, you know, at Brigham Young University, get accepted to dental school at University of Pacific, finish my three years now I'm a dentist and so I have to always think, well, what next? And my parents at this time were living in San Diego, California, the city of my birth, where I was born and my wife Linda, and three of our children, two of which were born in dental school, travel to San Diego and visited my parents. And, as we were traveling back, we, stop at Lompoc, California, where Bob Heath was practicing dentistry. I went to his office and watched some practice. And, I got some ideas about dental products. For example, in, Northern California, small company that nobody had ever heard of called Denmat was manufacturing some of the first adhesive products, really in the world. but, Denmat hired a young dentist who had some skills in chemistry and was a practicing dentist. And his name was John Kanca III And John Kanca worked for Denmat as a scientific, dentist advisor on products and of course, dentistry, particularly, he had early in his career connected with Takao Fusayama just like Ray Bertolotti early in his career, teaching connected with Takao Fusayama So John Kanca and Ray Bertolotti, who were really the only two dentists United States that knew personally Takao Fusayama. 1998 I met John Kanca for the first time at the Ada convention, and he was, not at that time, working for the company Denmat That my first inspiration for dentistry, Bob Heath, was using their products. Now you're just coming out of dental school. You don't know anything about dental products. You just like your dental school. They say, use this, you use that. mean, that's you know, why would a dental why would a dental school give you anything but but the best to fix teeth with, right? You have no idea of any type of evolutionary type of history, any type of going forward or backward in product selection or product applications. All these things I'm getting introduced to just as I'm graduating from dental school. But the real thing I'm worried about is, you know, what do I do next? Now? after I graduated, I was committed for three years in the Navy, and so I knew I was going to be practicing wherever the Navy assigned me for three years. I did that, but Bob, he gave me a name of a doctor that he had had an associate. That's usually what happens when you come out of, dental school. You'd go into a practice, you don't know anything. You don't have any real capital resources to borrow money to start a practice. Another whole challenge. But my friend, doctor Heath, my first kind of inspiration says when you get out of the Navy, if you're planning to go back to Utah, that was kind of our plan, because my wife is from Utah. He said, look up. My friend Roger Hicks, he practiced with me in Lompoc for three years, and then he decided to go back to Salt Lake, where he was from in practice. as soon as I, got out of the Navy, we moved back to Utah. I contacted Roger Hicks and used the name. I said, you know, I'm kind of a cousin of Bob Heath, But anyway. Roger. Nice guy. He was associate with the Utah Dental Association in some leadership position. We went to a few dinners together with the Utah Dental Association, but he offered me a part time job a couple of days a week in his practice while I decided what to do in Utah as far as, practicing dentistry. So for about a year, I practice with Roger Hicks in this office in the middle of the Utah, Salt Lake Valley. There were several dentists in this complex, and the office right across are right next door to Roger Hicks was Doctor Dan Fisher. Just, Dan Fisher, DDS. Didn't think anything about it. But, as I got to know Roger and he got to know, obviously he knew Dan because Dan had started his practice there three years before. We started to use a product because at that time, of course, I was doing Crown preparations because Crown preparations were what all I knew. but when you do crown preparation, quite often you have a problem with the bleeding of the gingiva, especially in deep margins underneath crowns. Packing cord is obviously the first thing that was was taught. But you also have the idea of a hemostatic agent. And so Dan Fisher had an idea. And he said instead of dabbing on this hemostatic agent that gets on the gum tissue kind of slops around if the patient faces the bitters thing they've ever tasted can actually damage tissue. And in a way, these hemostatic agents very caustic. But Dan Fisher said, how about if I made a little syringe and I had a little brush tip on the end, and then you could just put that hemostatic agent exactly where the bleeding is, it was an innovation for this traditional crown and bridge problem. Roger was telling me this story because these, hemostatic syringes, that Roger had, were for sale. we only have these because Dad Fisher makes these in his kitchen, but he is getting ready to go to market, And then in the next few years, bleaching of vital teeth became important. But again, the problem of these bleaching materials, how to contain these bleaching materials, because they were liquid, was very hard to contain them and keep them on the teeth. Again. Dan Fisher, you know, a very bright person had an innovation. And the innovation was, I'm going to make a gel form of this bleach material is called Opalescence. It became his major cash cow. But anyway, that's kind of the first introduction to altered in Products and then Dan Fisher and then over the years at different meetings, we would meet each other. And he gave me permission to use his library because he did have a library at ultradent I use the library at Ultra Dent for probably two years. I visited it every day And so when I became imbued with the idea that science was the way forward in adhesive dentistry, Ray Bertolotti gave me the beginning ideas of the references and the bibliography, and then Ray Bertolotti did me a huge favor. And this was, you know, not requested by me, but, every company, large and small in dental manufacturing have what are called key opinion leader meetings. Key opinion leaders are very important to product manufacturers because if somebody on the stage mentions a product, the chances that product being purchased like increasing exponentially. And so these meetings, Are very important. But, myself, I had been teaching six lessons for a couple of years. 2003, Ray Bertolotti got trained by us in 2004. And then, 2005, we had a key opinion leaders meeting at Ultra Dent. I was not invited until Ray Bertolotti Told Dan Fisher that he should invite me but it was the first one that I'd ever been invited to. met a lot of important key opinion leaders that are still in the biomimetic community. Mark Maltrude probably the biggest one. Richard Trikowsky from New York is another one we're still in contact with. Dan Fisher, when he started his company, he was involved with the early connections with Denmat John Kanca Because the third Ray Bertolotti, John Kanca III eventually made his own company called Apex and Ray Bertolotti He made his own company. It was called Danville. And here is a key opinion leaders meeting, by Danville, that I was invited to in 2008. all of these people are important in some time for practicing in teaching, manufacturing or, research in the dental world. But the company would love you to just say only Danville products work, or only Ultradent products work, or only Kuraray products work, you know, or only Biscoe products worth. Or at least they would say these are the best. I mean, that's what every manufacturer wants, every key opinion leader to say, Now, that's an area of ethics among key opinion leaders. Ethics among scientists, ethics among practitioners. As six lessons grew, you know, I had been invited from Dan Fischer's, key opinion leaders to being able to use his library whenever I wanted to. And for two years, I was probably there every day for at least 1 or 2 hours. For two years. But, as we started to grow the idea of biomimetics, we wanted to start having conferences and conferences or usually sponsored by manufacturers the conferences statewide, national wise, really go from year to year, from the support of the people who are selling, in the conference But anyway, we wanted to do a conference on biomimetic dentistry. Actually, Pascal Magne in his office said, Dave, I want you to do something. I think it would be important. And, of course, Pascal had a pretty big reputation. I didn't have a reputation that big in 2007. been teaching six lessons for four years. Ray Bertolotti obviously was, giving me some support. Other people like Dan Fisher give me some support. but in the western part of the United States, I had some status as a key opinion leader because we started to publish some articles versus Ray Bertolotti then with Simone Deliperi and then with Pascal Magne But all of this process of getting known and establishing your position as a key opinion leader, well, at some point, the key opinion leaders, if they want to have a conference if they believe that their information is so important that it needs to be promoted in a separate conference, which I did, then I said, okay, Pascal, I think that's a great idea. but he was the speaker. At the first biomimetic conference in 2011. we had already had some small biometric conferences here in Utah. In 2008, 2009, we brought out Simone Deliperi but for basically two years, Davey and I worked on this conference, But when I was talking to Dan Fisher in his office this was in 2008 when we started this, planning for this conference I went to visit him in his office on behalf of this organizing committee of, Pascal Mange, Ray Bertolotti. myself for the biomimetic conference. And then afterwards, he wrote, a little article in an advertising journal that's called Dental Town. It's a, journal that, John Kanca was associated with, for many, many years is their kind of expert in the world of dentistry. Dan Fisher knows some things about it. He said dentistry. And in this article, this series said over time, dentists will continue to hear about the importance of mimicking the natural. That's the title mimicking nature. Strive to mimic the natural. So I introduce Dan Fisher to the concept of biomimetics. And next thing you know, he's writing an article. On biomimetics. And he says over time, dentists will continue to hear about the importance of mimicking the natural. Some, like Bertolotti, Magne and Alleman have even come up with a now nice sounding name for it, biomimetics, which means mimicking the natural. Why did Pascal Magne Ray Bertolotti and Dave Alleman decide to use the word biomimetics? We were in Pascal Magne office. USC. We're in the office. We're trying to figure out, okay, this conference, you know, we believe that these advances in adhesive dentistry are so significant. You have to learn them in a very systematic way, in the systematic way that I have called six lessons. Other teachers of biomimetic dentistry might call that something else. Now Ray Bertolotti you have been talking a lot about tooth conserving dentistry. That's the phrase I learned from you 1995. Very appealing idea. phrase that I used, four years before this meeting. This meeting was in 2007. The phrase I use was advanced adhesive dentistry. And Pascal's word was biomimetic because he had put that in the title of his book. Doctor Schlafken who is head of NIH, like the word those three phrases tooth conserving dentistry, advanced adhesive dentistry, biomimetic. What should we use on this conference? It's going to be, he say, an international conference. Most of our doctors will come from United States and Canada. But this conference had to have a name, and we had to have, you know, our view, kind of a catchy name, like would say, well, what the heck is that? So dentists invited to a conference on advanced and he said, dentistry. Every dentist is like, oh, I already do advanced adhesive dentistry because I've been trained by this key opinion leader, this, mentor from this company, blah, blah, blah. And the other the same problem with tooth conserving dentistry. Every dentist sink their teeth conserving dentistry if they're doing root canals, you know, if they're doing fillings or doing crowns or conserving to structure teeth conserving dentistry didn't really tie in with this idea that the science was advancing in adhesive dentistry. So we decided to use biomimetic mainly because dentists had no idea what that meant. And so when Pascal and I were talking about how it works and how we promote biomimetic dentistry, we said, you have to have three things. You have to have the knowledge. You have to have the ability to practice, and you have to have the ability to be on stage. In other words, once you start going on stage, you've got to give up either your scientific foundation, which takes time and dedication on a daily basis, or you have to give up your private practice, which takes time and dedication on a daily basis. And so you can't do all three of those. I mean, in the Alleman Center in our business, we have science, we have practice, and we have some pretty good stage presentations. But in reality, there are things that I teach in the six lessons to the 500 or 1000 doctors that I've trained over the last 25 years, that if you don't know in detail, you are not going to be able to have the success that the doctors who have a, who ship knowledge, have. But the product that we sell in six lessons is not a material. We recommend materials, but we can make any materials from any company work with the right techniques. but in reality you have to identify and this is what I've always done. Who are the leaders in the science in the six lessons approach that the Alleman Center has been teaching now for 25 years, over 25 years, we're having the six, six success that we, envisioned. And this success is that we've trained enough teachers of the six lessons approach who are teaching internationally around the world. last two days, Davey and I have given two hour lectures to a group of 19 dentists in South America, translated into Spanish by Eraldo very wonderful translator. But all of these efforts have one, one purpose. We're just trying to save teeth and make dental treatments as successful as possible, because that's what patients want. And so if you're interested in doing the type of dentistry that your patients really want, then click on the link below. I don't know, Audrey can audit this to make sure that you understand that you have other places. To get more information about the six lessons approach. And until episode nine, get bonded. Stay bonded