Very Dental Student: The Snowball Effect

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_00]: It's time for a Very Dental Podcast just for students and new dentists.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Very Dental Student Podcast.

[00:00:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And now here's your host, Mohamed Aboubasha.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Very Dental Student Podcast.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Mohamed Aboubasha, and I'm coming at you with a very familiar voice,

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Alan Mead, the host of the Very Dental Podcast.

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I'm taking over the Very Dental Student Podcast today.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I demanded an audience with Mohamed Aboubasha today.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I'd had a... Okay, so, Mohamed Aboubasha, you are midway through third year, correct?

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that where you are right now?

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. So first semester, like you're... we're cruising into November here.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So clinic is sort of... it's old hat for you at this point.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You're pretty comfortable with how clinic works. Is that right?

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: For the most part, yeah.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. Okay. What's your favorite clinical experience so far?

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've been fortunate enough to get kind of a head-on fixed.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Nice.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't started any removable yet or endo, which are the other two like big ones that people like are excited to get started on, I guess.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a head-on fixed. So that's my favorite part so far.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I... and the reality is that's good that you are. I hate removable. I think it's... removable is still necessary in the world.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But like, I remember in dental school, removable was a... it was a mess.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_00]: It was always, it was always, you know, one step forward, four steps back.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And God help you if you accidentally worked with a different clinic person on your removable cases, because they would... they would change everything.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, I remember that. So, I mean, yeah, I get it.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But fixed... fixed is where it's at, especially in... I mean, those are... those are the things where you got to check all those boxes off.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember you had to do a lot of... a lot of fixed units. That was a bigger part of the... the... the requirements.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I just remember carrying the books around and you had to have, you know, a certain number of pages filled out for your fixed stuff.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember. I remember that vividly.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Ugh.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So... so your fixed is going well for you. That's good.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And you're... I mean, you're still early on.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I know... and it's probably hard not to compare with your classmates to see what they've got going and everything.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was... that was rough for me because I had a slow start and there were some of my classmates that were like crushing it with all kinds of stuff.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It was... it was rough to see the people who got done so early with their requirements and I was struggling the whole time.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know... everyone... everyone goes at a different pace though. It's okay.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So, I was having a conversation, an online conversation.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I am definitely what you would consider a dentist midway, maybe on the far side of midway through my career.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was talking with someone on Facebook a little bit about... about...

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: First off, change is really hard. When you're a dentist, change is really hard. You get into a groove.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know... it doesn't sound like you're quite into a rut with clinic yet. But... but honestly, working as a dentist, in a lot of cases, even when things are going well, you kind of get into a rut.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And... and... and... so what... what I'm calling a rut might be just a routine. Other people just call it routine and there's nothing wrong with that.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But there's times when the routine is... is... there's a lot of repetition. There's a... and it, you know, can sometimes feel like a rut.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So, what's interesting to me is that some of the choices that you make as a young dentist, maybe even as a dental student, but as a young dentist, are really influential on the type of rut that you get into as a dentist.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, what I... what I want to talk about a little bit is... basically, I was talking with someone else who said, you know, I... we do... we tend to compare with other people we know, typically online.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't... I don't know that we... I compare so much to... to local people, because I don't talk to my, you know, in real life friends very much locally.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I see a lot of Facebook people and, you know, a lot of people within the podcast community and stuff like that.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And you'll see, you know, there's people that are doing a lot more surgery, maybe implants, maybe specialty procedures, stuff like that.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And... and I... my practice is a lot of bread and butter stuff, Crown and Bridge.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And mind you, I... I use a lot of technology and stuff, but the reality is, is it's... it's pretty... pretty mom and pop, pretty bread and butter stuff.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, it's a good living. Don't get me wrong.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting is I compare, like, some of these high flyers, some of these people doing some amazing stuff.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And some of these people that are able to treatment plan in a different way, they look at cases in a bigger way.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're not... they're not stuck on a... patient finances.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not stuck on the idea that, well, this is all the patient will do and all this stuff.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of... a lot of the... the things that, to myself, are self-limitations on some level.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Where did those come from?

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I asked myself, where do those come from?

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So, how did I get into the habits that I have now?

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And what's really interesting is... is... a couple things.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: How did I get into those habits?

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, can you change those habits?

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And how hard is it to change those habits?

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And how hard is it to decide you're going to change?

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, in other words, change is really hard.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: The comfortable rut, if you will, is really easy.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And kind of bumping out of that rut is really hard.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So, are you following me so far?

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it's like, if you get into a habit of staying the same for however many years, it's going to be really hard to change things up.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The same feels pretty comfortable.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know there's... you always hear people, oh, you're not... you're not growing unless you're outside of your comfort zone.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, that might be right.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But also, there's a certain amount of being in your comfort zone feels pretty good.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that you add to it is the fact that, you know, being a dentist, your work is not your only part of life.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, the reality is, is like sometimes having a nice stable gig at work is great, particularly when family needs are particularly high.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Whether that's, you know, starting school in the fall or a real tough year for a kid or a parent that's getting sick or running for mayor.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Or I don't know, whatever, you know, like whatever, you've got a lot of stuff outside your work life.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Or at least a lot of people do.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Some people maybe don't, but a lot of people do.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So then the question is, you know, having a comfortable work life that's predictable and pays the bills is a pretty great thing when you've got stuff outside like that.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not... sometimes having a rut is a good thing because it's a comfortable place to be where you know what to expect.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I have no beef with that.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But what's funny to me is how... looking at my rut or my routine, depends on how negative you want to look at it, how did I get there?

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And how important were the choices I made early on, how I got there?

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So, like I look at the practice that I'm in right now.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been in since... I bought it in 1998, which puts me, what, 26-ish years into practice ownership.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And the practice was heavily GM.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of GM employees, GM retirees, they had cherry insurance with a limit.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was able to sell a couple units of Crown & Bridge on a bunch of people with old dentistry that was failing.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of a perfect bread and butter practice.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And it still kind of is that way, to be perfectly honest.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that having lots of patients that are accepting treatment, you don't have to try very hard, is a great thing.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also a terrible thing because having lots of patients that are accepting treatment up to a certain level because they have $1,500 a year to spend on a Crown that costs $600 at the time.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So you can do a couple, three of those a year.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I was not doing is I was not taking a bigger picture look maybe, looking at some of the bigger treatment planning, looking more at occlusion, looking more at wear, looking more at like...

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Which is stuff I've kind of learned about later on in my career.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But the habits that I learned, some of it was working with my dad for the first couple years, seeing what he did.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, okay, this is how you practice dentistry.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And then buying this practice that had a lot of this kind of reparative dentistry, people that had a bunch of dentistry done, but they were in a certain groove.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: The reality is, is that the choices you make where you're going to work soon out of dental school can have a huge impact.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Like no one knows if the first job out of school is going to be their final job or whatever.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is you're learning habits.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And when you're new at it, it's one of the first examples you see of how dentistry is done.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And so what I would recommend or talk about for someone who's new, and it's really hard because I'm sure as a new dentist, there's a part of it going, I want to work in a great place.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to have mentorship.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But I also have bills to pay.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And I need to be able to make a living here.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't just sit on my laurels.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to get in and get going.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't be super choosy about the job or what I do next because I got to get going.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I totally – that has to be pressure.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, I think there was some pressure on me like that.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Not a ton, actually, because I didn't have the kind of loans that you guys are coming out with.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really have that kind of pressure.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And also, it was pretty typical for someone to come out, associate for a couple years because there were a lot of associateships, and maybe find a practice to buy.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: That was a very – it's less typical now, I think, now than just the way that the DSO landscape is and such.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So the thing I'm telling you, I guess, is like what you choose to do early on is really impactful to the rest of your career.

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So – and I know that sounds so dumb, but like the fact that I kind of got in with my dad's practice, which was a bread and butter restorative practice.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He actually did – and I never really – he did a bunch of ortho.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I never really got into ortho at all.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: He did a lot more endo than I'm comfortable doing.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So he was more of the decathlon dentist who did a lot of stuff.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I did a little less of that.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But I also saw that he was a roller skate guy.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: He saw multiple patients at a time, and he had multiple recalls.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: He had two hygienists going at all times.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I knew.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what the dental practice looked like.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is, and as you're learning, there's a lot of ways to practice dentistry.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be a lot smaller than that.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You can be a lot bigger than that.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot – and what's interesting about it is when you come out of school, you may not be in a position – you may not – you don't know all the different things you can do,

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: but you're also maybe not in a position to be super choosy.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's – in looking back, the first few things that I did out of dental school were really impactful to the rest of my career.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, like, I kind of practiced the way that I started practicing because it got comfortable.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And so to change, to do things a lot differently is a lot harder.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Shoot, I'm in the same practice that I was in 1998.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: How old were you in 1998, Mo?

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I was actually born in 99.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so you were not born when I bought my practice.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Just understand, I have literally been practicing more or less the same way, and not completely.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I've added technology.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I've done – but I've, you know, kind of the run-of-the-mill mom-and-pop restorative bread-and-butter practice for that long.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have no problem with that.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm comfortable with that.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But I do see a lot of different ways to practice dentistry.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And some of those ways might have been of real interest to me had I looked into them.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I got comfortable really quick.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm looking at, like, a 27-year veteran looking back going, man, you know, I didn't know that, A, maybe there's other ways to practice that I'm going to start practicing.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really look into that.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I also – I got comfortable pretty quick.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's nothing – again, I keep saying that.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with that.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just, like, maybe things would have been different if I hadn't said this is how I'm going to do it from the get-go.

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, so I guess what am I saying?

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying you got to think about where and how you want to practice really hard.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think you guys have the leisure of having a lot of time to think about that because I remember what dental school was like.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, basically, you were trying – you know, by the time – third year in particular when clinic started.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Second year was the academic grind.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_00]: But third year, you're really trying to crank that stuff out.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't – I don't remember a ton of opportunities to look around and see what practices look like and see.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about your knowledge of how different practice types and the kind of practices that you might want to be in?

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Just in what I've said there, does that ring a bell with you?

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Does that make any sense?

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Does it concern you?

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds – I mean, it definitely makes sense to me that most dentists kind of just end up in a practice by chance.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And then that's kind of how they practice based on whatever mentorship was available or based on the demographics of the practice.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Me being somebody who listens to a ton of podcasts, I feel like I know that there's different models out there.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I can listen to, for example, like a podcast recommending two doctor chairs and two hygiene checks every hour.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I can also listen to something like 3D Dentist where they say a doctor should only be working out of one chair and treatment planning more comprehensively.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I know like all the options kind of exist.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I just don't know how easy it is for me to choose still.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Because like the job opportunities that are readily available are the DSO jobs.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how easy it would be to find somebody with an actual like upscale practice or more – I don't want to say upscale, but like comprehensive treatment planning.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And for them to actually have time to mentor and for the – quite frankly, for the pay to be in the same range.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I know a lot of people in school now are planning to go to a DSO just because it pays sometimes 40% more than any other jobs.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And when you got to pay off your loans, that's basically the main thing that you think about.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And so – and I mean that's – I get it.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, it's one of these things where I don't know that I would have been aware enough of stuff anyhow to make those – because like I was going to go in with my dad.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the plan.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I never looked at anything because I was going to go in with my dad.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The fact of the matter is at least you have an understanding of different kinds of practices.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that I would say is like I sometimes wonder for myself how different life would have been if I had done some kind of a residency, even a GPR or an AGD or something like that where I was – because it's a little bit like training wheels because you still have – I mean you've got built-in mentors that are the people that run the program.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And they kind of help you understand what's expected of you and that sort of thing.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I also think it can let you know – maybe what I'm saying is dental school isn't the best way for you to figure out what you really like to do because you just get a taste of everything at best.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But like I mean I know a lot of people that were going to specialize in endo because endo was the specialty that at the time they thought was going to pay the best.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And these people were gunning for endo when they walked in the door.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Ortho too, same story.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And my thing is like honestly when I got out of dental school, I probably didn't know the different procedure types and the different types of practice in those ways well enough to even make that choice.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So I wonder if a residency just would have given me a little bit more time to decide what I really like.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas I will say that the benefit of working with dad was I had lots of support.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I got paid well.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean I went back home so I knew where I was going to live and that's – and interestingly, I live there now.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't moved.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's just like a lot of these decisions.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're decisions that I didn't put a lot of thought into at the time that had a lot of weight on the way that I practiced.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just – at the time, I didn't know how important those decisions were.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I think at the time you're like, well, I'll try this out and see how it works.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And you're realizing that, wow, but it could be something that you get pretty comfortable in and you've like sort of – you've decided this is okay not knowing what other stuff is out there.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the crazy thing.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe also having a parent that was a dentist maybe limited me some.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I have no regret.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like I'm mad about it.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like on some level, of course I was going to be kind of used to the model that he ran because that's the office I was going to, right?

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I just – do you feel like you get outside of podcasts?

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean within school, do you get exposure to – I mean do you have to go and – I mean you were an assistant too.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So you've seen some different ways of practicing dentistry.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You know probably more than most.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, to other students that – if you haven't listened to other podcasts, it's probably worth – I know that it's easy to say and some people are really podcast-centric and some aren't.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_00]: But man, there's a lot of good stuff out there that talks about different ways of practicing.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And just even knowing that stuff, knowing the kind of thing that you might want to do.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really – it's important to know what's out there, not necessarily that you have to experience everything because I don't know that that's even possible.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't really leave myself open to the other options.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I never looked at the military because I had dad.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I never looked at a residency because I had dad.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I never looked at any of that stuff because I knew what I was going to do.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But I worry that sometimes folks like you, like you said, is like, look, I've got to hit the ground running so I know I'm going to start with the DSO and just get some reps in.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And that may be perfect.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But you may get comfortable there and you may then not look at other stuff.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know – I say this like I'm full of regret.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It isn't that I'm full of regret.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that I look back and I didn't look at a lot of the options.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I just kind of jumped in.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And I do believe that that's sort of like the fact that the new dentist part of your career, the very end of dental school and the first couple years out, it's a bottleneck of your life because the story is like you've only got so many things you can try.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And you're only new for so long.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You're only new and frankly unjaded for so long.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So I would just encourage newer dentists to not – to really think hard about – I can't say don't look at the money because you have to look at the money.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, you have to look at the money.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And, I mean, geography too.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like there's so many things that are easy to get comfortable with quick that are fine.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes if you fall into that and get comfortable too quick, you may miss some things.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: That's all I'm saying.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense?

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I hate to sound like the old guy shaking my finger at people.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just – I don't necessarily have regrets, but I just remember looking back going, man, things could have been differently, but I never even looked at this stuff.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense?

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it makes perfect sense that the decisions you make early on, whether you know you're making them or not, have a snowball effect.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And then –

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Once it's been long enough, it's kind of – you can't really make your way up that hill anymore.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_01]: As far as exposure, like you asked outside of podcasts, have we had any exposure in school to like the different models?

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't – I wouldn't say that we've had – I don't – I think they try to tell us.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I think some of our faculty, especially the ones that practiced in private practice, they try to tell us like, oh, if you want to plan comprehensively, you have to do it this way.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to understand the conclusion.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think we have enough of a – I don't think we have enough of a basis of knowledge for us to even understand what they're saying.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, I know one of our faculty, he's like, well, you don't want to practice toothodontia when you get out of here.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to be a comprehensive treatment planner.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I don't think anybody knows what he means by that.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Because we don't have a reference.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: We haven't seen the different models.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be really valuable to sit in and actually go shadow a lot of private practices while you're in dental school.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the only way that you could possibly get exposed.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: There is a certain – I have to say, too, the idea of being able to practice comprehensively.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a luxury – people that are able to really look at that comprehensively, there's a luxury to that, to be honest.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Because there's some – I'm going to tell you what, patients select themselves on some level for practices that are going to – you know, like, I think everyone probably deserves a comprehensive treatment plan.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that everyone can follow through with a comprehensive treatment plan.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And in some cases, for a mom-and-pop kind of place, it's hard to do comprehensive when the patients are – you know, you're trying to keep them from falling apart versus – and it is – it's the right way to practice dentistry.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But as you know, there's a lot of different – you know, there's a lot of different practices in the world.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of different ways to do it.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So I just was talking about, like, how things could have been different if I had had my eyes open a little wider.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how from, you know, from retrospective, 27 years of experience, how I could tell someone.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But I figured you were the one because you talk to a lot of students and you are sort of the student, the younger dentist focus of this podcast.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just a really interesting conversation I was having.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have something else I want to tell you about, too.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is so trite, I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But – so yesterday – actually, two days ago was – I've talked about it.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_00]: My son marches in the high school marching band, same high school I was in, and I'm really active with it.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I do the announcing for them, so I'm always very into that.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Two of my high school buddies, guys I graduated with, happened to be coming up – one of them actually lives in California, has inherited a place up north in Michigan from his parents.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And so he comes and visits now and again.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So he's been here for the last week and a half or so.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So he came to this big Midland Dow game.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the big cross-town rivals.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We lost.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_00]: The good guys lost.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But it was a fun game, and it was really fun to see a couple of these guys.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And then yesterday, Saturday, we went up to his cottage for the day.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, there were three other guys and myself.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00]: These are all people I graduated from high school with, just the crew that I hung out with.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Going around, just mostly talking, to be honest.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Mostly talking, but interacting in person with these guys that were a huge part of my growing up.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I literally knew these guys from church.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I knew them from social stuff, a band.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just knew them from lots of different places in high school.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: They were fixtures in my life.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And, of course, it's hard because, like I said, I graduated from dental school before you were born.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we didn't – there was so much more in-real-life interaction in my life, obviously, before that.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Because social media and smartphones, it didn't exist, you know.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have in-real-life friends the same way that I did back then.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's – I think all adults sort of struggle with this.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll tell you that I think the smartphone and social media has made it less common for you to have really tight friends, even from high school and stuff.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So – and I'm thinking to myself, I'm literally in my life now, I don't have regrets about the fact that so much of my interaction is sort of online and stuff.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I will tell you is I spent most of that day – I didn't even know where my phone was.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It was awesome.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I was, like, present in the moment with these guys that I grew up with, and we just laughed the whole day.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It was fantastic.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have a lot of in-real-life friends around me now.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm friendly with a lot of people, but not in the same way that you sort of goof around with those guys.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like that was, like, a huge mental health day for me.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I – a day that I was actually putting my phone away and interacting with humans that I care to be around.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: That was amazing.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that sounds so trite.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's like, of course you need to have in-real-life friends.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But I also know that that's more rare now than it ever was.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm telling you, I mean, if you have people in dental school that you're tight – I have friends in dental school that I am tight with that I talk to daily.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't live close to me because I went to the University of Minnesota.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I live in Michigan.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But quite a few of them I'm close with, and it takes either the phone or the internet to be close with them.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But that in-real-life interaction, it can't be beat.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And right now, you have lots of in-real-life interaction because you're in school.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: You have to.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That's where you go.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: You go and see your colleagues.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_00]: You go and see your faculty and your patients, and you have that.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But I just am like, man, value that.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Understand how important that is and how – as you get it, it's amazing.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You don't think of it, but as you become a practitioner of what you're learning, there's lots of in-person interaction with people.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not the same kind of interaction with these in-real-life friends.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a different thing.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And you become mentally distant over time from people.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It was such a good thing for me to do that yesterday, and I need to do it more often.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And mind you, I don't know your situation.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you have hung out with the same four people since you were a child, and that's great.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But I know that a lot of people maybe don't have that as much as they used to.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So when I say that, how do you feel about that?

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's funny because actually my friends from high school I probably haven't seen since like halfway through undergrad.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's probably been like five years since we've all hung out together.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I actually just had lunch yesterday with a couple dentists who have been out for a few years,

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and they all said that they haven't seen any of their dental school classmates except for maybe one or two people since graduation.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's actually something I've been thinking about because I don't live in my hometown anymore.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I live in OKC, which is where the dental school is at.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's something that's been kind of actually on my mind is like, who's going to be my network when I get out of dental school?

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Because right now the only people I talk to are my dental school buddies.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. Yep. OK, so you're feeling me because here's the other thing I mentioned to my wife.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I said, you know what? I didn't talk about it all yesterday. Dentistry.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_00]: That's not quite true. I talked a little late. They all are super impressed that I have a podcast.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, that's great and everything. And sometimes we talked a little bit about you're going to find friends when you're a dentist.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: You are the expert. And so sometimes I'll have questions.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So I talked a little bit about dentistry, but I just didn't I didn't talk about shop at all.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't talk in which was awesome. You know, we talked more about dumb stuff we did as kids.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Frankly, we talked a fair amount about how awesome it was to grow up in the 80s, which I know it makes me seem so old.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just it's just funny because Gen X, man, we got we got we got exposed to the technology that you guys are really immersed in.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But there was also a time when we had, you know, we talked on phones that were connected to the wall, too.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like and if if someone was already on the phone that you were calling, you just got a busy signal.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That was it. You know, I was literally talking to my buddy about you remember when answering machines came around and how fancy it was if you had an answering machine.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was I mean, I was alive for that time, if you can imagine.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just sort of a we Gen X got to span some pretty cool time frames and engage with all of it.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_00]: But I do say that I guess the thing about in real life friends, it takes a lot of effort to keep those relationships up like more effort than I've put in until I've kind of realizing now.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I got to do more because like yesterday was a huge mental health benefit, like huge.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm like a different person after yesterday.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And all it was is just sitting around talking to guys I graduated from high school with.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's just it's just wild.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know, you know, so I guess if people are listening to this, it's like touching grass, you know, like actually having a day where you haven't really looked at your phone and stuff.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of just wild hasn't really happened in a while.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So between those two, you know, those two things sort of relate a little bit like like making choices early on in your career that are going to affect affect the rest of your life.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But also like staying engaged with the people that are important in your life and the real people that are important in your life.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It isn't that I have tons of online friends that I just have I've maybe met a couple of times and that mean a lot to me.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But in some ways, it's that the ones that I've been around in person, it's hard not to feel like they're mean a little bit more, you know, because they're like a real thing.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Like all of my online friends could potentially be a figment of my imagination.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I may wake up from a dream and realize that that was all I was all just a very elaborate hallucination.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, I've actually touched these people in person in real life.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know, just a just a funny thing.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if that's valuable at all.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I know that it's awful for when someone's young, trying to get their stuff together, hearing some old guy talk about it.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But but the reality is I can remember pretty vividly when I was like when I was where you were.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I was not nearly as sharp as you are.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Podcasts and social media have had a huge benefit on some level for you just because there's a lot of information that that you guys have available that we just didn't really have.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't really out there.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's huge.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a big deal.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But just the looking back, having that information would be great.

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_00]: But also having some hindsight would have been great, too.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't you can't.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I think having all the infos is very useful.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: But at some point you have to actually make the make the decision to actually do what's harder.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think both of the themes you brought are a lot about just, you know, doing doing what's easy because it's comfortable.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And because there's no obvious reason to go against the grain.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, just just having the information doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to make that that decision when I get out.

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's good to have that reminder.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And mentors like you to tell me and talk to old guys, because because if we have regrets, we can at least tell you about it before you step over.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I do.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to say I'm going to name this episode the snowball effect because you said that is exactly right.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is the problem, the joy and the problem is that the choices you make early on will snowball.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So and that's that's a big that's that's the point that we're trying to get across.

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not like and at some point you got to make the choices.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, at some point you're you're you're unlimited options have to become limited in some way.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But you got you got to understand you hate to put more like you guys need any more pressure between the loans and taking boards and finding the job like you need any more pressure.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But, yeah, those decisions are a really big deal.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I will say the other thing that you have is being married and having a family.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You have a reference point that I never had in dental school.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I've said this a bunch on the podcast.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I had dental school and that was it.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_00]: My parents and family were in Michigan.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone I knew in Minnesota was part of dentistry.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: That's not quite true.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I had a couple friends, but very few.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So my I had no I didn't have a family that I was having to engage with.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I literally like unfortunately or fortunately, I could spend my life thinking about dentistry the whole time.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was it was maybe completely mental.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's really good to have something outside of dentistry.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's I suspect that if I look back and talked to my friends that were married during dental school, there were some.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And my dad was married during dental school.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I've talked to him about it.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like you had you couldn't completely ignore your spouse.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Your spouse kind of knows what they're getting into with a dental student because it is immersive.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But you kind of have to be there on some level, which takes you out of the dental thing.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a really that's a really healthy thing, too.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's been it's been helpful at times to just kind of have a have something kind of ground me outside of dental school, especially the hard the hard months.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100 percent.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Mohamed, it's always good to talk to you.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_00]: This is this was I'm glad we had this.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We had this one is this one has been itching the back of my brain for a little while.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm glad we talked about it.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So and thank you for being the very dental student podcast guy.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope all the listeners kind of were able to listen with an open mind and and take take the advice for for what it is.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Just trying to help us out, trying to help us make better decisions.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll talk to you later, Mo.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.

[00:32:27] Thanks.