The Doctor Avi Show

Dr. Amer used to hold the steering wheel of his beat-up car and visualize a different emblem on it. Feeling it before it was real. He didn't know it had a name yet, but that was manifestation. He calls it the reason he went from starting a single ortho practice in Edmonton in 2010 to now running 10 locations across Alberta and BC. But there's a mindset problem he says almost every dentist...

Dalton Albertin played tennis at Ball State, interned with the Colts, and spent about five years selling spinal implants to neurosurgeons and orthopedic spine surgeons. Then Zimmer Biomet bought his company, and he pivoted into dental. Today he and his wife Mary run LADD Dental Group, a company founded by Dr. John Lad and Tisa Lad in Kokomo, Indiana in 1978. Neither Dalton nor Mary is a dentist. M...

For 15 years, Shreyas watched his mom run her dental practice alone with no systems in place. Then she got breast cancer, and the whole thing fell apart almost overnight. He had a computer science degree from Stanford. He figured, how hard could revenue cycle actually be?938 days later, building Daydream Dental taught him exactly how wrong he was. Shreyas Parab is the co-founder of Daydream Dental...

Stephen Thorne's mom died at 65. A heart attack, three weeks after her cardiologist told her she'd probably live to 100. Her scores were perfect. She'd done everything right. Her death sent him looking for answers. What he found was research connecting oral health to overall health, especially cardiovascular health, something none of the dentists in his own family (his grandfather, his...

Bryan Smits got a call from Align about a product called iTero. He had no idea what it was. So he asked his wife, a general dentist, and she told him it was the scanner she had used on him when she treated him with Invisalign. He had not been paying attention. He started paying attention fast. Bryan is now General Manager of Special Markets at Align Technology. He came from hospital and diagnostic...

The patient says "I want white teeth." You know white is the wrong call for their face. What do you actually do? Dr. Clem deals with this constantly. He works alongside Dr. Apa and Dr. Rosenthal doing high end cosmetic cases, and he is direct about where the tension lives. Patient expectation and patient education are two different things, and the job is finding the spot where both peopl...

Dr. Garg spent 12 years as a dental attending at Bronx Care, running one of the hospital's satellite clinics. Then she left academia for a DSO. Five years later, she is still there. That is not a common story. Most dentists do not stay in one group that long. In this conversation, Dr. Garg walks through why she made the move, how she picked the organization, and what she looked for in the inte...

Matt Coggin did not come up through dentistry. He came up fixing businesses. He spent most of his career on mergers, integrations, and go-to-market work. He ran a specialty pharmaceutical business. Then he led the ortho and clear aligner businesses at Dentsply Sirona as Chief Strategy Officer. About three years ago he became CEO of Spear Education. When he looked at dental practices, he saw someth...

There is a "secret handshake" in dentistry. Dentists listen more to other dentists. Dr. Ray Scott has built his whole leadership career around that truth. His job, as he learned early from a mentor, is to be the translator. He takes what is happening at the chair and explains it to the operating team. Then he takes what the business needs and explains it back to the doctors. The organizations that...

Dr. Donnie Wiggins worked at seven practices in his first year out of residency. Then he bought his own. This is how he decided he was ready, and what he learned once the keys were in his hand. We get into the real parts of practice ownership. Why acquiring a practice means acquiring someone else's problems. How he picked a location by the type of dentistry he wanted to do and the economics of...

Dr. Kush graduated top of his class at Temple. He says his career looked almost exactly like what he pictured in dental school. In this episode we get into how that happens on purpose, not by luck. We talk about the habits underneath it. Waking up early. Treating time like the one currency you cannot get back. Surrounding yourself with different kinds of people, not just five sharks, so you grow i...

What happens when a dentist can no longer practice? In this episode of The Dr. Avi Show, Dr. Avi Patel sits down with Dr. Mariz Tanious, Chief Dental Officer at Affinity Dental, to discuss an unexpected career pivot that transformed her perspective on dentistry, leadership, and the future of DSOs. After being diagnosed with arthritis, Dr. Mariz Tanious was forced to step away from clinical dentist...

Dr. Hardik Chodavadia co-founded Enamel Dentistry, growing it from a single startup practice with no formal business plan into a 10+ location dental group across Austin and McKinney. In this conversation, he's refreshingly honest about how much of that journey came down to timing, taking calculated risks, and what he jokingly calls a "dangerous level of lack of risk tolerance." In th...

25 years ago Anna Singh was a new grad with no map. Today she's Senior VP of Clinical Operations at Heartland Dental, overseeing care across nearly 2,000 practices. In this episode, she breaks down the systems behind that growth: why "bread-and-butter" dentistry beats chasing big procedures, how time studies transform efficiency, why the doctor-PMO partnership makes or breaks a pract...

Dave Gaspar, CEO of Smile Partners (120+ practices), pulls back the curtain on what it actually looks like to lead a DSO without a clinical background and why that forces better decisions. In this episode, Dr. Avi and Dave break down the three promises every DSO should make before a doctor signs, why clinical autonomy is only meaningful when you're willing to sacrifice for it, and how grit — n...

What happens when a serial CPG entrepreneur meets a disrupting dentist — and they start building together? In this episode, Dr. Avi sits down with Gulshan Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Swishables, the portable mouthwash brand disrupting oral care. From his roots building Pathwater to identifying a massive white space in dental wellness, Gulshan breaks down how curiosity, strategy, and imagination d...

Dr. AJ Acierno built a 27-location dental group while still practicing four days a week, and he's not sugarcoating what that actually took. In this episode, he breaks down why dentistry is falling from within, what standard of care really means in today's climate, and how AI is reshaping diagnostics and accountability. He also shares the leadership lessons he learned the hard way scaling D...

Brian Colao has spent 31 years at the intersection of law and dentistry — and in that time, he's watched the DSO industry go from a misunderstood concept to the most powerful force reshaping the profession. In this episode, Brian breaks down why most dentists still don't know how to leverage technology for same-store growth, what the biggest mistake is when selling a practice (hint: it&#39...

Most dentists are great clinicians. Nobody taught them how to run a business. Dr. Avi sits down with Craig Iott, operational consultant to 200+ businesses , to break down why dental practices feel chaotic, and what to do about it. They cover systems, DSO mistakes, shiny object syndrome, and why your personal brand matters more than ever. If you own a practice or plan to, this one is worth your tim...

Dr. Avi sits down with Dr. Ellie Bucklin, dentist, podcaster behind Teeth Matter, and NYU faculty, for a candid conversation about what dental school doesn't prepare you for. From mental health and people-pleasing to navigating toxic mentorship and building resilience, Ellie shares the raw reality of early-career dentistry and how she turned her lowest points into a platform that's helping...

 In this episode, Dr. Avi sits down with a third-generation dentist and founder of Vision Dental Partners, Dr. Brad Hughes, to discuss the mindset shift that transformed his career—from thinking about 5x growth to building a 100x vision. They explore the power of community, personal branding, and social media for young dentists, the reality behind DSOs and mentorship, and why leadership and patien...

What does success in modern dentistry really look like? In this episode of  The Dr. Avi Show , Dr. Avi sits down with entrepreneur and clinician Dr. Naved Fatmi to discuss scaling without burnout, building strong systems, and redefining ownership in today’s dental landscape. They cover why most dentists get in trouble, the importance of communication and culture, the myth that everyone needs to ow...

In this insightful episode, Dr. Stephane Reinhardt delves into the importance of aligner education and the surprisingly low adoption rate of aligners among dentists. He underscores the immense potential and profitability of incorporating aligners into dental practices and addresses the common fear of orthodontics, advocating for a focus on improvement rather than perfection. Dr. Reinhardt discusse...