Brews and Tiny Teeth, The Unfiltered Pediatric Dentistry Podcast

Sometimes it’s nice to have a podcast without a lot of structure where you can just ramble on unfiltered with your old coresidents. In this episode, myself and three close friends and pediatric dentistry coresidents drink a few beers, talk shop, and share crazy stories from residency. Dr Bryce Evans is the owner of Penguin Pediatric Dentistry in Iowa, Dr Kirsty Gratz is the owner of Good to Grow D...

After a lot of interest from listeners, we decided to do an episode focusing on 401ks and retirement plans for pediatric dentists. Jeff Wherry and Shawn Johnson from Treloar and Heisel join us to take a deep dive into 401ks. Shawn has been a guest on the show previously, and Jeff is the director of planning and research who specializes in helping doctors develop retirement plans for their practice...

A lot of money is wasted in our profession on marketing that doesn't produce a high return on investment. Practice owners need to learn to market smarter, not harder.  In today's episode, Minal Sampat joins us to discuss creative and affordable ways to market and grow a pediatric dental practice. Minal is an RDH and worked for 10 years in a pediatric dental office. She is a national speaker a...

Dr. Justin Stevens is a pediatric dentist and practice owner in Bozeman, Montana. His wife, Joni, is also a pediatric dentist. Together they acquired a practice and have grown it to the point of constructing a brand new 10-op building. I invited Dr. Stevens to be on the podcast after spending some time in Bozeman after my annual September elk hunt. Montana is a beautiful state and I wanted to lear...

Dr. Yoshita Patel is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Viera Pediatric Dentistry on the east coast of Florida. She has grown a relationship-based FFS practice and has had a ton of success in her community. Her 700+ 5 star reviews speak to that. You can tell by the way she talks about her practice that Dr. Patel emphasizes the patient experience and relationships she has with her patients and fa...

As the two year anniversary of opening my practice approaches, I thought it would be a fun exercise to go over my profit-and-loss statement from the last 12 months and breakdown my expenses. The average overhead in pediatric dentistry is around 50%, but I think we can do better.  I've been able to run a very low overhead, lean office by keeping my expenses in check and doing many services mys...

Dr. Tim Richardson is guest who has been on the podcast in the past, and it was a pleasure to host him again. He is the founder of Acorn Kids Pediatric Dentistry in the Salem, Oregon area. He currently has six offices, eleven dentists, and a wealth of knowledge on growing and operating new pediatric dental practices.  Today we talk about bringing on an associate. When is the right time? How d...

With oral boards coming up next week, I thought it would be a good idea for an episode to go through my notes and pull out 50 random fun facts that could potentially be helpful on the exam. Some of them may be relevant, and some may not. I also included some tips and things to keep in mind during the actual exam itself that could be good to know to help us better prepare. Good luck to my colleague...

Dr. Mikaela Hazard is an Iowa-trained endodontist. She practices in Fargo, North Dakota and frequently treats pediatric patients. She joins us today to give an update (and a bit of an oral boards review) on permanent vital and non-vital pulpal therapies. Some of the things we discuss: - When do you stay out of the pulp vs completing a coronal pulpotomy? - What is the consensus on using sodium hypo...

In response to the recent popular episode with Dr. Roy Shelburne, I decided to reach out directly to my local state Medicaid office to talk to somebody about how criminal medicaid cases are handled. Although I wasn't able to convince any members of the department to join me on the podcast directly, I was able to take and share notes from the conversation. There was a lot of listener feedback with...

Shawn Johnson is the vice president of business development at Treloar and Heisel, a premier provider of financial and insurance services to dental and medical professionals. He joins us to discuss topics relating to protecting both your practice and yourself. We walk through different stages in the career path of a typical pediatric dentist and review what systems and insurances should be in plac...

Dr. David Knight is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Knight Pediatric Dentistry in Woodbury, Minnesota. He opened his practice almost three years ago, shortly before the COVID shutdown caused him to close his doors for a period of time. David and his wife also had their first baby during this time period. Now three years later, his practice is thriving and booking out for months.  When Dr...

Dr. Roy Shelburne joins us on this episode to tell his incredible story about being arrested for Medicaid fraud. After years of running a busy and successful practice in Virginia, Dr. Shelburne received a phone call that the FBI had raided his office. All of his personal assets were seized, and he was tried and found guilty of medicaid fraud. He served 19 months in prison, and now spends his time...

On this solo episode, I review 5 new tools/materials/pieces of equipment that I've purchased in my practice over the last year. I break down the good and the bad of these products, and how listeners can consider using them in their practice. We should always be trying new products and technologies to constantly try to deliver dentistry better, faster, and cheaper. The products I review are: ...

Lilly Cortes-Pona is a dental practice consultant and coach who specializes in pediatric practices. Her company writes the practice management newsletter for the AAPD, and she works with practice owners all over the country to help them lead, connect, and profit. In our discussion, we go through common barriers and issues that pediatric dentists face at each stepping stone in their career, from ea...

Wes Lyon is a CPA, CFP, and CEO of McGill and Lyon Dental Advisors. His company, McGill and Hill Group, publishes the McGill Advisory, which is a monthly newsletter to dentists updating the latest events and tips for financial planning, investing, taxes, and practice ownership topics. I became familiar with this newsletter at the office of my previous employer, and based on recommendations of some...

Today's episode is all about taxes. As pediatric dentists, we have tax issues, and dental school doesn't give us the foundational knowledge we need to understand how taxes work and how to play the game.  Scott Clynch is a CPA and personal financial planner at Cain Watters. He joins us today to talk about how taxes work. We start big picture with basic concepts and definitions, and then walk t...

Ever since the big announcement earlier this year, NuSmile's Bioflex crowns have created quite the buzz among pediatric dentists. NuSmile revealed the crowns to the general public at AAPD 2022. These white, flexible resin polymer crowns could be a game changer to provide a flexible and esthetic improvement to traditional stainless steel crowns. As a millennial techie pediatric dentist, I want...

Two oral surgeons join us for this week's episode. Dr. Chip Abraham is a fourth-year OMS resident at Indiana University, and Dr. Doug Orzel is a private practice OMS and practice owner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. These two oral surgery studs come on the podcast to talk all things oral surgery involving pediatric dentistry. We go through different tough clinical situations, as well as review a few l...

Imagine being a pediatric dentist for 44 years, and then still having the ambition to start a thriving fluoride and prophy paste company at 80 years old. It was a pleasure to interview the founder of Wonderful Dental and our guest today, Dr. David Epstein. In today's episode, we learn more about what pediatric dentistry was like in the 1970's, how our profession has changed, and why the most impor...

Dr. Julia Richman is a pediatric dentist and private practice owner in Washington. She joins us on the podcast to talk about a variety of topics, including her journey from being a long-term (10+ year) associate to starting her own practice and the challenges that go with it. Dr. Richman has an interest in forensic odontology that we discuss. She also is an avid diver, and we talk about how cold w...

Live from AAPD 2022, this episode features short power interviews with 6 pediatric dentists (2 residents and 4 private practice). We learn more about their practice backgrounds, pearls that they’ve learned, new technology that changes the way they practice, and advice for other pediatric dentists.

Recorded in-person at the AAPD meeting in San Diego, Dr. Corey Hastings and I sit down at a hotel over a couple cold craft beers and talk shop. Dr. Corey has been a guest on the podcast before, and is a wealth of knowledge regarding the business side of dentistry. He has an MBA, and has built 5, 6?... 7? A lot of offices in the Missouri area in a very short amount of time. In this episode, we disc...

Dr. LaRee Johnson is an accomplished pediatric dentist, speaker, and private practice owner from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is very active on the ABPD, and keeps a busy schedule with professional lectures, speaking events, and running ultra marathons. Dr. Johnson joins us on the podcast to tell us a bit about her busy private practice, along with answering some listener Q&A's. Some of the topics...

It doesn't take long reading iPedo posts and talking to other dentists to realize that burnout, stress, and difficulty finding work-life balance is a common problem among pediatric dentists. In this episode, Dr. Natalie Datien joins us to discuss her story about why she walked away from a busy practice. Dr. Natalie bought a practice shortly out of residency with her husband, a general dentist in t...