|
Howard:
|
Today, I'm at the ... You tell us where we're at today. You know the most. You tell us where we're at today.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Hi, everyone. My name is Mykel Anderson. I'm a D3 at the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health. We're a sister school to ATSU. I have a couple of my colleagues with us. Today we're at the Arizona Dental Association for a special speaker series featuring Dr. Howard Farran and his one day dental MBA and un-complicate business.
|
|
Howard:
|
What I thought would be fun is, right now, there's dentists practicing from 4 generations. There's the oldest ones, from the greatest generation. There's guys like me that are baby boomers. There's Generation X and there's millennials. I always hear people on Dental Town talking about what you guys think and do. I thought what would be best is let's have a podcast with 5 people who … Let's find out.
|
|
|
My question is, I want to go around the table. There's lots of ... Things that people describe here. They say things that you guys don't want to work as hard as your old man. That you guys aren't going to work evenings and weekends. They say that you want to work for big bucks, corporate dentistry, like Hartland Aspen. That you have no desire to open up your own business because you're a millennial and you're lazy, and all that stuff.
|
|
|
No right or wrong, that it's moderate. You saw your parents work so many hours. You said, "I'm just not going to live like that." We hear all these things. What I want to do, I want to just introduce you to my homies and I want them to hear from the horse's mouth. We're going to go around and we're going to start with you. We're going to go this way and I just want you to tell me. I want you to answer these questions, do you ever want to own your own practice, or do you just want a job at corporate? We hear you always whining about how much student loans you have, and that scares you because you've never paid alimony yet.
|
|
|
Then my question to you is, let's say you were going to graduate with no student loan debt. If you're always whining, "I'm going to have $350,000 in student loans," then tell me, what would you do differently if the tooth fairy came and took away all your student loans?
|
|
|
My homies my age, we want to hire you. Tell us, what are you looking for? Is it the most money? Do you want to learn how to place implants? Is it business leadership? If you were coming into my town and my town had 4 old guys looking for an associate, what would you be looking for so I can try to aim my ad and build my cage so that someone like you wants to work for me, so I can go golf and get drunk every day, and not have to fix teeth.
|
|
|
We'll start with you.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Your first question is, would we rather go into private practice or corporate? I actually never have any intention of going to corporate. I think there's a lot of my classmates that feel the same, but I think just given with student debt, that they're driven to go that way. Especially it depends on what type of education they had while in dental school. If it wasn't very strong in how to survive, in terms of managing a business, they don't know that. They're looking for that knowledge somewhere else. I think that's why they try to go into corporate for maybe about a year or 2, to try to learn the business side, and maybe will branch out. Whether they get sucked in or not, I don't know. Maybe ...
|
|
|
Some corporate offices are very great, and some of them are very poorly managed. I can't, I'm not going to just "not corporate" for being 100% downgrading, but I do ... Especially as a woman, too, to balance professional and personal, I do want to own my own practice. Probably with maybe another partner. That was always the intention. I'm going to try to fight for that.
|
|
|
Second question was student debt. We always hear about it. They always say the average is about $200,000, but that's maybe if you go to a Georgia, or Mississippi, that only accepts in-state students and their tuition is ridiculous. Like, $15,000 a year, versus ours is 75-100. We're graduating, that average is … We're on the total … That left spectrum at $400,000 in debt. There's different types of programs to help pay and offset that back.
|
|
|
We went to state legislatures, and also national legislatures, in saying, "How can we manage our debt?" They say, "You should go back to your deans and ask 'Why does dental education keep driving costs up?'" We're being caught in the middle of that. I would like to see ... We saw a couple years ago, in terms of nurses and teachers, where there was a loan forgiveness by either the state or federal government. Why can't there be some type of state incentives for dental students that want to practice there? That's an option.
|
|
|
What would I do differently if I didn't have any student debt? I think I would go right into private practice and I would triage between probably trying to being able to survive, in terms of, for fee-for-service, but also staying and surviving and treating Medicaid. I would love to do mission work, and humanitarian, and do global dentistry. That's just my own personal preference because I have been to Tanzania, I've been to South Africa. I did work in Micronesia and stuff like that. Seeing people, treating people, is why I came into dentistry.
|
|
|
Did I answer all the questions? Am I missing one question?
|
|
Howard:
|
Let me have the mic. Did you climb Kilimanjaro when you went to Tanzania?
|
|
Mykel:
|
I didn't.
|
|
Howard:
|
Oh my gosh. You are lazy. It's true, millennials are lazy.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I know. We didn't have enough time. It was between that or sitting for the DAT, and so I was like, "I've got to go back and study for the DAT."
|
|
Howard:
|
Let me ask you this, not to be judgmental, but do millennials have less work ethic than their parents?
|
|
Mykel:
|
I don't think so. I think with the coming of age, there's more information. There's more to know. If you look at people that went to dental school, or went to medical school, there's a lot more information out there. People don't just wake up and say, "I'm going to be a dentist." These are the people that are in the libraries and want to go to administration and say, "Why are you closing at midnight?"
|
|
|
Even in my dental school class, people lose sleep. They crash. There's a couple nights that they don't sleep because it's so much information to retain because they're making even more and more exams that we have to pass. Not only now do we have to take the DAT to get into dental school, and we have to take the 2 boards. Now they're trying to combine the 2 boards. If you want to apply for specialty, for instance, if you go to medical school, you have to take the …
|
|
|
I mean, if you want to be an oral maxal facial surgeon, you have to take the medical board. If you want to go into ortho, you have to take the GRE. Now there's the ADEC coming out. We don't know how that's going to hit us. It's another exam we have to study for, on top of trying to just pass boards, become a licensed dentist. There is actually even more that we have to study for. I don't know.
|
|
Howard:
|
One thing I don’t understand is, one of the reasons corporate's doing so well is because they're hiring people. All the free enterprise dentists who don't like corporate, they're not hiring anyone. One of the reasons they're not hiring anyone is, they're closed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They have no digital phone system that will tell them when they come in Monday, that 79 people called your office and went to voicemail, and only 2 left a message.
|
|
|
Corporate is offering student loan payback. I was wondering, how many years on your payments, when you graduate, how many year payment is your student loan structured at? Your $400,000?
|
|
Mykel:
|
They have different time lines, from what I'm versed in. There's a 10 year time line, or there's an extended 10 year. At a $400,000, I think it's, we have to pay about $5800 a month. That's with the ... Assuming interest is accounted for.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay. On a 10 year payback, on $400,000, it's $5800 a month.
|
|
Mykel:
|
About, yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
I have a gazillion dentists on Dental Town that are in small towns that say, "No one can get an associate in Solina, Kansas," but you're willing to go to the Navajo Indian reservation, or a public clinic, or Tanzania, or whatever. Why don't you guys just build a section on Dental Town? I got 6 programmers that sit there and say, "My 10 year payback is this. If you make my $5800 student loan payment, I'll work for you for this amount." Then you shop that out to 210,000 dentists on Dental Town and you might end up having to go to Idaho and learn how to only eat potatoes-
|
|
Mykel:
|
Let's do it. I love potatoes, actually.
|
|
Howard:
|
You might be Irish and not know it.
|
|
Mykel:
|
There was a graduate at AZDO that went on an external rotation in Wisconsin. She wanted to stay there, and she talked to the city. They bought her brand new, multi-million dollar practice and said, "If you stay here for 4 years, it's yours for free. The patient base is there for you. You can sell it and make whatever you want off of that."
|
|
Howard:
|
What state was that? Was that in Iowa?
|
|
Mykel:
|
Wisconsin.
|
|
Howard:
|
Iowa, Delta Dental, has got a list of towns that will chip in $100,000 and if you go there, Delta Dental will match. I'm really excited because these new-
|
|
Mykel:
|
Before or after taxes? I'm just kidding. We'll get to the negotiations after.
|
|
Howard:
|
Yeah. These dentists are going and they'll say, "Okay, I will go to a small town in Iowa. I'm going to get $100,000 from this small town. $100,000 from Delta." They just chopped- If you have $400,000 in student loans, you just cut your student loans in half. The only downside is you're going to have to smoke out of a corn cob pipe.
|
|
Mykel:
|
This is Ziyad, he's a D4. He's going to be exiting, so would you take it?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
What do I have to smoke? I actually want to go back to your question about millennials because that topic just gets me angry.
|
|
Howard:
|
See, I thought you'd be too lazy to even answer the question.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Angry. I'll answer that at 3:00 when I wake up, right? No, I think it's a generational thing. It really is a generational thing. It's not an ethnic thing at all, which is kind of fascinating, too. What I'm trying to say is that, for us, our ideas of everything from business to life, to our world view is so diametrically opposed to every generation above us that we don't even attempt to try to bridge a gap or anything.
|
|
Howard:
|
You're talking to a bunch of my old homies. Give us lots of examples.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Okay, I'll give you an example. Dr. Reisbeck who was in charge of our curriculum. He actually passed away, the late Dr. Reisbeck. Really great guy, I loved him. I used to go into his office. He was in charge of our curriculum for D1 year, first year. I'd go in there and we would talk about tennis. He was 80 something.
|
|
|
I remember one conversation I had with him that made me laugh so hard. I was telling him, "You know, I'm struggling with your curriculum. It's crazy." He said, "No, no, no. Listen, listen. This is a great profession. My first summer in dental school, we just played golf for 2 months." I said, "You give us a break of 2 weeks. What is that?" He goes, "Well, you know …" and I said, "This curriculum is ridiculous. It's so hard. It doesn't make sense." He goes, "Yeah, I know. I designed it." I was like, "Your life in dental school and my life in dental school are completely different. It doesn't make any sense to me."
|
|
|
When that generation, when your homies look at us and they try to understand our motivation for money, for marriage, for life, for whatever it is. "Why are all these millennials on their computers? They're tweeting, and they're Snapchatting. It doesn't make sense. Why are they taking pictures of their food?" You don't understand us. We're a different creature. You really have to go … First of all, you all raised us. It's not like a huge mystery, right?
|
|
|
It's funny because I think every time I go back to dental school- I'm from Texas, and every time I go back, I used to get into conversations with my dad, for example. He was like, he's almost 70. We'd start talking about life and it was entertaining. You entertain your parents. They raised you, they changed your diapers. You'll listen, but my patience was just growing shorter and shorter on every Christmas break. I'd go back, I'd last ... First, it was 2 weeks. Then I was like, "No, 2nd week I'm taking off. I can't be there that long at home." Now I go back for 30 minutes and then I leave.
|
|
|
The point is that I think first of all, that generation has to really ask themselves, “Do they truly respect us enough to understand how we function?” I don't think they do. Most of them, not all of them. Most of them. Congress, leaders, corporate bosses. They don't care. They don't really care. They just see us taking pictures of our food and they automatically are judging us.
|
|
|
There is, and I say this with complete pride in my generation, I have never seen such hard workers in my life. You want to try to tweet, email, send a picture, text mom, text your 8 girlfriends while you're driving? That takes skill, you know? Come on.
|
|
Mykel:
|
We talked about transparency …- Sorry. You talked about transparency earlier, and I think that maybe it's not so much ... I do get frustration with people of my own age that want the "Me, me, me. What are you going to do for me. I'm not going to volunteer," or, "I'll take a position because it's a good face, but I'm not going to put out any work."
|
|
|
The honor in having a purpose, making something better, growing it. It depends on what pool of people you talk to and you come from. We're all from dental school, so we all actually work really hard. In terms of us being lazy, I don't think it's lazy. I think it's we're more worried about efficiency. If there's a better way to do it, if there's a smarter way to do it. That's why we're texting, that's why we're on our phones. The transparency that you talk about, that some countries have that we are lacking of ... Hopefully, our generation gap can fill that.
|
|
Howard:
|
Go back to my, to the older guys out there that are-
|
|
Ziyad:
|
To help them understand?
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay. Everybody's going to work at Heartland and Aspen and all these because they're offering jobs. A lot of these dentists, they say, "No one's going to come to work for me." What would you be looking for? Would it be a salary with a student loan payback? Would it be the most money? Would it be mentorship, that you're saying, "I want to learn how to place implants or do endo?" If some guy wanted to snatch you, what would he be offering?
|
|
Mykel:
|
Ironically, I don't feel anybody ... Speaking from just myself and please share your opinions because I don't want to speak for anybody, but I actually feel like as coming out as a D4, nobody would want to hire me because I don't have any experience.
|
|
|
A lot of times for new graduates, they want somebody with at least 5 years. Even, I think the ADA doesn't recognize … You're still considered a new dentist until I think you're 10 years out. It's hard to find a job when you don't have any experience. That's one thing. I don't feel that people want to hire me.
|
|
|
Second, if I am going to get hired, the most valuable thing as a new dentist coming out is mentorship. This is for even me now. It is so hard to find people that are good mentors and that have ... I know that they're out there, but I just haven't came in, to be able to connect with somebody that isn't, have their own agenda. Where it kind of has to fear, you got to climb the ladder. You have to basically, turn over and do everything in order to get mentorship kind of thing.
|
|
|
Not slave labor, but just have a good, cordial, equal relationship. Not really even equal. I know that you're learning from them. For me, it would be mentorship would be the most.
|
|
Howard:
|
Mentorship in what?
|
|
Mykel:
|
Mentorship in business and practice.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I think when you were talking about corporate dentistry, a lot of people are drawn to it because it fills that gap of what people need. Then, me, as a graduating dentist, I think I would actually really be valuable to a practice because I am of the millennial generation. I can fill these older dentist's gap. I can increase their social media, I can do their marketing. I can relate to the younger clientele that's coming in. Being a female, like we said, I'm more attractive to moms with kids. I can meet your need. If I'm going into an older …
|
|
Howard:
|
You're saying you're more attractive than me? Are you serious?
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I'm saying that a mom with their kids would probably …
|
|
Howard:
|
Newsflash.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Oh, geez. I think it all comes down to what can you provide me and what can I provide you? It's a business trade.
|
|
Howard:
|
I'm not bringing this up because you're both women and you've mentioned already ... Do you ever feel that you're a woman entering a man's profession, or did that die years ago?
|
|
Vanessa:
|
For me, no, because I'm stubborn. I'm going to do whatever I want. Not in a bad way, but if I want to do it, I'm going to do it. I think that has to do with the millennial generation. We're going to get where we want regardless. I think a lot of it has to do, too, as we were talking with the- We're going to work smarter, not harder.
|
|
Austin:
|
Yeah, if I may interject.
|
|
Howard:
|
No, you're not a woman. That was a woman's- You might be pre-transgender, so continue.
|
|
Austin:
|
You never know. Just from my perspective- My name is Austin Shackelford. I'm a second year dental student at AZDO. I grew up in the Phoenix area and I've been around the dental industry here.
|
|
|
Coming out of school, it seems pretty unknown what the future business model of a private practice will be. It seems like the model where it's a single practitioner with his own office, or her own office, in a neighborhood is going away. Corporate dentistry has taken more and more market share. As somebody coming out of school, it's like, this seems more certain. Am I going to take over a practice that is going to not succeed or be archaic in 10 years?
|
|
Howard:
|
I would say that ... Everyone thinks linearly. When I got out of school in '87, from '93 to 2000, if a monkey bought a stock it would double in 2 months. Everybody thought linear.
|
|
|
Then at March of 2000, NASDAQ was at 5800 and it popped down to 1200. Then I saw it in real estate. I want you to remember that. What is the future of dentistry? In 1950, for the Fortune 500, 65 years later, 88% of those companies were out of business. For any monkey to be standing here, looking at the S,P 500 saying ...
|
|
|
Who would've thought 10 years ago when you got your first iPhone, Motorola and Nokia owned the market. Yeah. Now, do you know anybody with a Nokia?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
It’s a joke.
|
|
Howard:
|
Now the iPhone is the 800 pound gorilla, but Steve Jobs died. I've lived here half a century. I guarantee you, somebody's going to destroy this business model, too. 88% of the Fortune 500 in 1950, they're not here. For anybody in 2015 to tell you the business model of dentistry 10, to 20, to 30 years is beyond comical. In fact, by 2050, 1/3 of Americans will be working in an industry that hasn't even been invented yet.
|
|
|
I do want to finish one question. I want to go back to it. Sometimes women tell me- I've heard this before, that "I'm a young woman dentist. I went to a small town and it's a good old boy club." I'm sitting here, knowing my homies, I bet they probably appeared that way to the new young girl in the small town in Texas, or Georgia, or Alabama, or Kansas, or whatever, but in their heart, they don't think that way. Do you ever think it's a good old boy club?
|
|
|
The reason I want to say this is because I hear lots of individuals, from women and gays, that a gay dentist is afraid of getting involved in a study club in Salina, Kansas because he thinks if they all find out he's gay, he's going to be railroaded out of town.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Come to California. You'll be my best friend.
|
|
Howard:
|
Yeah.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I promise you.
|
|
Howard:
|
I think that what they don't realize is they're probably giving off that vibe without just knowing it. I just want to call attention. Have you ever heard any girls saying that you're in a man's profession, or is that just completely dead?
|
|
Mykel:
|
I think that's more older, at least a little bit more older than us, maybe.
|
|
Kara:
|
I feel like there’s still the stereotypes. I always get when you say you're in dental school, like, "Oh. Are you going to school to be a hygienist or an assistant?" When I bring a patient back, like, "Where's the dentist going to sit?" Like, "I'm going to sit right here." I don't know. Yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
You've had that before?
|
|
Kara:
|
Yes. All the time. I think it's like that for every female in my class.
|
|
Howard:
|
It's all the- Say that again. All the time, what?
|
|
Kara:
|
All the time, you get that stereotype from males, females outside of school.
|
|
Mykel:
|
With our patients. That's where I think with what Ziyad was saying. That's a little disrespectful, to where we get that. Also, we are based in Mesa, which is also a more senior area, and snowbirds. Maybe it could just be the cross generation.
|
|
Howard:
|
Or they're driving over from Mesa to Apache Junction, buying meth and they've just blowing their mind. I do want to say one thing for my generation, that the young girls do wrong. That is, if you're a grandpa and you walk into a dental office and you can't tell the difference between the way the female dentist and the female assistant and the female receptionist is dressed, it's kind of your fault. If you go into McDonald's, they got a uniform and a name tag, and the manager does have a hat. You know what I mean?
|
|
|
I do think if everybody in the office is dressed the same, then how does someone know this is the receptionist, this is a hygienist, this is assistant. I'm old school, in that I like to wear scrubs and tennis shoes because I like to feel comfortable. At my age, if you dress for success, your feet hurt. I got to dress for being an old, fat man. I have to wear my tennis shoes and my matching scrubs. Not really a suit and tie.
|
|
|
I want to go back to something more important and that is, I believe the fundamental problem with corporate is, they're offering all the jobs and all my homies aren't. There's 168 hours in a week, and they're open 32 hours a week. 32 divided by 168 is only 19% of the week. These idiots are open Monday through Thursday, 8-5, and it's idiots because when mom was up all night with Megan, with a toothache on a palpatomy, and you're not answering your phone Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, when you'd go work there and do the job. It'd be evenings and weekends, and I know you're a lazy millennial so you won't do that. I'm just kidding. Tell me, would you work?
|
|
|
If a dental office was closed Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Would you work Friday and Saturday? Would you work evenings? What do ... I know their phone's ringing off the wall, but they don't know it because they have an analog wired phone system with an answering machine, and monkeys don't leave messages on answering machine. Monkeys don't talk to trees and tables, they talk to humans. When there's an answering service, then they leave a message. You can digitally track calls, but what would it take to get you to work for them?
|
|
|
They say 60% of the dental school graduates who will go work for corporate. 6 out of 10's the data I've seen. These dentists who … There’re dental offices paid for and closed 81% of the week. What would they have to do to get you to work for them? What are you looking for?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
My friends that graduated in the last 2, 3, even 5 years ago, most of them are still working Fridays. They pick up that first week- Not Friday, sorry. Saturdays. They're still working those. It's not really ... Everyone got into dentistry primarily, at least some small percentage of the autonomy and the small business model. Nobody went into dentistry-
|
|
Howard:
|
[inaudible 00:23:04] be here 100 years from now.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
I'm going to hold you to it.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I hope so.
|
|
Howard:
|
You're not going to be working at Mc-Dentaldon.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
We didn't come up with the gloom and doom. We were told the gloom and doom by our whoever. By the way, I want to take back on the- I went too hard on that generational thing. I feel bad now. There's a lot that we are grateful for, we are thankful for. For the institutions that were built. What we are upset at, and this is the primary mistake that's always made. It's a miscommunication; it's like any relationship, right?
|
|
|
We are expressing frustration at the failure of our institutes. We are not expressing frustration at the institute. We're not here to light cars on fire and flip them. We're upset that we were promised something and we are willing to work for it, and when we work for it, we don't see the results. Right? We came into dental school, we're ready to treat people, make people's lives better. We are ready to do everything that we were promised to do …
|
|
Howard:
|
Let me see if anything's changed. When I was in dental school, back with ... My classmate was Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. We always complained because everybody would always say that managing dentists is like herding cats. Every time a dental school would go to make a decision, they'd get 10 dentists in the room who couldn't even agree that today is Friday. You know what I mean?
|
|
|
You look at the largest institutions like an army, or a Walmart. 90% of the people don't have any college, and they just get their marching orders and go. Whenever you go into a law firm, a hospital, a dental school, a med school, and everybody has 8 years of college, the management structure is bat shit.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
It's beyond horrendous.
|
|
Howard:
|
It's bat shit crazy.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
It's like preschooler arriving that first …
|
|
Howard:
|
I was wondering, did that change from 28 years ago? Are dental schools now run very efficiently and orderly, and there's a nice chain of command?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Which dental schools? Right?
|
|
Austin:
|
They're all the same.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
No, but I mean in the sense that Jack Dillenberg definitely created a different model from most dental schools. We're all from Arizona School of Dentistry. We're very proud of our dean and our institute.
|
|
|
However, at the same time, it's a very high cost of education. We don't know who to blame necessarily. I don't think we can blame any one person, but at the same time, i think that of course, to go back to your original question, we are willing to work if we need to. We will do it. But, nobody came in to dental school saying, "I can't wait to graduate and work for corporate dentistry. It's going to be great. I don't even know what the word PTO means." That's a primary … Every single dental student, I think you can say unequivocally has a small percentage of that. I'll let you go on-
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Going back to that, I think corporate comes arms out, saying, "Come to us. We will get you on your feet and then we'll mentor you to private practice." That's how you get sucked into this black hole. Some people might get out, good for them. Some people don't. Whatever, but I think ...
|
|
Austin:
|
[inaudible 00:25:45] salaries.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
They promise you a lot of things and you're like, "This sounds great" because I think because of this generational gap, there’s not a lot of people who are ready to retire saying, "Come to me. I will open my door. I will mentor you. I will get you on your feet," because they ... "How do I talk to this millennial who's always on their phone?" Now we talk through text, we talk through pictures, which is our fault, too.
|
|
|
To be honest, I'm not the best at having a conversation with someone who's 80 years old. My grandpa, I can talk to him forever, but someone on the streets ... We have lost the art of communication. Because they have it so well and then they see people are turned off by technology, or intimidated by it, there's this dual intimidation factor.
|
|
|
If there were more people saying, "Come to me. I will help you. I like you. I'll work on your weaknesses, or help mentor you through to private practice," I think more people would be more willing to seek that. I think there's a closed off-ness because there's this dual intimidation.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I think it goes both ways. I think we've alluded to it so many times about with every relationship, to include business and personal is about communication. When you have preconceived notions that, "Oh, the millennials are this way," or "Oh, the greatest generation is this way." You've already closed the door to an open conversation.
|
|
|
I think if, like Vanessa had said, if there was a forum, an avenue- Which Dental Town does provide, but I'm not sure if in classified ads that you guys will be releasing, and the AZDA, in terms of ... Also I’m on different Facebook groups, like San Diego County Dental Society says, "Hey. We have an associateship that's opening up." There are small resources at which you can get that access of information and know where there are job opportunities, but I think in terms of … It's matching somebody with the same clinical philosophy as you.
|
|
|
Say, for instance, an older gentleman, woman, is like, "I want an associate." In that trial period of them coming to you and seeing if it's the right fit … Because, any associate that's coming to you is looking to learn and eventually, possibly potentially own and take over the practice.
|
|
|
I don't think anybody wants to uproot their lives so many times to go move. "I'm going to work here for 2 years," but in that 2 years after dental school I might have had 2 kids. I can't really uproot and go move to Washington DC, somewhere very far away, because I have more of an investment personally, for example. What I'm trying to say is, streamlined communication to just don't have preconceived notions about how people are. I might be very different than somebody else in my generation, and likewise for the greatest dental generation. I don't know how you say it.
|
|
|
Also, learning so … Matching somebody that has the same clinical philosophy. It's kind of like speed dating. Both of us, if I were to come and interview to work at your practice, it would be interviewing for maybe a month or 3 months, to where we can get to know each other, to see if that would be a good relationship.
|
|
|
I think also, understanding what motivates people and what drives them, and how to make that work. If I can relate to my dad, he is part of your generation. He was growing up, and he's softened. Maybe it's just men soften with age, too, but it was a very hard generation. Their parents came from probably factory worker. Working through the World Wars kind of thing, so they're a very harder generation. We're a more softer generation. We're more about diplomacy and talking things out before you raise the gun. At least that's how I feel for myself.
|
|
|
I'm very interested in knowing ... It's funny that you say people should wear different outfits. I'm like, "Now, a mental note." In my office, if I ever open one, people should wear different outfits. I had no idea that that was why people preconceive that maybe you're the dental hygienist, or the assistant because we're not wearing ... We're not differentiating ourselves. I think understanding what … This is for the older people and younger people, what motivates your staff? How do they think?
|
|
|
Some people just want to go out and part, but they've got to come to work and they have to own a paycheck. They work productivity might suck compared to the person who takes value and pride in their job. How do you engage and entertain to keep that person, to get the same production as somebody who goes there every day, needs the job, wants the job?
|
|
|
I think that that's not something that I should just be curious about, but that should be something that older generations should be curious about, too. How can I motivate? Not just, "I'm the right way. This is the only way" kind of thing. I think if both generations were that way, I think we'd have more progress.
|
|
Kara:
|
I was just going to go back into corporate dentistry. I'm the opposite of Mykel. I'm not opposed to going into corporate just because they do make it very appealing. We don't really get much business in dental school. It's kind of taking an easy way out. You get out of dental school and somebody's doing all the hard work for you. All you have to do is go in, practice dentistry, what we learned to do in school. Then you're also being mentored there. They do tell you eventually, you know, "We'll teach you. We'll mentor you. You can eventually own your own practice."
|
|
|
I think I would go into corporate in hopes of, down the road one day, having my own practice.
|
|
Howard:
|
What percent of your classmates do you think someday really want to own their own practices, versus what percent just always want to work?
|
|
Mykel:
|
the idea of want, but actually are capable, I think is differently measured. I think people ... I think I'm this way, but how I project is very different. Personally, I think there's a lot of people that say … I think I would say 100% say "I'm going to own my own practice," but if I have to assess how I work with them … I’m from a student body or student organization level, and their output, I'm like "mm-mmm."
|
|
Kara:
|
I agree with that.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I think a lot of it has to come from ... We're talking about corporate and going into it. Coming from a background of working in the business of dentistry, and from a business management perspective, going back to what Mykel was saying, a lot of people don't know. When I hear people talking about, "This is what I'm afraid of," I'm like, "It just makes sense. This is what you do." I have that background. A lot of people don't.
|
|
|
I've seen dentists who are great clinicians- We talked about this earlier. Great clinicians, great with people, but they can't run a business to save their life. That's where they fill the gap. Whether it fills the need long term and meets your long term goals is different.
|
|
Howard:
|
I also want to know, what percent of your class do you think has a dentist in the family tree? It seems like dentistry is always a nuclear family. It seems like so many dentists have a dad, an uncle, a cousin Eddie. What percent would you say have a pre-existing dentist in the family tree?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
My class, it's high. I would say 30, 40%.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah, a lot. I think that also influences people’s ability to run a practice because they're like, "Oh, I want to do this. This is what's natural. This is what I see." Monkey see, monkey do type of thing. They never then have … They come from a well off family. They never have to work in an assembly line, or learn how to interact and manage a group and work as a team because they have this nice cushion to go with it.
|
|
|
I think like we talked about earlier, the most successful people are the ones who have to work the hardest. The ones who fall along the way and pull themselves back up. That's my opinion.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I actually can't answer that question because I didn't come from a family of any dentists. I don't want to give misinformation or lack- It's my own lack of awareness because I didn't come from a background like that. I would say that I am surprised by actually how many people, how many students do not even have their own either checking account, or credit card, bewilders me. That's what I discovered.
|
|
|
I died laughing when my friend told me ... He or she, I won't disclaim who. Does not have their own bank account. I was so confused. I was like, "Okay, bank account like maybe you don't have savings, or checking?" They're like, "No. I just have one from my parents," or "I have my parent's credit cards and I charge stuff."
|
|
|
I was like, "Okay. No. You're one." But in sem-lab, I went to another person and they're like, "No, I don't have it either." I was like, "No." So I went to a third person and I was like, "This is a conspiracy." They're like, "No, I don't." I was like, "Okay." Everybody's different. I can't give- I was surprised with that.
|
|
Austin:
|
Yeah, and something Vanessa just brought up. I think that bridges any generational gap is that, the values are still the same. If you want to be highly ranked in your dental class, you're going to have to work hard. If you want to be successful in business, you're going to have to work hard. I think where a misconception is that the older generation sees the younger generation, they're given trophies and rewards for not working hard, but I think those values transcend any generational gap.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I think the values transcend and I think a lot of it too, that they think we're not hard working because we haven't been forced to work hard. Why [inaudible 00:34:53] I’d be like, “Okay, cut loose. I want to cushion them on a bank account all the way through dental school.” It has to do with the culture, because coming from whatever background you came from, you didn’t have that security so it scared the crap out of you so now you want to give that security to your kids but now it’s hindering us at the same time.
|
|
|
I come from a family that had a dentist in it but that taught me to be on my own feet like, “You want to do it you got to make it happen,” or if I was scared or wanted to argue with test they wouldn’t go, “Oh Vanessa got a C” and go argue the teacher. “No if you want to argue, you go do it yourself, I’m not going to help you.” I think it has to do with, there’s a lot of codling going on. You’re like, “It’s nice and comforting and feel cushy
|
|
Howard:
|
Were all of you, all 5 of you born in United States? You were all born in United States? This is Dentistry Uncensored. You want me to tell you the most racist Dentistry Uncensored thing that the older consultants will talk about but no one would ever say in public or writing is that when you graduate from dental seems like the foreign born people have the hardest.
|
|
|
What I mean, if they’re foreign born, they’ll come out and they’ll plumb a dental office in San Fran for 4 operatory. They’ll live in the fourth operatory. They won’t even have an apartment, a condo, a house or a car. Their hours will be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and you come back 5 years later they’ve paid of their 3-400 thousand loans [inaudible 00:36:25] and she’s sitting on 200 thousand in cash and she still doesn’t have a car or a house.
|
|
|
It seems like if they were born in the dental … That daddy was a dentist. Didn’t have any checking account just had a credit card. They come out of school and they work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. They go buy a house, twice as big as their dental office. They walk out of school and buy a $50000 car. The work ethic, I still think the secret engine of America’s economy is 1 Million hungry starving immigrants a year who came 10 thousand miles just to work their ass off and then the 3rd generation is eating Cheetos, playing video games.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Oh okay, I got it.
|
|
Howard:
|
Was it the Cheetos that got your attention,
|
|
Ziyad:
|
When you said, video games, I can’t, I will not stand for that.
|
|
|
No, I think there’s a couple of things going on with that because even the discussion and the language that we use, my generation, the younger generation, has changed when we look at race, when we talk about white privilege. These are terms that we didn’t even define, talk about 15, even 10 years ago, I would say.
|
|
|
So much has changed in the dialogue nationally about race and immigration and what not that we really have to sit down and re-access what exactly are we talking about because there’s more similarities among immigrants, 2nd, 3rd generation, than there are differences based on ethnic, differences in the ethnicity versus the generational difference.
|
|
|
I have friends for example that are 2nd or 3rd generation but they are having a different outlook on the values that maybe are communicated differently. For example, sure they want to pay off their loans, sure they come from a family that is expressing saving as a value more so than spending and whatnot. However I also go to my friend’s weddings that are like $1.3 Million weddings. What’s going on here? It’s the idea that …
|
|
Howard:
|
You’re just went to a wedding that costs more than the divorce?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Yeah. I’m not going to tell you the cost of the divorce. The point is there’s just a different set of values. There’re parents that are immigrant parents, obviously I’m talking about south Asian, generally but even across, there’s a …
|
|
Howard:
|
One minute, is that your opinion?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Yeah, yeah. I’m saying, for example south Asian
|
|
Howard:
|
[inaudible 00:38:33]?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
I’m Pakistani- Indian. Doctors, engineers, very common, lawyers. There’s actually lamenting going on in the community that there isn’t enough liberal arts education and that has influenced not only the values of that 2nd - 3rd generation but now the parents are saying, “Look, we worked hard. We did what you were talking about, sleeping in the 4th operatory, riding a scooter, all that stuff, but now we don’t want our kids to do that. We want them to enjoy their life. We want them to build something that we didn’t get a chance to enjoy. We didn’t sacrifice our life for them to go do the same things.”
|
|
|
You are seeing more pressure from parents in some regard to say, “Look, we don’t want you working. Don’t break your back. That’s why you went to dentisty. We don’t want you to do that.” I think that’s a great thing to tap into for the older generation to say, “Look we want to understand your hopes your fears, your values and how can we …” Because at the end of the day dentistry is an apprenticeship. That’s how we learn. It’s an art.
|
|
|
We have tremendous respect for the older generation that took this field of dentistry and have so much value for wax from honeybees that they grew in their backyard or what not. This is incredible. We want to learn it. We don’t have the chance because we have a curriculum that was designed by those same people to get us through with a 2 week vacation and boards and exams and we had to get married. The amounts of pressures on our generation and the time span is so shortened, we don’t have the luxury.
|
|
|
There’s a little bit of resentment sometimes that, “Look, you had a 2 month vacation for your dental school. I got to get my life together. I don’t have a chance to make mistakes. I can’t do that. The problem there is that [inaudible 00:40:06] I’ll finish up. The problem there is that what made the greatest generation. They took risks. They took risks that nobody else could take. We can’t afford to take it. Kind of like what she was mentioning with the coddling. They didn’t allow us to develop, make those mistakes, get up, scrape our knee, put on the Band-Aid, walk forward. Nobody can be blamed for that. But we need to understand it as a reality.
|
|
|
Maybe we can bridge the gap between generations by saying, “Look, I do value a high quality of life, but I also value mentorship like was mentioned.” “I’m a female dentist,” for example. “I need to learn what you guys valued as dentistry but what I can bring to your practice as a female dentist.” I can speak to female patient as I feel. As a male dentist, I can only read something in a text book. As a male dentist that’s 65 years old, I bring in a young female associate, she’s going to change by entre business model, but I need to learn how to work with her, I need to learn what respect means to her, in a different sense.
|
|
|
Again that language with the generational differences there, there’s so much more similarities between me and him and more differences between me and him … I’m saying the differences are larger with his parents and my parents … I can relate to him and his parents. He comes home. He says something, “My dad said this.” I said, “My dad said the same thing.” Between us, we have so much more similarities because we both have Snapchat, we’re both on Twitter, we both understand race probably more similarly then the differences between the generation.
|
|
|
I think understanding that vertical gap, the horizontal similarities, whether it’s gender like you mentioned, women in dentistry and what not, ethnicity, values, all that stuff, if we can combine that together and say look, “I can bring something to your office, tell me, sell me on it. Don’t make me … I’m begging you to not make me go into corporate dentistry. You have the power to pull me in. You do.” That’s what I think we can do. At least work on it, at least for your homies.
|
|
Howard:
|
I just never knew that the best hair in the world came from Pakistan and India. I never felt so bald in my life until I started to talking to you guys. This guy, if you’re on iTunes, you got to log on to YouTube just to see his hair. I’m feeling extra bald today.
|
|
|
Let’s go back to … I want to continue on it’s my belief that if the dentists all went from an analogue phone system to a digital and saw how much missed business and [inaudible 00:42:28] … We’re talking about availability and accessibility, if you go up to any dentists any say, “What bonding agent do you use?” They’ll say CLEARFIL SE. I’ll say what’s the megapascal. 27 megapascals. I’ll say, “Okay how many incoming calls did you have last week in your dental office?” “I have no freaking idea.” “Okay, it’s 2016. Tell me your 2015 return on equity or return on asset” They don’t know anything they need to know and everything they do know like where rates are fillings, megapals … Everything they know they don’t’ need to know.
|
|
|
They’ll tell me the Krebbs cycle, they’ll tell me the periodic table. They’ll show me geometry. I believe if they had a digital phone system and saw the number of incoming calls that they’re only open 19 percent of the week. Not just the missed dollars but the missed toothaches, the missed pain, the people eating Vicodin, they can’t poop for 3 days. I want to go back to, what would it take … What would I have to put on in classified? What are you willing to do? Would you go to Parsons, Kansas, did you want a salary? Be more specific about … Build me the classified ad.
|
|
|
We’ll start with you. Build me the classified ad where I could Austin Shackelford. Would you sign a 3 year contract? If you go into the navy, you sign 4 years. Well all these dentists say, “I don’t want to be so mean.” I know what you’re going to do Austin. You’re going to come in here and you’re going to take a job and until you find the first damn thing better, then you’re gone, or are you just going to have a job and while you’re looking for where you’re going to sign your lease and then 6 months later you’re gone.
|
|
|
Tell me would you sign a contract, do you need a base, do you need a commission, do you need student loan forgiveness and if so over what kind of a AMP, 5 year, 10 year. Just tell me how I can get you to work for me.
|
|
Austin:
|
Okay. I mean all of our situations are going to be pretty different. I‘d like to practice eventually in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m willing to sacrifice salary for location. That’s just how I feel. I’m definitely interested in mentorship. I see …
|
|
Howard:
|
Mentorship in what?
|
|
Austin:
|
As far as …
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Everything.
|
|
Austin:
|
Getting out of school and then learning how to run a business, learning what procedures are going to be best for my future practice, things like that and having a financial advice.
|
|
|
I think one of my biggest fears for going into a dental practice and I alluded to it earlier but it’s just, I’ve seen some dentists around town in the older generation that are very inflexible as far as maybe trying to grow their business or maybe their trying to grow their business but it’s just in a weird way, paying a consultant, to then get him to do search engine optimization when they don’t really know what it is or care. They just want few more people on the chair so.
|
|
|
One of my biggest fears is being stuck in a situation but at the same time, I’ve never had to provide for my family, I’ve never had to put food on the table. If something’s working, then you go with it. For me it’s learning from a mentor who is open minded and willing to grow.
|
|
Howard:
|
Do you have a family or do you have any kids?
|
|
Austin:
|
I don’t
|
|
Howard:
|
I always thought these dental schools are getting so expensive but during endo, if the first root canal you ever did was on your vas deferens and you obturated that thing well, you would save so much money that your dental school tuition wouldn’t even matter, but another inappropriate joke. Again so how can I get you to work for me?
|
|
Vanessa:
|
For me personally, I’ll move anywhere. I’ll move anywhere, as long as it provides me with the opportunity to grow. I eventually want to have my own practice and maybe start another practice and make a larger conglomerate. Not corporate but have associates and build up. I want to provide that same mentorship that they provided me.
|
|
|
I want to place where I can grow, and then take a step back and pass the good deed down, pay it forward. That’s what I would want. I would want … I don’t want commission based. I would want a salary because then you can manipulate me more.
|
|
Howard:
|
I can make more with that commission or a salary?
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I think commission because then you can take the high priced ticket value items. I would want a salary and I’d want …
|
|
Howard:
|
Quick rewind so I understand what you’re saying.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Because if you go through … Here’s today’s procedures. But I said you’re going to have these 5 fillings and I’m going to do the crown and the root canal.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay so fairness.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah, I want fairness.
|
|
Howard:
|
Great. You think commission wouldn’t give fairness.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah. I would want a salary and I would want retirement planning and benefits like getting ... Because that’s in today’s age. You need to have benefits. You need to be able … Medical that’s a huge thing. In healthcare profession, you don’t provide benefits because you’re a healthcare provider.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
I just want dental benefits that’s all I really want.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Dental benefits whatever but like medical. That’s a huge thing. What if my spouse doesn’t have medical benefits?
|
|
Howard:
|
Then you need to marry young.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I know. There we go. But what if I’m not even going to be married? Then I’m just going to go gold digging. I want benefits, I want salary, I want opportunity to grow so I can pay it forward and I want you to understand that I’m a female and I want to have kids.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
[inaudible 00:48:12]
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I know. I want to have kids and I want you to support my [inaudible 00:48:15] to that growth.
|
|
Howard:
|
What can I do to talk you out of having children? As my son Ryan’s filing the podcast. No I’m just kidding.
|
|
|
When you have kids does that … When you have kids are you going to be woman who takes off 6 weeks for maternity, gets back full time or does that mean having kids then after you have kids, you’re only going to work 2 days a week to the kids in first grade, talk about that.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
For me, I will come back and I will work harder than ever because I can’t stay still for long even though kids would have me running in circles. The person I’m with now is I think more domesticated then I am, so he’d probably be better suited for it, which is the sad truth. But we know what each other strengths are and you play to him so I would probably the … He would be the stay at home dad and I would be the money maker.
|
|
Howard:
|
I got to tell you something. When I got out of school in ’87 and women were starting to [inaudible 00:49:12], the planners calculated that the women’s career was going to be about half the output as the male career. I’ve been out a quarter of a century and I talked to all the girls in the class and everyone of them productivity was the same as the man. They just got it wrong.
|
|
|
I mean look what they were saying in 1980 and ’85. You were all going to get out of school, get pregnant and retire, or come back and work 2 days a week and all the 55 year old woman in my class are still cranking it 32 to 40 hours a week.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
[inaudible 00:49:36]
|
|
Ziyad:
|
I didn’t know that.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
I think I like that statistic because I think again going back the older generation, they have the assumption that a women wants to come in and associate because then she can have kids and greater flexibility and never want to work their way up to become the head honcho. I think that’s a total misconception and some people might want it, some people don’t. I think that conversation needs to be laid on the table if you’re looking to hire a woman and you want someone who sure has kids but doesn’t ever leave your office, they step on your toes. The conversation needs to be had.
|
|
Howard:
|
It sounds like you do want to work in corporate, it sounds like. Are you?
|
|
Kara:
|
I would work in corporate.
|
|
Howard:
|
To me, I don’t like the term corporate because 80 percent of the dentists say, they don’t like corporate, their incorporated.
|
|
Kara:
|
Yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
Their taxes are incorporated. When I think of them, when people are bad mouthing corporate, I think of a better team like big box multi state dentistry. I think in your world corporate is really just any dental office that would provide a long term employment job. I agree, all my employees have 401 K and healthcare and I always thought that was criminal that the dentist retires at 65, a millionaire and his assistant goes to a trailer park on Medicare. I don’t understand that. You want to work for somebody?
|
|
Kara:
|
I don’t necessarily want to but I would. When I get out of school, I’m going to be more near half a million in debt. I would like some kind of a loan repayment, a salary.
|
|
Howard:
|
20 years what would the AMP be. You said 400,000 is a 5800 a month for 10 years?
|
|
Kara:
|
For 10 years, yeah. Some kind of 10 year loan repayment program.
|
|
Howard:
|
Why are you a half million instead of 400,000?
|
|
Kara:
|
Just undergrad and I was in grad school after that.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay tell me this. Because a lot of people my age are slamming you guys saying, “Well yeah their $400,000 in debt … “ When I in school, I didn’t have a car till senior year, so I walked. I had 3 jobs. Lot of people say, “Yeah the laziest generations are $400,000 of student loans because they’re driving a $40,000 Honda car and spring break they’re doing carnival cruises in the Caribbean and their living the high fluent life and eating out at Root’s Crest.
|
|
Mykel:
|
[inaudible 00:51:57]
|
|
Howard:
|
But I would say is that a stereotype too, or are you guys eating Ramen noodles and graduating $400,000 student loans. I’m trying to …
|
|
Kara:
|
I think I live as a student as much as I can. I’m still going to be close to half a million dollars in debt.
|
|
Howard:
|
But did you take cruises and buying new cars with student loans.
|
|
Kara:
|
I’ve never been on a cruise.
|
|
Howard:
|
Did you buy a new car on a student loan?
|
|
Kara:
|
No.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay. Do you like the taste of Ramen noodles?
|
|
Kara:
|
I’ll eat Ramen noodles. I have them in my cupboard right now actually.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah. I think debt is something that our generation has realized is the inevitable. You’re in debt, you’re in debt in the way you deal with it that will be different. Some people will just, “Fine. Okay, I’ll be in more debt” and buy a car, and some are little smarter with the money they don’t have. I think we’ve just realized we’re all going to be in the hole and it depends on how people deal with it …
|
|
Mykel:
|
I’m not sure if we’re smarter with the way that money is. I don’ think our … In terms of our generation, at least for myself, I don’t know much about investing. They took away a lot of classes I think in high school that actually taught you life skills like how to do your taxes which is you’d be surprised that how many people our young age, don’t know how to do taxes and we don’t really make any money so it should be pretty easy to fill out. I’m even guilty of that myself. Also the definition of poor is different. When my mom grew up and she’s an immigrant. We did …
|
|
Howard:
|
Where’s your mom an immigrant from?
|
|
Mykel:
|
Okinawa, Japan.
|
|
Howard:
|
Wow.
|
|
Mykel:
|
She lived in the Philippines for a long …
|
|
Howard:
|
She married an American GI then
|
|
Mykel:
|
Yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
Yeah, see.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
Every friend I know that’s half Japanese is married to a GI.
|
|
Mykel:
|
I know yeah. That’s very common. But her definition of poor versus our definition of poor, if you’re going to be poor then … My dad’s like, “You need to be in the United States because her poor and her growing up was not eating for a week and sharing her roommate’s food. Having holes in her shoe and walking king to school. That’s the poor. I don’t think any of us have ever had to walk to school without eating for a week or sharing your friend’s food. Yeah, I mean holes in your shoes and stuff like that. I think the definition of poor is different.
|
|
|
For instance, but also the mentality of, we have so much in debt. My fiancé he’s in dental school in [inaudible 00:54:11]. We have his debt too. We’re out of million, he just accepted residency so now we’re going to be at 1.3 million in debt. At this point, and it takes already 10 years payment plan, 5800 just for myself. At this point we’re like we’re going to be in debt for life.
|
|
|
It’s America [inaudible 00:54:28], invisible money where you just have that credit card and it’s not just we’re guilty of it, it’s majority of the population who can’t pay … How many people do you know have graduated high school or maybe even when through college but they just charged their card and they’re like, “Oh shoot, I have so much money and I have to pay this back because now, I’m in collection.”
|
|
|
Do you know what I mean? I at least have friends that didn’t have concept of money or earning how much money or what they’re spending and what their earning is very different until it’s like so blown out. In terms of us, we have so much debt that it’s like, a cruise of $500 which I’m going to be paying. It’s like, “Charge.”
|
|
Zayid:
|
It’s not just us.
|
|
Mykel:
|
No, it’s not just us. I just think that it’s the reality of that. We have so much debt. We know we’re going to be paying it off for so long.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah, I think a lot of people, don’t know how to make their money work for them or the difference between good debt and bad debt. I’m the type of person going to back to job listing. I don’t need a debt repayment program because I know …
|
|
|
Like I said debt is inevitable and eventually I work my way out of the hole and that student loan debt is necessarily, I mean being a dental student loan debt is more of a good debt and bankers will look positively on that versus being in millions of dollars of credit card debts. Making the student loan debt work for me isn’t as big as an issue as if I was maxing out on my credit cards.
|
|
Howard:
|
I’m going to ask, go change topics completely and that is … When you’re talking mentorship, when you’re getting a job at a desk, you’ve all mentioned business. Does anything clinically interest you? Is any of your goals, someday I want to do, any type of procedures, switch to clinical for me.
|
|
Mykel:
|
One thing our school is struggling with and I think it’s across the board just with the way that dental technology is evolved to. Endo was hard to come by. We only do a limited amount by the time we graduate. I think that every graduate will agree that we wish that we had more endo to do that opportunity versus pull the teeth and put an implant at the same cost, why not. In terms of offering incentives or maybe paid CE, that would be pretty awesome.
|
|
|
We have spirited so local. Anything with implant [inaudible 00:56:37] to CAD/CAM but CAD/CAM is … If the office is using it, we need know to know how to use it. A lot of times, when we go, when we’re trying to get a job, they’re like, “Oh they need to well versed in dentrix, they need to have excel, they need to speak 5 languages, they need to know CAD/CAM, they need to have implants certified.” In terms of not working hard, it’s like dude …
|
|
|
Like my fiancée knows 3 languages and it’s like in addition, he can offer that to a price ... You need to have all of this too. In terms of like, “Oh, you work hard, he knows 3 languages man.” How long would it take an older generation to learn 3 languages, you know what I mean?
|
|
Howard:
|
What languages does he know?
|
|
Mykel:
|
He speaks Arabic, he speaks Spanish and he speaks English of course. I can sign language but to pick up now, the newer generation is required now that you have to learn a new language or at least take a couple of years in college. Before it was just like optional but now it’s totally learning a whole new language because now the values have shifted, not from at least in the older generation … Well, previous times in the United States it was assimilating, that’s what you want to do.
|
|
|
At least when my parents came here or my mom at least in the ‘70s, it was I don’t know another language like Japanese or Tagalog which is a dialect of the Philippines because it wasn’t valued. She came a little bit after World War 2. We’re still in that time even 30 years after like in the ‘70s she came. You still had the Japanese internment camps. It was not valued to speak another language so she didn’t teach it. She didn’t want us to learn it, she didn’t want us to be singled out. Now it’s valued and so everybody speaks multiple languages. It was required in college so I learned sign language so it’s just times change.
|
|
Howard:
|
Well you have to sign up for my Howard Speaks podcast because Ryan and I are going to Tokyo next month, aren’t we to do some podcast. We’ll bring Tokyo live. Again mentorship, is there anything you’re looking for outside of business and money. Is there any clinical procedures that if one of my homies is trying to hire you and said “I’ll teach you how to do this.”
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
|
Howard:
|
What clinical thing?
|
|
Ziyad:
|
I just did a rotation … I’m a 4th year student. We’re just now getting a preview into how little we really know. It’s like wow. Not only was I worried about mastering what I’ve been taught in dental school, about 2 percent of that is used outside. Now, I’ve got to learn what I need to learn. You don’t know what you don’t know.
|
|
|
They keep telling us these buzz words like CIRAC and implants and of course we’re like, “Yeah, I want to learn implants.” But do I want to learn implants. I don’t know what I want to learn. That’s why I need to get into a practice where somebody is willing to explain their philosophy, the importance, how they value …
|
|
|
For example, the whole conversation you had about Titanium. I mean that’s something that blew my mind. I was like, “Well I didn’t know.” Or even the other conversation that you talked about, the pros of amalgam versus our obsession with megapascals and what not. I mean these are things we don’t know. We’re still stuck on I don’t know how to border mould, damn it.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Also just to piggyback on it, he’s absolutely right. In dental school, and I’m sure everyone of the older generation agrees, when you come out of dental school, they teach you, or they try to teach you one way. It’s a good way, it’s an accurate way. But it’s still you graduate learning way and this is the proper steps.
|
|
|
If there’s an efficient way, if there’s another way, if there’s an alternative way, at least from the dental education side, don’t confuse students because they’re learning it for the first time so they need something that they can learn, that’s a protocol that they can go by. It’s like if you complete all these steps it should be good. You should be good to go. But if there’s alternative materials, we don’t get alternative materials.
|
|
|
You can maybe get one other option, composite amalgam for instance, you know what I mean. But in terms of, can you fabricate, rather than taking a 6 steps for dentures, is there a faster way to fabricate a denture, I don’t know. That’s something I’ll have to learn in the field. Alternative ways, are there options, that would be beneficial at least for me.
|
|
Vanessa:
|
Yeah I’m a huge techie when it comes to the latest and greatest and most efficient. If you could provide me with opportunities to even just go to CE courses or conferences to learn what’s out there, not necessarily that I’m going to take everything and be like, “I’m going to do it this way.” But just so I know what my options are, that would be great.
|
|
|
I want to be able to make a decision for myself on what I’m going to choose to do. Instead of right now, the schools are telling us this is what you do it. I want to be able to say like, this is what I believe, this is what I think I should do it and if patience agree with or not then cool.
|
|
Austin:
|
Going back to your original question, I haven’t had a hand piece in a real patient’s mouth yet, but from working on plastic teeth and mannequins, I have an interest in fixed pros. Crown and bridge. I come from a lab background. Any mentorship opportunity where that clinician is very strong in that area, that’s something that I really like to learn.
|
|
Kara:
|
I mean I’m interested in Perio. I’d like to specialize. I’d really like to learn implants.
|
|
Howard:
|
Okay, we’re out of time. That’s our brand is an hour. What I want to end on is this? One of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had is I’ve taken groups, to dental students from your dental school to Arriaga, to Mexico, Tanzania. I lectured in half a dozen dental schools over 20 years. I’m always so amazed by the quality of the dentist behind me. I always feel like … Some people leave their professions saying, my profession is going to hell.
|
|
|
I always say god ding the dental students are just faster, better, smarter, more pure, more awesome, I mean god ding. My generation can’t be the greatest generation because the dental students are always rocking hard, smarter, more passionate. I mean, I look at all my classmates. I don’t want to say their names, they might be listening to it. But they’re all …
|
|
|
But you got, I mean you dentals students, I mean you’re just world class and it was an honor and come to speak to you today. I just feel like if everybody graduated in ’87 died tomorrow, dentistry would be even in better hands. I really do. I just think it’s amazing you guys.
|
|
Mykel:
|
It’s like [inaudible 01:02:39]
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Yeah we stood on the shoulders of you guys.
|
|
Austin:
|
Thank you for coming and talking with us today. We learned a lot.
|
|
Howard:
|
Well it was an honor. Thank you guys, thank you very much.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Thank you.
|
|
Mykel:
|
Thanks Ryan.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Thanks Ryan.
|
|
Howard:
|
Thanks Ryan.
|
|
Ziyad:
|
Behind the camera, no credit ever. Just the butt of your jokes.
|