Menu
Full Transcript
Dr James:
What’s up team. Welcome back to Dennis to invest podcast. I have sat in front of me for familiar face from the podcast and also from social media, dr Sunny off the Dre composite restorative technique. Dr Sunny, how are you today?
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, super man, thanks for having me. How are you?
Dr James:
Always a pleasure, my friend. I’m flipping 11 out of 10. Thank you for asking what you’ve been up to today, what’s keeping you busy?
Dr Sandeep:
Today deliver the couple of lunch and learns Yeah, that takes that. That took up my lunchtime so far.
Dr James:
So talking to happy dentists like you, That’s where you shine, though right You like the stage.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, but only when I’ve got something to say right.
Dr James:
Which is all of the time. No, i’m kidding, anyway, mate. So we’re here today to talk about restorative dentistry and how we can make it as profitable as possible, and here’s the thing I want everybody to remember I think people get really, really really hung up on asking from a higher level of remuneration from the patient. Actually, that is the thing that facilitates your ability to deliver more value, which is what we’re here to talk about today. Naturally, the more time we give to someone, the better a job we can do. Of course, that’s going to be reflected in the remuneration, at least to a degree, because time is money, as we all know, or at least that’s the belief system that we’re all indoctrinated with, because I agree with that, but only to a point, because value is money as well. In fact, value is money is a better statement. So when we give someone more time, we give them more value, and then, therefore, remuneration is to a higher standard, and that’s going to be one of the key things we’re going to touch upon in this podcast. So let’s bring it back to reality. Let’s bring it back to this podcast right here, right now, today. Dr Sunny, given your voyage to restorative dentistry and getting to where you are. What are the coolest things that you have learned along the way in terms of profitability? Or if you could go out and wave your wand like this and teach the dentist of the world something about restorative dentistry, which would enable them to become more profitable, what would it be?
Dr Sandeep:
I’m going to touch on something you just sort of teed up for me Alluded to not so much. Yeah, that price is what you pay, but value is what you get, so that’s like a big one. That was a bit of a shift for me in my understanding. So I’ll give an example. I started doing these larger composite restorations instead of postcore crown, and so I learned a technique for direct composite crowns from severe vanity like Lundek Kings College, and so he did it with sectionals and all the rest of it. But of course obviously everybody knows I’m a great at curve found boys, so obviously I developed a technique around of it. It was a two step and it just made a bunch of sense to me. And then I told one of my good friends how much I was going to charge for it, right? So at the time I was going to charge for 95 for this. Well, this is what I was charging. And he was like cool, and I said look, i’m thinking about putting my price up right, because it’s taking me 90 minutes My hourly. You know, let’s say I’m, for example, working towards a 500 hourly, then it should be 750 for 90 minutes. I said I’m going to charge 795. And my friend said to me you can’t do that, it’s your composite, right. And then I just it just took me back right, because then of course this is a dentist who’s not seeing the value that the patient’s going to get, right. So what the patients see and what the patients hearing is that you know we could do this, this option, and it has his risks, as do all things. The risk with that involves the elective root canal plus the post, plus the core, plus the crown on top and then multiple visits and all the rest of it, whereas what we were proposing would maybe have the risk of an endo maybe you have. I’m pretty careful He’s carrying his diet and all the rest of it, so you’re staying well away from the pulp And the benefit to the patient is in a 90 minute appointment. They get this same day to you know, and it’s reconstructed and it’s got a really, really good seal and all the rest of it, all the other prerequisites for good restoration And, yeah, a lot of my attention and focus has got into that. So that’s quite, quite an interesting area that I’m really exploring with and have been since probably about 2018, when I sat to be his course.
Dr James:
You know what? and there’s an analogy that I use on this in dentistry. Right, and this is what I say all the time Right, i go to two people and they’re both offering to build me a house. Right, one person, the price tag is 10,000. The other person is 200,000. Right Now, if they don’t tell me anything else about that house and how it’s going to look, and I’m going purely off price, which is what lots of patients do in the dentist patient interaction, because the dentist generally don’t give them any more information Right, and I’m going to go this is a house, the 10,000 thing is a house. 200,000 thing is also a house. Right, so I’m going to go 10,000. It is my man, let’s shake hands on it. Right, come back six weeks later. Right, look at my plot of land that I’ve purchased. Right, see this big old hole like this. Right, i want to go and peer over the edge of the hole. There’s like this little mud hut right there. Right, okay, the guy built the house is like yeah, you wanted the house, 10,000 pounds, you get what you pay for. Right, go live in the house First. Rainfall comes, mud house washes away And I’m like what the hell? I paid 10,000 pounds for this. I can’t even sleep in it. I didn’t get what I wanted, right? I wind up having to go back to the other person anyway and give them 200,000 pounds, right? But he’s like oh well, now it’s a little harder Because guess what? Guess what? That big hole that the last guy dug has messed up all the bedrock under your house. Now we’re going to have to go back in and fix the bedrock. But here’s the kicker It’s never going to be quite as good as what it once was, right? So I’m going to have to pay the guy anyway for the second time. More time, more hassle, all of that, right, and it’s never going to be as good as what it was in the first place, right? Can you see how? the 200,000 pound guy it was his duty to tell me why he was going to do a better job than the other person, because now I’m miffed. Yeah, totally, let’s bring that across. So you dive and have to explain the analogy there. Is that obvious enough, or do we have to go one step deeper and make that super obvious? Yeah, or we’re good, yeah. I don’t know See well what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the first restoration that’s much cheaper versus the second one, right, yeah, the second one would have actually lasted a significant amount of time, right, and it would mean that I have more to structure to play with whenever, whenever I, whenever it needs to be replaced, right, and that’s fine. But it actually would have done its job. That’s the main thing. But here’s the thing in our head is dentist, we’re trying to sell the 10,000 point house all the time because we feel like we’re doing the best service that we possibly can to the patient when we’re just flipping not, we’re making price. That only factor when it isn’t.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, Sure, sure, sure, makes a bunch of sense to me too. And then the other thing, interestingly, off the back of that too, is what I try not to have is, you know, because when you’re associating, you’re not really setting the prices right, you’re not setting the fee. And so, humans, we have biases right, incentives, massive, subconsciously or consciously, right, some of us are just the you know, real, real numbers people. other people are subconscious. So if you’ve got a treatment modality that costs $7.50, let’s say, for a crown, and then you’ve got for a large company it’s 280. Right, naturally you’re going to be drawn towards the higher end of the spectrum. when you see this broken tooth Now you’re like you know what? I think crown’s better, yeah, of course. but we have biases right That can affect our decision making. So how I work is I try not to make the price the distinction. In fact it costs the same. Both take the same amount of time. It costs the same. It’s what’s going to be best for that situation, for that patient, for that tooth. And there are other factors outside of just, you know, clinical papers, such as patient factors. perhaps a patient doesn’t want to come back, perhaps they can’t sit there for too long, perhaps there’s other things. you know you can have patients with the, with the Parkinson’s dementia. They, you know they just they cannot sit for long periods of time. So I just think there are other factors as well that go into what’s going to be best for the patient, as opposed to just going through a from a textbook standard.
Dr James:
I’ve got a really useful method for figuring out whether or not you’re making price, the determinant factor on which treatment you offer Right? So this is to really figure out what’s going on inside your own head. Right, you can use this process, right? So here’s the thing You look at the patient while you’re looking around their mouth, while you’re doing your, your clinical check, your exam, right, you see a tooth. There’s an issue with the tooth, yeah, and it’s got the K, it’s got a factor, cost, whatever, right, look at the tooth. Then in your own head, think to yourself if that were my tooth in my head, how would I prefer for it to be treated? What is the best? Let’s put cost, not even consider it as a factor. Let’s put it out the window. Let’s just not think about it. Right, if I wanted the best, or what I believe to be the best, for this particular tooth, what would it be? Yeah. Now, second thing you do look at the patient and kind of see the bigger picture at this point and think to yourself okay, now if I know what’s the best for me, is there any reason why that would change for the patient in terms of giving them the best clinical outcome? Right, yeah, now here’s the thing That may change that you. That may make you change your decision on what’s best for that tooth clinically, but 99% of the time it won’t. Which, whichever one you go with, right, if you offer anything different to the patient than what you just imagined in your head, then you probably made it a price thing. Okay, because you might have thought to yourself, well, the indirect restoration is the best thing, then how many dentists will sell the filling and not the indirect? because they’re scared of talking about the investment level, because they’re scared of talking about the price right, and if you do that consistently, then what you’re doing is you’re making price the main factor in the treatment that you offer, which, going back to our analogy just a minute ago, we know is not the biggest factor, because we know that it can lead to outcomes which are way less favorable. And also it can mean that when we do eventually choose that definitive treatment, that more definitive treatment option, the indirect, that, because we’ve removed more tooth than we like now we get, now we get a compromised outcome, whereas we would have just been better to do it in the first place and accepted the fact that the investment might be a little higher.
Dr Sandeep:
Like your hole with a little hut right.
Dr James:
Like the hole with a little hut right.
Dr Sandeep:
See, I’m a good student.
Dr James:
Metaphors work right, Because people can just visualize this stuff in their head.
Dr Sandeep:
I’ve got a great one too. Like to your point, right, when you go to a restaurant and you have a meal and you finish your meal and the waiter comes over and says would you like a coffee? Yeah, you can decide yes or no, but it’s good service, right, you’re happy that the guy’s coming off with you. Would you like coffee now? Would you like dessert? It’s the same deal. You’re just giving good service to the patient, right? So I’m not really scared of the no or the rejection or whatever. You know some people are going to want what you have and some people aren’t going to want what you have. It’s not about you.
Dr James:
When the waiter does that, you say no, thank you. Right, there you go, there you go, awesome man, cool, cool, cool, cool, okay, cool. So maybe we talked about the mindset stuff a little bit. Let’s talk more about the technicals. What are the things you realize along your journey in restorative density that you thought hmm, if I do it like this, actually I’m serving someone better. Therefore, i’m delivering more value. Therefore, that is naturally reflected in the remuneration.
Dr Sandeep:
But I mean, i’ve got an interest in thesis right, one that we share with our delegates all the time. I think, actually, when you think about when we’re in a practice, what we’re trying to do is a patient comes through the door and we’re like, okay, he’s interested in whitening, so I’m going to sell him the whitening. He’s going to get whitening. I’ve got some collection for the tools. Today’s taking They say I want to replace this. One, two, three, okay, cool, you’re always just thinking what can I get from this person? Maybe not everybody, but for me that was in the mind. When you’ve got mortgage, you’ve got two young children, you do have this little bit of. You, have this little thing in your mind, right? You need to collect beyond a certain point to break even the way for this. And interestingly now my thesis is this that actually we shouldn’t actually want to sell everything to the patient and sell is an ugly word, right, but just, you know, guide the patient to the right decision, that’s best for them. But the example with whitening you can sell the whitening for 250 pounds, 300 pounds, whatever, and you can spend appointment time doing that, but your appointment time is really valuable. It’s probably the most valuable chair use in the whole surgery is when you’re in it as a dentist. So I actually think the whitening should be reserved for, like hygienist therapists. They could take care of that and then they can get some upside from that right And they can generate business that way for the practice, whereas what we should be focusing on is the stuff that we see every day. So Mrs Jones comes in and she has carries in a 7654. And then typically what we do is we have the appointment, we get them in, we have the rapport, you have the numbing, you have the two surface preparation, you have the restoration, you have the finishing up, and then you say, good, why? And you’ve done that one, that filling, right. And then the next patient comes in, you do the next filling, but you’ve still got that pre and the post. So you’ve got the hello set up, none prepared, the tooth and so on and so forth. So you’ve got these. This cycle happening over and over. But how more efficient is it when you say, mrs Jones, you’ve got these four teeth that are completely trashed right. They’re really bad, they need some attention. I’ve got 90 minutes free next week, I can actually get you in, and what we’ll do is. We’ll make this super comfortable for you. It’s minimum injections. I know you don’t like those minimum. It’s going to be super numb, you’re not going to feel anything And I can get all of that done is really easy for me in the manner that I work, to get that all done in one day. And I see you don’t have to worry about it anymore, and I think our direction should be you know, pointed out helping the patient. Do that comprehensive care, get the stuff done, because, listen, if you don’t help them make a decision, they’re doing nothing right? People go away and don’t come back How often is that, how typical is that And go. I told the patient to come back. Yeah, but this is just humans, right? If you don’t give them help, they make a definitive decision. They won’t make a decision, right? So if you don’t offer them the coffee, they’re not going to take it. So then it’s up to her to say all right, i love all four done or no, but by doing that you massively improve your efficiency. Quadrants, for me, are the low hanging fruit of dentistry. It’s the stuff we see all day long. We don’t need to market for it. You just need to get really clear and effective. Say look, it’s really important we do this and not say if it’s not something to monitor, they don’t monitor it. Say to them in my judgment, we need to do this Again once more it’s the coffee. She wants it or not?
Dr James:
Beautiful, lovely job, lee. That’s more from the technical side of things, of course. Just as we said, let’s build on that a little more, because we’re on a roll now. We’re on a roll now. What other stuff do you feel that dentists could do better to deliver? more value on the technical side of things, more like the day-to-day and the might stuff.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, i mean I’m going to cut into that a little bit more.
Dr James:
Yeah, yeah, quadrant, yeah.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, yeah, all right. So just digging into the quadrant side a little bit more. Again, the low hanging fruit of stuff we don’t need to market for, the stuff that we see all the time. And again, if a private composite is being done, let’s just say 200 quid and you’re doing four of them and you can get it done in 90 minutes. We teach how to do that. For some people we can do it in 60. Some people we can do it in 90. But you work out the hourly on that. That is freaking impressive. That is really really impressive. So one of our commercial angles is that, not just through one of our programs, the Diarrhea Restore of Excellence program, there’s other ones that build upon that. But we help these dentists grow to 2 to 4k right, and so that is possible 2 to 4k. what So are you that word A day, A day. Sorry I clarified that And we’ll touch on that later as well. Good case study on that. But yeah, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. It really really isn’t. And so just by doing good project dentistry, comprehensive, spending your time with a patient, like I said, guiding to the right decision, that this makes a bunch of sense for you And this is why we should do it, as opposed to spending appointment time selling something like whitening, which I just don’t think has a. I want to first of all treat the health and the disease, and if they’ve got both they’ve got caries and they’ve got whitening needs or they want I’m still probably going to say, look, no problem, we can get that done. But this is much more important And again, it’s win-win right They get what they need a healthy mouth and we get what we need good production.
Dr James:
Boom. Was it more than that? I was listening. I was fully invested in listening to that.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, so, yeah. So I’m just saying on the hourly’s, i mean it just makes a bunch of sense, right, it just makes a bunch of sense to do that comprehensive stuff. I’d also add to that then I’ve got the point right Is, you should play to your strengths, right? So I play to my strengths. All I do is direct rest of right, direct rest of. If I need some indirects from my patients, i refer them to colleagues of mine who are much better at indirect than me and they can get it done at the same hourly. But if you’re doing, let’s say, for example, an endo comes to your door, it’s pretty complicated and you’re charging 350 for this endo and now it’s going to take you two hours. Just mathematically it’s not going to make sense, right? You’re better off to refer that and stick in, stay in your lane and do what you do best, right? So we do that with delegates, a lot like we coach them through that, a lot like saying what are your strengths? Because sometimes we want to plug every single hole that we have. We have holes in Perio, we have holes in Endo. You want to plug every single hole. Truth is, maybe you probably shouldn’t do that. What’s your natural proclivity. What do you really like? What likes you up? So, for me, i just find it so interesting. Everything about it I like to do right. So therefore, is it that I liked it first or was it that I was competent first? I think because I got competent, i liked it and therefore it became a cycle. And Alaska this is where I am, i’m just doing a restorative referrals mainly.
Dr James:
Well, it comes back to Pareto’s principle. Right, the 80-20 thing. Right, 20% of your actions get you 80% of your results. And what you do in dentistry is exactly the same right, and there’ll be. Of all the specialities you can have, it’s only natural you’re going to be better at one versus the rest, right? It’s just a math thing. If somebody’s doing something all day long, somebody’s doing Endo all day long, they’re going to be better than the GDP at Endo, right? Yeah, it’s just the thing. Totally, totally.
Dr Sandeep:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, to that point as well. I mean, when I just picture my NHS these and then there I am doing my NHS staff and then patient come in and would want two private conferences, and I look at them and I go, oh, you know, in your head you’re like it should be this amount, and then you always say lower than what you mentioned. Ashley Latter has this all the time, right. He says we always have this number in our head but we always quote lower. You know, now I force myself to do the opposite, right, just say more than the mind thinks, right, but anyway, usually basing it off of time keeps it super easy. But I remember this particular case. Patient comes in too really badly broken down teeth, says I want private conferences and it was 100 each. And I was like, okay, cool, and then I was doing it and I was struggling, right, i was really struggling to do it. Composites are pretty technical, right, and you need to. My point is you need to practice it. So when I’m only doing a few conferences a week, or 10 a week, or five a week or whatever you’re doing, it’s not enough, because most of the time I’m doing amalgams or I’m not working in that manner. Right, i’m doing amalgams, and then this is requiring, you know, isolation and real attention to detail, right? Where amalgam doesn’t, it’s like wartime dentistry you get away with it, and then so you’ve gone from these two contrasts of, like this, 2030 patients a day mode to then, oh no, i’m gonna slow down now I’m gonna book an hour to do these 200-pound conferences And I just didn’t do them very well At the time. I thought they were great, yeah, but anyone can make them look good on the day, right? You look at all the turkey teeth stuff. It all looks good on the day, it looks amazing, but we know it’s a car crash under there, right? So my point is you know, your habits are formed by what you do, yeah, so if you’re doing that procedure all the time, then you’re gonna be proficient at it. It’s very similar, you know, when it comes to facial aesthetics, where dentists do facial aesthetics and take it from me. I’ve dabbled with it since 2016,. Only to, like last year, say, no, i’m not doing anymore. Right, i got a whole thesis as to why I think dentists should do it, but I’m not doing it anymore Because when you’re doing it sporadically, you’re average, you’re average, and so I’ve got a clinical assistant right, nurse, that’s facial aesthetics. Actually, i’ve taught facial aesthetics once upon a time the dark side and he came to it and he just stuck at it and I didn’t. Now he’s injecting three times a week and I’ll tell you what his work. It destroyed mine easy easy, because he’s living it, he’s breathing it. So you wanna be something right, you gotta do it.
Dr James:
He’s my point here Lovely jubbly, and yeah, it’s the whole Pareto thing, right. Yeah, and here’s the thing, right. The reason why that gets you remunerated to a higher standard is, number one because you’re better at it. Therefore, the value is higher. Therefore, the remuneration is higher. Number two less likelihood you might have to refund things that don’t work out. And three here’s the best bit It’s fun for you. It literally gives you energy. Right, there’s two things in life There’s things that take energy and there’s things that give you energy. Right, You find the thing that you’re good at and that also is valuable and useful to other people, and it gives you energy. You’re in a flipping sweet zone, right, because you can literally do that thing, get all those positive outcomes and come away and feel energized. Right, most people go to work and spend energy. Right, you go home at the end. Here’s a really easy way to litmus test that or to pretty much just take your finger, lick it and stick it in the air and figure out if that’s going well for you or not. If you come home at the end of the day and you feel drained chances are you spend an energy to be there Then what you have to do is recover. Right, it now takes you energy to replenish your reservoirs of energy, right? Imagine if you could just do the thing that made you energized so you could do more of the thing. Right, that’s possible. It’s a self-awareness thing. You have to taste that side of life to be able to understand that it’s true. And here’s the thing. Let’s home up down into that a little deeper, right? Maybe there’s certain days you’re going to work. You’re coming home like, yeah, oh my goodness, that was amazing. And some days you’re coming home from working and you’re like, oh my goodness, right, yeah, figure out what the difference between those two days is. Pick the day that gives you energy and double down on whatever things you did in that day that gave you energy. Right, and here’s the thing You’re getting hotter and hotter to what that eventual cool life, ultimate life for you looks like. One more thing I’m going to chop on top of that as well. It starts with measuring what you do. You master what you measure. I think every dentist should take some time to log on an Excel sheet at the end of the day, what they’re doing and what they’re grossing for each one of those treatments, right, and you can literally look and how you feel. At the end of the day You can literally go back, figure out what treatments are making you feel happy, figuring out where the 20% of things that you do where they are, how they look, what that day looks like, figuring out what the 20% of things that you’re doing that are giving you the 80% of results right, and then you just concentrate on those. And it’s true for any business, it’s true for any dentist, it’s really cool.
Dr Sandeep:
Mego, mego. I mean, that’s actually an exercise that we do without the dentist, right? So the ones that take you to the next level really want to focus on production, not just the clinical side. That is one of the exercises that you bring what you’ve collected, what procedure you was doing, and a lot can be gleaned from that. Second one I’ve been doing for a very long time is keeping a spreadsheet of complications and failures, right, oh, interesting, yeah, so I’ve shared this one before. but I mean, quite literally, you just put what you know, have a few columns. What happened, how did it present? Yeah, how did you notice? When did you notice? Yeah, so usually patient will tell you, or you notice when they came back. Was it one week later, two weeks later, what category was it? Was it rest endo surgical? and your comments and how you rectified it, something along those lines. right, it doesn’t have to be verbatim limewine, but that is, you know, the information you can glean from that is really quite telling, right. And now I found out I was pretty good at composite, right, even before the sort of greater curve phase in my life, i was relatively okay, yeah, compared to the other things. So I’m not saying I was good at that time, but I was certainly better at composite than I was at, you know, endo or extractions or something like that, right, those were certainly things where actually I had patients coming back needing extra attention, right, and that attention is not paid. So another exercise you could do, if you take it, then it’s to say, all right, you’re working 40 hours times four weeks. what kind of hourly rate are you working towards? Work out that approximate figure and you’ll find what you actually collect versus what your projection would be, as there’s a discrepancy always. So where does that discrepancy or inefficiency come from? Yeah, i think it comes from refunds and redoes. yeah, redoes in particular, right, because what we do and this was me, all of these things I’m talking about were me, and now I see it in the people that we work with. right, but a patient comes in, something’s not looking right. we’re perfectionists, yeah, and I think we’re pretty conscientious people. We’re optimizers, we’re analytical, we’re smart, but we care as well most, yeah, care to a degree. So if they see something like, oh you know, i’m just going to quickly go in there and sort that out. How many times have you did that? I did that so much, right. And then when you go revisit it, you’re cutting into the chair time now. So the chair time’s costing on the one hand, and on the other hand you could have been grossing, so you’ve lost twice on that front. So now you’re redoing this stuff cool. but we redo a lot of things Little things here, little thing there, little thing here, little thing there. You know dry socket comes in. I’m not saying all of this is avoidable. Some of it’s unavoidable. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles. But there’s a point where it’s like probable and then there’s parts where it’s just like unlikely and probably you’re the commonality. So if you’re getting more dry sockets than everyone else in the practice, as an example, it’s probably not the instruments are dirty, it’s probably something in your technique, right, so you can just drill down into that sort of stuff. So, yeah, i think self-awareness is massive. And you said about Sundays are great and Sundays are not. I think that also lends itself to consistency in your life and being self-aware. So it may not be the day. You could have had two days that were very similar. one day you liked, one day you hated, but one night you got very little sleep because you was on YouTube all night And the other day you got good rest and that day was amazing. So there’s something to be gleaned. It may not be your you know your horrible principle or your horrible PM and everybody you want to blame at the time. It might be just you, as a bit slack with your discipline and not getting to bed on time Talking to me here, by the way, but younger me.
Dr James:
Good stuff, mate. Good stuff, good stuff, good stuff. Let’s drill down on the technical stuff in terms of composites, right? So if you could go out there to the world and you’re in a magic wand and you could improve three things about everybody, about the average Dennis composite protocol, right? Or another way of asking this question is to ask you what were the three biggest revelations that you had on your composite journey that allowed you to deliver more value and then therefore become remunerated to a higher standard? What would you say those lessons are?
Dr Sandeep:
I think there was a phase where I was looking at compositing and learning from very, very smart people. And you know you’re trying to piecemeal a solution. So you’ve learned from this guy and then he does it. Yes, he learned from this guy. He’s trying to mishmash this stuff together, but actually sometimes it’s not about going wide, it’s about going deep. So if I actually just focused on, for example you know I mentioned Sabir a lot, because this guy really influenced my dentistry big time But Sabir Banerjee stuff I should have probably just drilled down on how he works and adopted those methods and just really focused on that one particular way of doing it, as opposed to hot-squatching around from this strategy to that strategy and never really I’m never really getting the benefits of compounded effort. So I would have said that actually taking a framework that makes sense to you, right, and then drill down on that, instead of trying to piecemeal these solutions together Because they’re usually you’re probably not smarter than those guys. They are where they are for a reason And you know Charlie Munger says it right. He says, you know, don’t be so. I mean I’m butchering him, right. But he says I’ll be along the lines of don’t be so vain. You know to always want an original thought. Yeah, oh, that’s cool, yeah, really cool, right. So you know, standing on the shoulders of giants. So I’m saying I would have stood on their shoulders and said you know what? I’m just going to go deep into everything. You didn’t. To be fair, i did like a lot of his courses, but, taking a step further, maybe I would have done postgraduate studies with him because, like I said, he resonated with me. So that’s a huge one. Then I’d say the second one is, of course, big, big, contentious one. Now Rubber Dam. Yeah, so the third piece of dentistry is going to help you most of the time is going to help you. Yeah, there are times where it gets in the way. Yeah, there are times where it’s not always your friend, but most of the time it’s going to help. Now, the thing that changed it for me was Rubber Dam’s pretty technical. Yeah, it’s skillful. It doesn’t always work super well, la la la. But what you can do, right, what I do now is use a split dam and then use a greater curve. Right, because the greater curve gives us primary isolation at the matrix level, right? So if people don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, a greater curve is a matrix system from America that I teach, but yeah, so it’s cool system but ultimately isolation at the matrix level So you can use it in tandem with split dam control humidity, get good retraction, don’t drop you know no worries about dropping anything and then use greater curve at it. So that was like a really flexible way where I’d only be shown one way of doing Rubber Dam. So that really was a bit of a game changer for me. I’m trying to think of the third one now for you.
Dr James:
Yeah, you know what? It’s kind of hard sometimes when someone says three or four or five, because then you feel like you have to come out with three. We can call it a two. If those were the two biggest revelations, we’re good. Yeah, let’s take the heavy hits and tease out some more later. Maybe some will spring to mind. What is what is dry, by the way? what is greater, restored, greater curve technique? What is that?
Dr Sandeep:
So, in a nutshell, great curve is a matrix system. It’s the world’s first and only universal system, meaning that with this one system with three band designs, you can restore any class restoration class two, three, four, five, veneer on lay diacons, crown. You do DME with it So it can solve any restorative direct problem, and so they’ve been around since 2006. They’ve got tens of thousands of users in America, but it’s just lesser known in the UK. So I stumbled upon it. I’m not going to go through the whole origin story I’ve said it a few times on broadcast now But I stumbled across it after doing lots of education and being taught sectionals And you know what, maybe sectionals isn’t for everybody. We get a lot of delegates who say I just don’t get on with them And that’s perfectly fine, it doesn’t make you bad, it doesn’t make you something wrong with you, it isn’t for you. So I was one of those people that it just didn’t really resonate. 2018 found it, started using it for a couple of years And in 2020, you heard the inventor, dr Brown, very, very experienced dentist you know, been practicing 40 years and he developed it in response to moving from one album to composite. So this guy had really seen the shift in dentistry and how it was done And he came up with this. And he came up with it in 1996 and developed it over 10 years with his pals around America. You know, in impromptu clinical trials so to speak, developed the whole framework around it. You know like can do anything. You name it like full mouth rehab with it. You know composite veneers with it, subgeneral class wives. You know black triangle diastro, you know, you name it this thing, does it, this guy and this guy. Interesting thing about him quickly, just to pay him ultimate respects here as well. Interesting fact about that he was a. He was a Vietnam War veteran before he studied dentistry. So that was quite interesting, so very versatile, mind, i’d say very down to earth guy. But in the same vein, me and the delegates we call Greta Curve the Swiss army knife of dentistry. You know, like if you was gonna have this one thing that packed the punch, you could use it anywhere, even if there wasn’t a dental chair. If you only had a malgument work, if you only had GIC, it would work. If you only had composite it would work. You know, it’s just the bad boy like that. But I’m not saying, you know, there’s anything wrong with Garrison or Bioclid. they all work. They’re all great systems. It makes a bunch of sense. Some people they don’t really wanna stock a whole surgery with 30 different parts and different wedges and all the rest of it. So that’s basically Greta Curve in a nutshell. Yeah, it’s very interesting. And then at the end of 2021, i really moved away from associating and set up this referral service, where I’ve gone into people’s practices and do their restorative referrals in-house and then leave, meaning that I could really cut down my clinical time down to sort of like 10 hours a week, and because of the efficiencies that I had learned from Dr Brown and some techniques that I’ve developed myself using it, because I’ve used it for five years, you learn a thing or two. And then we’re talking about compounding effort. I’ve just been using this for that period of time and just moved more and more into it, just got deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. So you learn a thing or two. You know, if there’s a problem with delegate raises, i’m like, no, you just do this. You know it’s not, it’s nothing. I haven’t seen before that. I haven’t raised at any or figured out, or figured out through trial and error, and so, yeah, it got really efficient on that front, allowing me to reduce my times. And then I said to Denny in 21 that, yeah, i’d love to teach it, and came back to him with an MVP, a director of restorative excellence, and that’s the official program for Greater Curve. So, yeah, hopefully that wasn’t too long.
Dr James:
Very cool, my man very cool. So here’s the thing, right. Whenever it comes to increasing or enhancing or income, there’s basically two components to it, and this is what I always explain to people. Component number one is the level of remuneration we ask for in return for the value that we give, right? The more value you give, the more right that you have to ask for a greater level of remuneration. You’re not gonna have a fee at Punto and a Lamborghini at the same price, right? That makes no damn sense, right? So you want your dentistry to be the Lamborghini? of course, right. And then, of course, that’s reflected in the level of value and then, therefore, the level of remuneration. The second way is clinical efficiency. Yeah, it’s so that you can deliver more value per unit of time. Obviously, the more value that we deliver per unit time, then what it means is the greater our level of remuneration per unit time, of course. So, always, always, always, always, if you have a dentist who wants to enhance their income. It’s those two components, it’s only those two things, which is really cool, and I love frameworks like that because they let me make decisions right, and I’m like, okay, well, if I am here and I want to get to here and I know that there’s only two paths, right. Until someone tells me that those two paths are, i don’t even know how to proceed, right. But when I know that it’s either this or this, i’m like, okay, decision made. I have to pick one of these two or a combination, and I just think stuff like that is really cool. I love my frameworks, something you’ve been super kind with time today. Thank you so much for coming along on the Dentistry and Fests podcast. If anybody wants to reach out to you off the back for what you said today, where can they find you?
Dr Sandeep:
So the website is wwwdrecompositecom and you can find us on Instagram, facebook, at DREcomposite as well. Yeah, that’s probably best way. the email and the phone numbers that you can get in touch My man.
Dr James:
thank you so much for your time today, buddy, We’ll catch up really soon.
Dr Sandeep:
Nice one man. It was too short.
Dr James:
James too short. Ha ha ha ha. We’ll do a longer one next time. Shout out for a longer one. Shout out who wants to see Sunny for a little more time? We’ll start that out. Much love team. See you soon.