A Short Facebook Chat with an Unexpected Outcome

As you know, I have been participating with Dental Forums for more than 20 years. It provides me with the opportunity to discuss dentistry in all of its forms with a variety of dentists....Some of the discussions valuable but most not. It also gives me a chance to show a significant number of dentists many of the cases that I have done and my work has generally be viewed very favorably.

One of BEST dental sites is DentalXP which is dedicated to a significantly higher level of clinical dentistry and much less social bantering.

I dentist from Queens, NY also posted his work on DentalXP and I have always been impressed by the quality of his work. We recently became friends on Facebook and I messaged him this morning:

Hi I never realized that you are in NYS. You do nice work

Thank you Gerald!

You are my Inspiration!

I was truly honored to receive his compliment.

Conservative based dentistry

Newton Fahl and I have many things in common. One of them is that neither of us cuts down teeth for crowns UNLESS there is no other option especially for our younger patients.  Newton and I have both mastered resin based dentistry which allows us to save as much natural tooth structure as possible and permits teeth to be kept for a lifetime.

I have told you that the vast majority of people who have been my patient for 25,30, 35 and even 40 years have virtually all the teeth that they started with me years ago. And that is because I don't destroy your teeth for my economic benefit.

I place HUNDREDS of implant support crowns a year but on my LONG-TERM patients only one or two...

WHY?

Because my patients have very few crowns.

The more crowns that you have, the more likely that you will ultimately lose teeth and have some implants.

The most common reasons that people lose teeth;

1. Having large silver/mercury fillings (Amalgams) that split teeth
2. Poorly done root canals (Which is why you should  go to Root Canal Experts)
3. Having many crowns that ultimately fail and many times cause the tooth to be lost as well.

So while I am not as good as Newton Fahl, we are both committed to saving your teeth with strong, correctly bonded, resin posterior fillings.

Dentistry for a lifetime.

Another Class with Newton Fahl in Chicago

Newton Fahl is the greatest resin based dentist in the world and has been for almost 30 YEARS.  No one will ever surpass Newton in talent and the ability to exactly reproduce a tooth in resin that matches God's natural tooth....No one.

I have probably taken more courses with Newton than any other dentist in the country during the last 20+ years.  Newton and the Cosmedent's Center for Esthetic Excellence are very kind and deferential to me because they know the quality of my work and because I have studied in Chicago longer than anyone else.

I was the oldest dentist by far and probably the most accomplished. But to my classmates I was just an old guy who doesn't walk well and should probably hang it up.

When I began UB Dental School there was an old professor, Dr. Brown, who was the Chairman of the Restorative Department. He was old all right but he was still at the top of his game clinically and everyone revered him. A few years ago when my East Coast mentor, Dr. McIntyre retired,  he told me, "You know, you are going to be the Dr. Brown of dentistry soon."

99% of young dentists have no clue who the best clinicians are and nor do they care. It is not like sports or rockstars  where fans knew everything about their 'heroes.'

 Doesn't matter because my patients still know that they are receiving fine clinical dentistry.

You Need to Read This (This is NOT political..unless you want it to be.)

Empathy and sympathy and what is referred to as 'humanity' are strictly human qualities. When someone tells you that their child is very sick or that they have been diagnosed with cancer, most of us will offer our concern for that person. It is what we do.

In today's New York Times, Roger Cohen writes about a young woman that was repeatedly raped when Isis soldiers took over their Yazidi town in Iraq.  After freeing herself from sexual slavery she started a campaign out to end mass rape in war. In addition to the rapes, her mother and 6 brothers were killed by Isis soldiers.

For her efforts she was awarded a Noble Peace Prize.

When the President met the young woman in the Oval Office, he asked her,"  “They gave it to you for what reason?”

I don't care if you like the President or not  but when you cannot show your compassion, empathy, and sympathy for being raped repeated (as were thousands of Yazidi women), I have to question your humanity and ask why you are the most powerful man in the world?


If you want to read the article for yourself:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/opinion/trump-nadia-murad-meeting.html

I Am So Honored

I have told you before that the student LIVES to be complimented by his or her mentor. I have been most fortunate to have had the support of many of my mentors during my long career.

That said, many times we influence people and gain their respect at great distances because of the internet. I have 'known' dentists for 20+ years on dental forums but have never had the pleasure of meeting them in person.

Today, an older dentist from Texas presented the dentists who he has followed during his early years and who have served as his mentors. He concluded by asking other dentists on the forum who we followed and who inspired us.

One dentist that I know all of my 20+ years on this forum wrote the following:

"David Hornbrook solidified my confidence in doing cosmetic cases.

And via the many internet forums over the years I have learned so much that I consider Rick, Guy, Ray Voller, Gary Henkel, Gerald Benjamin, Jeff Blank, John Highsmith, Suz, Gerilyn Alfe, Sander and so many others as mentors, whether they knew it or not.  All you guys have made me a better dentist."

Another young dentist that I met 3-4 years ago said the following:

"I have yet to met anyone more challenging than Gerald. I will also admit, I am very hard on mentors as I usually question them more than I accept from them. Gerald is one of the few who have withstood my cynicism.  It is too early to have a top 5 in my career, but Gerald stands above the rest.

I will also state that Gerald is the only doctor who has agreed to let me try and replicate the 'Tucker Gold Study.'  This is a question I frequently ask and most turn me down. I am not sure when I will be able to get up there  to do so, but to allow this level of transparency in someone he has never met speaks volumes about him and his confidence in his clinical dentistry, which is something I don't see very often. "

Matt

Matt and I did not see eye to eye at the beginning because I could not see any passion for clinical dentistry. I showed him my direct posterior resins that I would place for MY patients instead of destroying teeth for crowns, especially in younger patients in their 20,30,40s. He did not believe my success with resins but he admired my commitment and passion to help each and every one of YOU. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to copy my style of dentistry and began taking 100s of hours of  high quality Continuing Education. 

Matt has become a 'convert' to excellence. I am truly honored by his commitment to excellence and I am thrilled to have been his mentor.

A 16 Year Old Boy Can See it From 2,000 Miles Away But an Adult Can't See It From Around the Corner

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see an email in my office email account. When I opened it, this is what a young man from Minnesota said:


Message:
Dear Dr. Benjamin, 

My name is Max, and I am a tenth grader at Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope, Minnesota, and I am now looking back at your blog, that I found when I was in 8th grade. I found your blog in 8th grade, in my Tech Ed class, when we were constructing Pull Toys, and we needed a name for our toy, and we named it "Gerald". So, my partner and I googled the name "Gerald", and we found your picture, and we printed it out, and plastered it all over our pull toy. We got an A on the assignment, and I recently found the pull toy in my garage, and I remembered you being all over it. As I looked you up, I just wanted to say (from reading your blog), is that you seem like a fantastic dentist, and a great doctor. So, keep doing what you are doing, and I hope you find a little bit of joy reading this from a 16 year old kid from Minnesota!

Take care,

I wrote back to Max telling him that his comments made my day and that I hoped that he would pursue excellence in everything he does and to always do the right thing...

Even Doctors Don't Believe That There is a Difference

Most physicians and dentists believe that they are good at what they do.. A very old article (2004) appeared in the New Yorker Magazine about the differences in medical care and medical outcomes.

This is the article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/12/06/the-bell-curve

Doctors themselves were shocked to learn that some hospitals have significantly better outcomes than other hospitals.

How can this be???

Human nature. Every physician and dentist firmly believes that they are better than average until they are confronted with the results of their own outcomes.

This is why it is soooo important to be evaluated and treated by the best.

A Champion Always Gets Up Off of the Canvas

Champions have as much heart as they have talent.

Tiger Woods demonstrated that yesterday. Injuries and personal issues caused his fall from grace and many thought that redemption was not possible.

The heart of a champion.

Offended by Negative Reviews

After 42 years, I am still saddened when a patient leaves our practice. When someone writes a negative review about our practice, I am deeply offended.

A relatively new patient wrote that I am outrageously expensive....

What she meant to say is that she did not value fine restorative dentistry and if that is the case, then she should not be a patient in our practice.

This is like walking into a BMW dealer and telling the salesperson that they can buy a Ford, Chevy or  Toyota for 1/3 of the cost of the BMW...That is not comparing apples to apples.

As I have told you for the last almost 20 years of writing blogs is that I will never hurt you to increase my income. That I will never destroy your tooth structure with a crown to increase my wealth...That I will never listen to an insurance company and provide the least expensive, lowest standard of dental care for you or your family rather than do the best that I can do.

When patients complain about fees it is because they don't care about excellence OR the cost is above their comfort number that they believe that dentistry should cost.

As I wrote in a blog yesterday...one of my colleagues said, " Gerald does things the right way but most of us (dentists) cannot make a living without placing crowns." (Paraphrased)

If a patient thinks that all dentists are the same...that is fine. But I KNOW that it is not so.

Equally Great Advice for Young Dentist and Young Physicians

Milton Packer, MD wrote a great short article to his young colleagues:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/79125?fbclid=IwAR0itWFpaTGs6YpGMOU92SASWTpmJj7P9xSdSloI8tcoYB2OzREDjYFk_UU

Asking whether medicine was their job or their career? The difference, according to Dr. Packer, is that if health care is your job, you are only concerned about making your employer happy. If health care is your career, then your goal  is to find positions that allow you to pursue your own goals and development. If you think of medicine as a career, you select positions that allow you to keep focused on your mission. He feels that being the best at some aspect of your job is very important  in a career but not the only important thing...What he truly believes is important is challenging conventional thinking and take your own path.

In 1956 we obtained the ability to bond to enamel and in 1992, we learned how to bond to dentin, the layer of tooth structure just below the enamel. At that moment, I realized that what I had been taught in dental school was no longer valid information when treating patients. Dentinal bonding meant that I no longer had to destroy tooth structure for a crown and therefore teeth would last longer and perhaps an entire lifetime.

I was roundly condemned by colleagues  but 25+ years later, I was right in not following conventional thought. How do I KNOW that I was right???? Virtually all of my long term patients of 20, 30 and even 40 years have almost every tooth that they started with me as their dentist...And they don't have many crowns.

I took a big risk and all of you won because you have kept your teeth.