How can you know when to refer a case? For Dr. Gordon Christensen, the answer is simple.

“One of my mantras is I will not do anything to another person that I would not do to myself,” he said during a recent interview on the “Chairside Live: Dental Insights” podcast. “So when I look in somebody’s mouth and I say, ‘I’ve done a few of those, but it’s not my thing,’ that’s a referral.”

As a practicing prosthodontist in Provo, Utah, Dr. Christensen regularly has the opportunity to make such judgment calls. As the CEO of Practical Clinical Courses (PCC) and Clinicians Report^® Foundation (CR), he also has a platform to teach and encourage other dentists who are in the process of homing in on the parts of dentistry that they love and the treatments that they would rather refer out.

During the podcast episode, Dr. Christensen talks about the above and presents his views on the future of dentistry, including:

• Why he believes digital impressions will continue to become more popular and which factors will shape further adoption of intraoral scanners in dentistry
• How certain COVID-19–driven safety protocols might carry forward in dentistry
• The benefits and disadvantages of dental service organizations, and why there will always be a place in dentistry for private practices
• His expectation that the presence of large dental practices where most subspecialties are represented will grow, thereby allowing more patients to receive more care under one roof

Find out the huge practice differentiator that has allowed Dr. Amanda Sheehan to triple her practice revenues. As a private practitioner in Waterford, Michigan, she and her nearly 20-person team provide comprehensive treatment with an overarching goal: to help patients get their confidence back.

“Patients who haven’t been to the dentist in a really long time — those are my favorite patients because those are the ones that we can help the most,” she said.

In this dental podcast episode, Dr. Sheehan shares:

• Her experience buying her practice a few years ago and how she has already tripled the practice’s revenues
• Why she intentionally pursues continuing education and how her dedication to implants, specifically, led to her role as an adjunct faculty member of the Misch International Implant Institute
• Her pathway to adding Botox^® (Allergan; Madison, N.J.) to her practice’s services
• Her belief in investing in technology for her dental practice, where she and her team use four iTero^® scanners (Align Technology, Inc.; San Jose, Calif.), a cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) system, and more

After starting from scratch and building a successful general practice in Florida, Dr. Neil Park was ready for a career change. In 1991, he decided to put his practice up for a sale (it sold within a week) and attend law school. However, the young clinician soon found a compelling new reason to stay in dentistry: implants.

In the 30 years since, Dr. Park has contributed to the increasing accessibility of implant dentistry and other treatment modalities, especially as a leader in continuing education.

“Implants are not the sole stomping ground of the periodontist and the oral surgeon,” he said. “It’s now a very democratic process. Any dentist who’s willing to invest the time and the effort to learn it can now be really successful with implant dentistry.”

In sharing his story on the “Chairside Live: Dental Insights” podcast, Dr. Park covers an array of topics, including:

• How his work in implant dentistry helped dental schools integrate implant education into their curricula
• The profound effects of improved surfacing technology for implants, which subsequently became more predictable and more readily within the reach of the general dentist
• The impact of the tapered dental implant design, which enhanced implants’ primary stability and enabled predictable immediate loading and early loading
• The crucial role of CAD/CAM-fabricated custom abutments in improving outcomes with cement-retained implant restorations

Sitting on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Red Sea, Dr. Steven Barrett planned his next career move. He wanted to join Greenberg Dental & Orthodontics.

In 1991, he did just that, transitioning from three years of service in the U.S. Navy to a position with the privately owned group practice in Florida. Today, he is the clinical director and a senior partner with the dental service organization, which has over 90 locations.

During his interview on the “Chairside Live: Dental Insights” podcast, Dr. Barrett conveys:

• His philosophy as a dental mentor in his role at Greenberg Dental and beyond
• How Greenberg Dental has evolved its group practice model over the years
• What drives the company’s unique success: “No. 1, it’s owned and operated by dentists,” he said. “So all of our partners … we’re dentists. The company itself is debt-free, meaning we don’t have to answer to a board of investors. We make our own decisions. We grow as we want to grow.”
• The importance of dental provisionals and the tried-and-true techniques that he teaches to dentists so they can achieve more esthetic results

By his own telling, Dr. Howard Farran isn’t here to pull punches. In this dental podcast interview, he talks about the need for more real talk in dentistry and why he encourages young dentists to buy a practice sooner rather than later. The Phoenix-based founder of Dentaltown and the “Dentistry Uncensored” podcast also discusses:

• The origin story of his media empire, including the floppy-disk beginnings of the popular Dentaltown message boards and his distinctive approach to “Dentistry Uncensored”
• Why he believes it is important to be really good at a few things
• The passion that he sees in dentists’ active participation in Dentaltown’s message boards, where clinicians can share their real-life clinical challenges and their expertise: “People just love dentistry. That’s why I don’t call it a trade. I think it’s a sovereign profession,” he said.