Dr. Andrew Lusk is a pediatric dentist from West Virginia. He started a practice almost two years ago, and he comes on the show to talk about life as a West Virginia practice owner. In our discussion, we talk about:

- Should pediatric dentists work on Fridays?

- Why it's tough to fight Delta Dental, and why using umbrella insurance plans worked for him

- Using minimally invasive treatment options to help his patients

- Why it's tough being a business owner with cash flow and income inconsistencies

Dr. Tim Followell is a pediatric dentist and the program director of the residency program at the University of Louisville. He has been teaching at Louisville since 2020, where he works with the residents to teach them a wide variety of new techniques and procedures. Dr. Followell is also a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which peaked my interest in having him on the podcast. (He could probably strangle 99% of the general population).

In this episode, we focus on what changes Dr. Followell is seeing with his residents. We discuss new procedures, what they are moving away from, and how they try to produce well-rounded pediatric dentists. They also have CO2 lasers to allow the residents to do TOT work! I finish by asking Dr. Followell if he thinks we are producing too many pediatric dentists to enter the workforce.

Today's episode is a collaborative episode that Brews and Tiny Teeth did with Dr. Joel Berg of the AAPD Newly Erupted Podcast. We had a great discussion about what inspired me to become a pediatric dentist, the importance of practice owners in rural areas, and how seeing kids with Medicaid can allow an early startup to grow exponentially.

Whitney Linville is a a pediatric dentist and practice owner from Louisiana. She graduated from residency in Omaha, Nebraska in 2018, before starting her practice from scratch in Youngsville, Louisiana.

This episode is awesome because it's the exact vibe I try to chase after for my podcast. We each have a drink and just talk shop about a whole bunch of awesome peds topics, including:

- Dealing with snow, hurricanes, and bad weather

- The middle age stage of practice ownership

- What the pediatric dental scene is like in Louisiana

- Medicaid reimbursement in Louisiana

- Patchwork ART/ITR glass ionomer fillings that don't hold up

- When not to reimplant an avulsed tooth

- Whiny tweenagers who don't want you to touch their loose baby teeth.

This episode is all about resiliency. We have a demanding, repetitive job with a lot of stress. Whether it's trying to navigate massive student loan debt, figuring out how to become a practice owner, or handling difficult parents, it's important to take care of ourselves in order to practice for decades instead of years.

Dr. Niloo Mofakhami is a pediatric dentist from Virginia, and a practice owner of 20 years. We talk about resilience strategies that she shares with younger docs and residents that she mentors. Some of these topics include:

- Not working weekends

- Taking quality lunch breaks

- Seeing the appropriate number of patients in a day

- Prioritizing health

- Talking to a therapist

- Outsourcing tasks

Dr. Mike Dowling is a pediatric dentist from Maine. He joins us to talk about his experience as a practice owner serving the very underserved state of Maine. Mike talks about how hard it has been to provide care to such a high caries risk area, while battling a lack of operating room access and minimal time slots for mobile in-office anesthesia.

Mike decided to expand into his leased medical building to create a fully certified and compliant stand-alone surgery center. When the project is finished, it will be a fully-functional surgery center with the capacity to do twice as many dental anesthesia cases as any other facility in the state.

Mike shares his journey with this project, as well as gives advice to any other doctors struggling with access to anesthesia time in their community.

This episode is all about clinical techniques, restorative materials, and procedures that didn't live up to the hype. Part of being a good pediatric dentist is trying new things. And sometimes these things don't always hold up as well as we would hope.

I asked listeners to write or call in and share some of their failures. I compiled a list of the 12 best ones, shared anonymously by our pediatric dental colleagues. This is a fun solo episode over a crisp beer to remind us that we all have failures, and the best thing we can do is learn from mistakes and move on.

Dr. Eric Vieth a pediatric dentist and owner of Sleepy Owl Dentistry in South Carolina. After completing his training in New York, Eric moved to South Carolina. He worked for years as the pediatric dentist doing big sedation cases for a large corporate DSO.

In 2020, he began branching out on his own to open three locations that offer EXCLUSIVELY IV sedation dentistry. We talk about how he structures his practice, building referal sources, and how he is able to provide a high level of care with this model.

A unique component of his sedation practice is that Dr. Veith offers same day consults, treatment planning, and sedation for his patients. We talk about some of the potential billing and insurance challenges associated with a sedation-only practice.

Dr. Katie Foster recently opened her new pediatric office in Colorado. She has experienced a ton of growth and success by using Instagram to develop a brand and attract new patients.

Dr. Katie gives us a few tips about how to improve your social media presence, including how to easily create reels, how often to post, what kind of content does well, and how to target followers that will convert to new patients in your office. We discuss why social media is a powerful marketing tool that will continue to be an important part of running a practice in the future!

Dr. Matt Griffith is a pediatric dentist on the big island in Kona, Hawaii. Dr. Matt is the first and only pediatric dentist I have ever interviewed from Hawaii!

Dr. Matt talks about his crazy backstory of opening his own practice in Kona. His style is one of providing a high level of patient care, and not being forced to see more kids a day than he's comfortable with. We talk about what the culture is like with his patient population, and some of the challenges of being a pediatric dentist in a rural spot in the middle of the Pacific.