Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

Dr. Robert James Bray attended the University of Maryland School of Dentistry where he earned his Doctorate in Dental Surgery. Dr. Bray went on to obtain his Certificate of Orthodontics at the Eastman Dental Center in Rochester, New York, completing his M.S at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry with a major course in genetics. An active member of the community, Dr. Bray has served on Shore Medical Center’s, Howard S. Stainton Society and Shore Tomorrow fundraising campaigns for over 16 years. Dr. Bray is the current C.E.O of the Schulman Study Group and AAO Foundation National Planned Giving Chair. He has served on the Brigantine Board of Education, including working as the president of the Board for eleven years. Dr. Bray continues to serve as an Associate Clinical Professor at the Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry in the Orthodontic Department and a visiting professor at the Eastman Institute of Oral Health, Rochester, New York. Chris Vranas, CAE, is the Executive Director of the SG Management LLC formulary known as the Schulman Group. Chris is well known in the orthodontic/dental space having served as the Executive Director for the American Association of Orthodontists for 17 years. Under Chris’s management, the AAO grew from 9000 to 18,500 members with 90% market share and retention. Chris oversaw the fundamental changes impacting orthodontics during the early 2000’s and prepared the members for a profitable future. Chris also worked within the Dental Specialty Group to bring the profession together toward a strong lobbying and working relationship with the ADA, ADEA and others within the dental and healthcare space. During Chris’s time at the Association of Dental Support Organizations, membership increased by 15% and developed their strategic plan designed to be all inclusive of DSO’s and small group practices and work in collaboration with traditional dental organizations.

Dr. Howard Farran stopped by the studio to visit Drs. Phil Gordon and Justin Moody, and it turned into a room full of doctors joining in - Drs. Chris Barrett, Wade Pilling, Steven Vorholt, James Sanderson, Raj Sheth, and Chris Epperson. Just a great group of docs talking dentistry.

Dr. Kwang-Bum Park graduated from dental college of Kyungpook National University in 1985 and received his PhD degree in 1995 with the thesis about ‘the periodontal regeneration’. In 1993, he started seminars for private dentists to teach clinical periodontics and implant dentistry. Until now, more than 1,500 dentists completed this course in Korea. From 2000 to 2001, he went to the department of periodontics, school of dentistry, UCLA as a visiting scholar. After he came back from UCLA, he opened the biggest dental hospital called “MIR dental hospital” in Korea with 70 operatories and more than 20 dentists and 120 employees at Daegu, Korea in 2002. With great success of the first “MIR dental hospital”, many dentists wanted to join and share the know-how and brand name. So he made a dental hospital network named “MIR Network”. Now it has 22 branches and more than 1000 employees and doctors in South Korea in 2009. Almost at the same time with the opening of MIR dental hospital, he began a company called “MegaGen” to produce dental implants. In a short period of development, MegaGen took the leading position in the field of dental implant in Korea. He is an active member of Academy of Osseointegration (AO) and also an international member of American Academy of Periodontology (AAP).

Hillary's first job was in a dental office. Both of her parents were dentists and she grew up filing, sterilizing, mowing the lawn and answering phones at her parents' practice in the Twin Cities metro area. Almost every family vacation was wherever the ADA conference happened to be that year and has spent her entire life surrounded by dentists. After helping her parents with their transition, Hillary founded Pine Lake Dental Law & Transitions in order to help other dentists through the transition process among other legal struggles they may face including employment and business law issues and reviewing & drafting associate contracts. Pine Lake is now one of the fastest growing dental specific law and transition firms in the Midwest, participating in around 20-25 transitions per year in Minnesota alone. Hillary has spoken at dental conferences across the country, presented for podcasts and webinars and has written and contributed to several articles in dental magazines across the country including Northwest Dentistry and Dental Entrepreneur Woman. Hillary is a licensed attorney serving the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota.

In the early ’90s, Frank Hammes joined the family business. After promoting an after-market cabin air filter the company had developed for Mercedes-Benz automobiles, Frank Hammes turned his attention to portable room air cleaners. Dissatisfied with existing products, he set out to build a line of portable air purifiers with medical grade air cleaning performance. Frank Hammes and a small team of Swiss and German engineers worked for four years on the project. In the spring of 1998, IQAir shipped its first HealthPro air purifier from its Swiss factory. IQAir air purifiers were initially available only in Europe and Asia, but became available in the United States in 2000. 

After three years as an IT consultant at Accenture, Rick Cohen joined Benco in 1994 to create Painless, the industry’s first windows-based e-commerce software. Since then, he’s taken on increasing responsibilities within Benco, focusing on Information Technology, Logistics, Clarion Financial, and our private brand. He is Co-Chair of the Benco Family Foundation, a trustee of WVIA public television and public radio, and a Director of the Dental Trade Alliance Foundation.

Dr Kim Harms personal mission is to help dentists navigate the emotional issues they will face in life (and in the next year or so specifically).  If she can help dentists understand that they can’t control what calamities or catastrophes they will encounter in life, but they can control how they prepare, manage and cope with them. She spent 12 days in three hospitals with COVID symptoms and shares some funny stories about PPE use in different hospitals, life in the COVID ward and the different responses doctors had when the tests say one thing and the symptoms say another.  She was a National Spokesperson for the ADA during the AIDS crisis and can relate lessons learned at that time about universal precautions developed for bloodborne pathogens to the future we face managing deadly respiratory pathogens.  

It's a great honour to have Dr Howard Farran from USA along with Dr Agim Hymer from Australia, Dr Anil Shrestha from UK, Dr Abhay Lamba from India and Dr Neil Pande from Nepal to discuss various issues and the solutions to restart dentistry once again after lockdown. As private practitioners from varied environment, they will share their challenges and possible remedies to help dentists all over the world to practice safer and effective care towards their patients, staff, themselves and the environment.@Howard Farran @ednapkath The opinions discussed here today are the personal reflections of the speakers only and do not necessarily represent the statements of the various government, professional and regulatory bodies of the various nations from which the speakers are presenting. The invited speakers have no personal or financial interests in the matters discussed unless otherwise explicitly disclosed.

Dr. Howard Farran joins Ken Serota DDS, MMSc Endodontist to discuss post-COVID-19 and how it impacts our future and the future of the industry.