This week's episode is a special feature that should appeal to many of our dental listeners. We are talking about soul-crushing student loans and how to deal with them! Most of us leveraged some degree of student loans throughout our extensive education process, and these loans influence the financial decisions we make every day. This two-part episode series features multiple short interviews with pediatric dentists who have opened up about their career paths, and how they tackled large amounts of student loans. The three guests in this episode are: Dr. Megan Charowski is a pediatric dentist who works as an associate at Holly Tree Pediatric Dentistry in South Carolina. She used a simple strategy of keeping personal expenses low and living off spousal income to pay off 380K in student loans in 3.5 years.  Dr. Phil Chung is a pediatric dentist practicing out of New Jersey. He has paid off around 400K of his 550K total in student loans, while also simultaneously investing for retirement.  Dr. Beth Winans is a pediatric dentist in Reading, Pennsylvania. She started a practice from scratch 5 years ago, while her OMS husband bought into an existing practice. Together they have paid off 530K in student loans, paid off her husband's million dollar buy-in, paid off her 500K practice loan, and invested 270K in equity into a surgery center, all using a debt-snowball technique as they became successful practice owners. 

Steve Anderson is the owner and founder of Denco Dental Construction. He has helped design and build over 1000 dental offices throughout his 30 year career. He is also the author of the book DentalEase, The Essential Guide to Building the Stress Free and Profitable Dental Practice of Your Dreams.  Steve discusses his career in the dental construction industry, changes and trends he has seen in the marketplace, and common problems pediatric dentists make when building out their office. We talk about office size, controlling sound, having room for expansion to increase capacity, and designing your office to allow your staff to help operate the practice as efficiently as possible.  More information about Steve, his company, and his book can be found at https://dencodental.com/

Dr. Shane Harpham is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Sea Smiles Pediatric Dentistry in Bluffton, South Carolina. Dr. Shane and I open a couple craft beers and talk about how to do the perfect class II composite restoration on a primary tooth. Some of the topics we discuss are: - Creating a team and environment to set you up for success - Treatment planning and case selection (composites vs SSCs) - Isolation techniques - Prep design, bonds, and finishing - Glass ionomers and Equia Forte - Areas that Class II restorations frequently fail - The importance of learning from your failures and always trying to improve

It's been 12 full months since we opened the doors of my startup practice here in Missouri, and we had a fantastic (but challenging) first year. I wanted to take the opportunity to do a bonus podcast and review some of the things I've learned after one full year of starting and running a busy pediatric dental practice. Cuivre Creek Pediatric Dentistry opened last October during the COVID-19 era, and in that time our team has a built a practice that has rapidly expanded to averaging 160+ new patients per month. We've had a lot of growing pains with such a high demand for our services, and I'd like to share some of the mistakes and lessons learned that might be able to help out young practice owners. On this episode, I review 5 key lessons that I've learned as my first year as a private practice owner. These topics include: 1. Managing the work stressors that keep a dentist up at night 2. Pushing yourself to set goals and tracking your KPI's 3. Hiring and managing staff, treating them well while balancing a healthy overhead 4. Understanding your patient population 5. Why branding and social media is so important Lots of exciting things to come on future episodes of the Brews and Tiny Teeth Podcast. Feel free to reach me with any questions at cgoetz@troypediatricdentist.com, or hit me up on Facebook messenger at Casey Goetz.

Our final episode from Bourbon and Baby Teeth 2021! Our last guest from BABT 2021 is Scott Childress of Magnify Dental Marketing. Magnify is a full-service digital marketing agency for dentists. Their services include startup branding and logo design, website re-builds, SEO, social media content development, and reputation management. Scott and I discuss how young, tech-savvy pediatric dentists can harness the power of the digital age to increase brand awareness and new patient flow. We talk about targeting the correct demographics, the power and affordability of Facebook marketing, creating organic content, how Google reviews (and Google business account) influence SEO, and hacks that dentists can use to easily improve SEO and ranking without breaking the bank. Link to learn more about Magnify Digital Marketing: https://askmagnify.com/

Recorded live from Bourbon and Baby Teeth 2021 in Louisville, Kentucky! Diane Krueger is the founder and CEO of NuSmile. She founded the company in 1991 after noticing a demand from pediatric dentists for more esthetic options for restoring primary teeth. We discuss how the company has exploded since that time, expanding their product lines to include zirconia crowns, SSCs, and MTA-based products. Diane talks about how NuSmile has evolved as a company, different types of techniques involved in the fabrication of crowns, and how the industry has changed over time. We do a cost-analysis of how using a more affordable SSC can translate into substantial material savings over the course of a pediatric dentist's typical year. We also talk about how NeoPutty is changing the way MTA is used, and its clinical applications.  Diane was a great guest and I enjoyed learning more about what goes into creating their products. Check them out at https://www.nusmile.com/

Recorded live from Bourbon and Baby Teeth in Louisville, Kentucky! Dr. Richard Baxter is a prominent figure leading the pediatric dentistry community in the field of tongue and lip ties (or as he likes to refer to them "oral restrictions"). We sit down for an early morning chat over coffee after the previous long night of partaking in the black tie and bourbon formal evening event. Needless to say, some bourbon was drank and we were still shaking it off the next morning.  We discuss how Dr. Baxter became so passionate about TOTs, different modalities to perform releases, performing releases on wiggly toddlers or during nitrous oxide sedation, and what current updates are in the literature for supporting these procedures. Dr. Baxter truly is a wealth of information on the topic, and you can tell how passionate he is about it when we speak. Dr. Baxter's Tongue-Tied Academy Course: https://www.tonguetiedacademy.com/courses/TTA Link to Dr. Baxter's Tongue-Tied Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tongue-Tied-String-Impacts-Nursing-Feeding/dp/1732508208

We spend a lot of time talking on the podcast about rural pediatric dentistry, start-ups, and high caries risk populations. Let's shake it up and learn more about what practice is like out on the west coast of California. Dr. Evan Chang joins us to tell us more about what practice is like in San Fransisco. Dr. Change splits his time between practicing in a high-end FFS practice and a community health Medicaid clinic. Some of the topics we discuss: Challenges of the unique affluent community of San Fransisco Utilizing a therapy dog in the office Spending time developing relationships with patients early, and how sometimes watching decay lets you do better dentistry in the long-run  Working closely with referral sources and how they can help you think outside the box Keeping your treatment planning skills sharp while working in a FFS practice Did Covid kill the future of study-clubs? Are we forever doomed to zoom calls and virtual dental meetings? Stay tuned for future episodes from the Bourbon and Baby Teeth Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. We have a lineup of exciting guests to bring on, you wont wan to miss it!

Dr. Kevin Kennedy is a pediatric dentist and the owner of Spring Creek Pediatric Dentistry in Clarksville, Tennessee. Dr. Kennedy's scratch-start practice is only 2 years old, but it has grown to a point where he is averaging 50 patient visits per day and a new patient flow of 200-250 per month.  We have a great discussion on a variety of topics, including challenges of practicing in a military town, aggressive marketing budgets, knowing your numbers, and what Kevin's game plan is for when he hits his office capacity. Dr. Kennedy also operates a separate tongue-tie clinic as a component of his practice, so we discuss that as well. Dr. Kennedy really impressed me with his story and how he has grown his practice. You can tell how organized and driven he is just by listening to him speak about pediatric dentistry. He's a great guy and a wealth of knowledge, so please enjoy the podcast!

Dr. Corey Hastings joins us on the podcast for this week's episode. Corey is a pediatric dentist in Missouri and recently opened his third pediatric office. He has an MBA and a passion for developing systems to optimize the delivery of quality pediatric dental care. This was a live episode we did in-person over a couple of craft beers. The initial conversation was supposed to focus on demographics to support a pediatric dental office, and we ended spending almost an a hour and a half going deep into conversations on pediatric dental hot-button topics. This podcast is raw, unfiltered, and unscripted. It's a good one, even though we don't stick to an agenda! Some of things we talk about: - Demographics for a pediatric dental office - Rural vs urban pediatric dentistry - Solo vs group practice, single-location vs multi-location - Prophy palace vs restorative heavy practices - How do you convince an associate to buy in? And are associates more likely to start their own practice? - How pediatric dentistry can be an isolating profession