Howard Speaks By: Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD
Publisher, DentalTown Magazine

I have a lot of respect for the challenges dental manufacturers face today in discovering the ‘perfect’ restoration. The advances in dental ceramic restorations have been remarkable. As with any evolution though, the learning curve in keeping up with the flexural strength and properties of the latest ceramic, not to mention correct preparation and placement, have been extremely problematic for all dentists.

When I was in UMKC dental school 1983-1987, the nightmare of Cerestore (1978-1979) was being taught each and every day! Did I learn from my dental school instructors any lessons learned from Cerestore? NO! I graduated in 1987 and certain dental lecturers, without dental offices, were promoting Dicor (1984-1990) crowns cemented with Duralon. I was young, green, and naive! Guess how many I did? A lot!!! Guess how many failed? Tons!!! Then other companies came out with metal-free restorations and they found a couple of charlatans to say they had cemented 4000 units on posterior molars with zero sensitivity. Guess how many I did?? A lot!! Guess how many cracked, chipped, or needed endo the first 5 years?? Tons!!! I think the old-world leaders, companies, and labs have lost a lot of credibility!

Then, thanks to Al Gore, came the Internet. Judith and I instantly saw the vision of the power of connecting thousands and thousands of real-world, wet-gloved dentists. These are the people in the front line trenches fighting Streptococcus Mutans, P. Gingivalis, and mental problems to boot, talking about products and procedures. Not hawking dental products for money, but talking about real-life experiences with products these dentists bought with their own hard earned money. It is so easy to recommend 3-unit bridges made of solid glass if you don’t have a dental office. You see, in the real world, when you make a 3-unit glass bridge and it cracks, you have to replace it, for FREE!!

It is easy to promote a metal free practice when you don’t HAVE a practice! But in the USA, if you have a real dental office, complete with live patients, you would know that one third of all Americans lose ALL of their teeth by age 65, my own mother included. You would also know that when you tell someone they need a crown, a root canal, or a filling, less than one tenth of one percent asks if they can have it metal free, while 99.99% asks how much does it cost and how much will the insurance pay. A true, American patriot dentist should work hard each day making dentistry faster, easier, and more affordable, not more expensive, less durable and for fewer people.

My dad told me God gave you two eyes, one to keep on the customer, the other to keep on cost. A true American patriot dentist wakes up everyday to hear what the customer wants, what’s wrong with their teeth, how much will it cost them, will their insurance help pay for it, all the while using the other eye to stare down cost.

When a dentist drives down cost, more Americans have the freedom to save their teeth. When a dentist, lab, or manufacturing company only provides more expensive, less durable treatment alternatives, then fewer Americans have the freedom to save their teeth. In a word, they are Aristocrats! America wasn’t built on a lot of people making a few things only for the kings, queens, and noble landlords! America was built on getting the most stuff to the masses.

If I owned a lab today and I wanted to double my business, I would try to double the business of my referring dentists. I would look at success stories like Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot. I would try to build confidence in understanding the esthetic health compromise on when an all porcelain restoration is a good idea, and when it is a very risky idea. I would show dentists the beauty of porcelain, Captek or a d.FM restoration as opposed to an all-glass restoration. I would show them the advantages of Cercon which can be cemented like a full metal crown as opposed to something that had to be bonded on, thus risking sensitivity, and/or endo.

The new world order vision of dentists communicating with each other has been an overwhelming success. The DentalTown online community now has over 19,000 registered users (Townies). Between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., any day of the week, DentalTown.com has between 4000 and 5000 Townies logged on at any given moment! DentalTown is still growing 40 to 50 dentists per day!

While dental manufacturers continue their research and development and bring us closer to the ‘perfect’ restoration for all situations, it’s comforting to know that the old world order of product evaluator/charlatans will get smaller everyday! The new world order of the Internet and its amazing capacity to connect wet-gloved real-world dentists throughout the world will get larger and more influential everyday!