exocad Smile Design: Creating Smiles with Digital Dentistry | Kristina Vaitelytė | EODP #33

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:03:02 Speaker 2 think digital technology also allows you to experiment. 00:00:03:03 - 00:00:05:03 Speaker 2 This is why it's so phenomenal. 00:00:05:03 - 00:00:07:25 Speaker 2 we can see the dentist just flying. 00:00:07:27 - 00:00:10:21 Speaker 2 Incidental technology world due to our gadgets, 00:00:10:23 - 00:00:16:16 Speaker 2 We're not sitting at the bench doing just C's. We involved in all treatment planning. 00:00:16:20 - 00:00:19:21 Speaker 2 in the Crown and Bridge, one millimeter is a lot 00:00:19:24 - 00:00:31:19 Speaker 1 We can be one millimeter away from a root canal. Treatment. 00:00:31:21 - 00:00:56:14 Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Evolution of Dental Podcast, brought to you by Evolution Dental Science, where we share the stories of the people and the technology shaping the world of ministry. I'm your host, Rob Norton. Now. My guest today picked up a camera before she ever picked up a scanner or a mouse. A fine artist who walked away from photography out, designed the family full of Dennis and became one of cads heroes of digital dentistry. 00:00:56:16 - 00:01:03:14 Speaker 1 The eye of an artist. The hands of a technician. Please welcome from Chester, England, Christina Delight. 00:01:03:16 - 00:01:06:12 Speaker 2 Wow! Yay! Hi, guys. 00:01:06:14 - 00:01:21:04 Speaker 1 Welcome. So you grew up in a family where your mom was a dentist and your dad was a technician. Your brother's a professor, right? And, like, you've got a ceramist somewhere in there. So you went photography. What pulled you back to dentistry? 00:01:21:07 - 00:01:43:20 Speaker 2 Oh, that's a long story. So starting from, you know, I always help mom because, like, you don't want a mom to come back at 10 p.m. because patients, you know, they used to queue. There was no, you know, digital and the management systems, they just queue outside. They have a pain. And, you know, we lived at that that time in Lithuanian small village and patients knew where we live. 00:01:43:20 - 00:02:05:00 Speaker 2 So they knocked the door if they had a pain you know. So that was kind of I think lots of people who have, you know, mums or dads, you know, as, as a medical professionals, they will kind of relate to that, that, you know, it's part of your life. You know, it's a lifestyle, not just a work, you know. 00:02:05:01 - 00:02:33:25 Speaker 2 So what what drive kind of dragged me back to the dental technology. It was the technology side, but not the manual, the digital. So I always been amazed by engineering side. I love, you know, photography because it went also from analog to digital when I was studying. So it was like, oh, will it definitely transition, you know. That was back in 2009 and it actually did. 00:02:33:26 - 00:02:40:26 Speaker 2 It replaced analog cameras completely in, you know, a very short amount of time similar to dental technology. 00:02:41:03 - 00:02:44:07 Speaker 1 Yeah. What a parallel. That's wild and never thought about that. Yeah. 00:02:44:07 - 00:03:08:12 Speaker 2 It is, but it is just convenient. And you can have endless opportunities to experiment instead of having one shot. Because to master, you know, to do one picture in one shot is absolutely impossible. You know, if you're just a beginner, it takes years and lots of failures to get to that position. I think digital technology also allows you to experiment. 00:03:08:13 - 00:03:32:06 Speaker 2 This is why it's so phenomenal. So for me, going from art, I always been surrounded by art. I wanted to be artist. I always scan the develop my lateral thinking because I enjoy, you know, thinking different than others. I found it fascinating and parallel my sister like we always went to the dental show. So ideas is the biggest dental show in the world is fantastic. 00:03:32:06 - 00:03:55:26 Speaker 2 I really enjoy it because lots of coffee going on the the event and venues. Incredible. Five days is not enough, you know, and we normally there from eight till 6 p.m. and you have the, you know, all the events after which is incredible. And I enjoy the people because dentists and dental technicians know how to party. 00:03:55:28 - 00:04:10:06 Speaker 1 I think that that's kind of the secret that maybe the doctors don't even know about. But dental, if we're going to come back to exact insights at some point in this conversation. But yeah, there's the dental the dental technician is not a party. 00:04:10:08 - 00:04:38:12 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And and 2009, we went there and it was like implant, you know, free handing, having some kind of, you know, guided surgery with, you know, analog technique. Two years later it was parallel and hand milling machines two years later, scrap all of that and get CAD. And that was 2013. And my sister was like, you can't do that. 00:04:38:13 - 00:04:59:18 Speaker 2 You know, it's fun to shop. And I was like, yeah, it is very similar. So you're taking your skills and adapting to kind of, you know, another program and this is how it's going to kind of evolved. And then I went to university to get my degree in biomedical science. So it kind of organically. 00:04:59:20 - 00:05:01:14 Speaker 1 The ceramist. Is that right? 00:05:01:15 - 00:05:03:24 Speaker 2 Yeah. She's a ceramist. 00:05:03:26 - 00:05:08:14 Speaker 1 That's a that's a powerful partner to have to to learn to learn design for sure. 00:05:08:16 - 00:05:25:09 Speaker 2 Yes. So I think she fulfilled me in the way because she knows how the shape needs to look like. I will grab, you know, right click margins. I can select the margin, but where they are. Okay. So she answered what? And I said, how? If that makes sense. 00:05:25:10 - 00:05:26:28 Speaker 1 Yeah, that makes perfect sense. 00:05:27:01 - 00:05:55:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. So we've been the perfect team. You know, at the same time milling machine. It was second sign. It was second. And executes collaboration back in the day. And it worked fantastic to be honest for me especially you know, getting hands on. And as it's been flying with the software within a month. Then we went to Bruno to the second training courses and was also everything about executed. 00:05:55:13 - 00:06:20:14 Speaker 2 And I find it fascinating, the people I just come here, I will show you everything. They're not hiding their sharing. They're trying to get you captivated because this profession is fascinating and it has such a, you know, deep roots, especially in the German, you know, side. Because when you look at the Europe, it's very, very, very respected profession. 00:06:20:21 - 00:06:45:02 Speaker 2 You know, it's like 50, 50 dentists carry 50% of the success and recognition. And it was always something that most of the time mailed it. Not sure why, but like when my dad went to university, it was only 15 places and they'd been accepting people every second year. 00:06:45:04 - 00:06:48:22 Speaker 1 Wow, that's a narrow window. 00:06:48:25 - 00:07:15:10 Speaker 2 It was narrow window. And you need to carve from a block of plaster, a tooth, and later bend the wire to that shape that the desire. Plus, you know, your your old degrees from your from the school should also qualify. And it was a massive competition there always a massive competition. So we need to be crafty. You need to understand the shapes very well. 00:07:15:13 - 00:07:42:00 Speaker 2 You have. If you have sculpture background or art background, you have already advantage. But also you need to be analytical because if you're doing crumbs, it's very based on not only the feeling of beauty, but also the mathematical, you know, how the patient will feel. We need to understand the occlusion and also how to make them comfortable not gagging, you know, from, you know, extending the palate. 00:07:42:00 - 00:07:52:13 Speaker 2 And it is really, really strong and long lasting structures with speaking about telescoping and crowns. But you need to master it. This is quite difficult art. 00:07:52:16 - 00:08:15:13 Speaker 1 So yeah, it's interesting. You said you got your you got your start with zircons on my parents who had the dental supply business, which is how I as we talked before we started recording, how I got my in into this industry. Well, roundabout, so to speak, when zircons on first came to the US of all places in the world, they moved into an office space that was five miles down the street. 00:08:15:15 - 00:08:41:12 Speaker 1 And then they needed a place to buy plaster and Gibsons and Burrs and anything else that they didn't have from Germany. So where did they go? Norton Dental? They just came down the street to us. And so I got to meet Sandy. And so one of the things that was really fascinating to me about them is not only were they very early into this, and obviously they were partnered with CAD and rebranding, which at that time had insisted on all the distributors rebranding the product anyway. 00:08:41:13 - 00:08:58:01 Speaker 1 So but what concentration of artistry and the level of photography that they used, which was just kind of unheard of everywhere else in the industry. So that seems like an interesting parallel with your own background. 00:08:58:03 - 00:09:15:24 Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't see you there. Hey, y'all, it's Robert with the Evolution of Dental podcast. If you love these stories and you want to see more guests, more content and help the show, please remember to share it. Like it? Subscribe to our channel and hit that little notification bell if you're watching on YouTube so you can get notified of our new episodes. 00:09:15:25 - 00:09:24:10 Speaker 1 New episodes drop every Friday. Follow us on all the socials. You'll see all the latest content. Looking forward to seeing you there. 00:09:24:13 - 00:09:30:24 Speaker 1 Does the photography background show up in your design work? Like where does that, where does that influence if it does? 00:09:30:26 - 00:09:52:24 Speaker 2 I think it's always on the final work because I can take, you know, what we created together is not, you know, one person's success is a joint decisions, you know, and said, I'm going to put the live in into my frame because I'm basically a framework designer. I make shapes, you know, and I make sure that it's occlusion sound. 00:09:52:26 - 00:10:19:13 Speaker 2 So and if it's the, you know, the lab description, but who gives the life and the beauty is the ceramist and I can capture, you know, our joint work together, you know, in the kind of mini studio which is like half of the table. So, so this is where the fun starts. And then, you know, I started questioning, like, I try, okay, I try to fit the bracket because everybody was taking those nice pictures in the black background. 00:10:19:14 - 00:10:55:01 Speaker 2 And I decided like, that's a bit boring. It's not me, it's already done. So I started experimenting and doing clinical ashes, and I found dentistry like my universe. So I started doing experiments. If I'm I would be, you know, surrounded by teeth. I started, like, questioning, you know, what is dentistry for me? And this is where the series of, you know, the teeth surrounded with, with airspace or like, with stars, like with the moon, because I found that it's very addicted. 00:10:55:03 - 00:11:06:28 Speaker 2 So it was one of the expression ways, you know, to channel, you know, why is so important to me and visualize it. And you can see that, you know, immediately. 00:11:07:01 - 00:11:11:13 Speaker 1 How did the how did that lead to you becoming a hero of Digital Dynasty? 00:11:11:15 - 00:11:30:22 Speaker 2 Oh, I think I think when I started questioning, like, my own identity, like as a technician, like I started, you know, not just being, you know, I call it lab rat because I spend endless hours in the lab, and I couldn't stop. And like, if I had, you know, cases on the bench, it means I can't go home. 00:11:30:22 - 00:12:04:03 Speaker 2 And I was just like an athlete, like, it's for me. It's like elite sport. It's Olympic Games, the dentistry is Olympic Games for me. And I want to achieve, you know, kind of the, the day. So when, when I did enough of cases, I think I can go home. And I think this is where the endless and stubborn, you know, kind of attitude led me to experimenting and later questioning from the skills that I gained to why it's so important for me. 00:12:04:06 - 00:12:30:03 Speaker 2 And then, of course, I attracted attention because I became different than everybody else. And I was just invited. Naturally. No. By Exarchate. Would you like to be one of the heroes? I think you're the right person. You inspire people and it is amazing to inspire people, especially the younger generation and the older generation, to experiment. Because what you know now is not is not the end. 00:12:30:06 - 00:12:41:02 Speaker 1 That's true. That's that's a powerful insight. What do you think some of the biggest changes were in the digital design process since you got since you first started with all this? 00:12:41:07 - 00:13:04:03 Speaker 2 I think when they started integrating pictures. This is where it kind of changed the ball game, because we've been kind of similar to whatever you design or user works, you know, to achieve the smile design. But as soon as you put the face on, you realize what you designing is not necessarily what fits the patient. So you great it. 00:13:04:06 - 00:13:30:08 Speaker 2 So I think this was the power of digital when we started like looking at the patient as whole. You know the eyes I like asymmetrical eyes, the symmetrical lips, what they are looking for as well because I worked also with extreme smile makeovers. And this is really empowering for them. So I was really, really glad to be the person to give the dream smile. 00:13:30:10 - 00:13:58:28 Speaker 2 Because maybe for me it's not beautiful. Maybe it's for somebody else, not beautiful, but it made them to smile wider and smile, you know, go out, have a new date, you know, then they, they, they got encouragement, you know, to start a new life as well. So, you know, and I'm speaking about the bleach ones, we're speaking ble ones, which, you know, when you when you would speak with my dad, he would say like, no chats A3 is the color. 00:13:59:01 - 00:14:28:00 Speaker 2 You know, but when I met these people, you know, and like, I got, you know, my teeth, then I have, you know, my lips then and I want to have, you know, a new car, a new boyfriend. And he did it. And they said, I'm 50 and starting my life now. And I was so empowered because if I would be solely at the bench, I wouldn't feel that power and y like my purpose, you know, to change some of these life. 00:14:28:00 - 00:14:32:21 Speaker 2 It's not just a smile. Yeah. His entire life. 00:14:32:24 - 00:14:39:01 Speaker 1 What did that feel the first time you. The first time you got to connect with a patient like that? What? What what did that feel like? 00:14:39:03 - 00:15:01:19 Speaker 2 I was shocked how how like narrow minded I was at the beginning because previously I think, like when, when I was solely in the lab, I was like, no, no, no, I know better. I was educated, I wrote the books. You know, Shigeo Kotoka, you know, told us what what is the real anatomy and why it is important. 00:15:01:21 - 00:15:34:01 Speaker 2 So I was very stubborn. What I will give you what I think is beautiful instead of. I'm listening to you. When I met the patients, my hope is of open and the disbanding also to the dentist side. Also they I in the stand them even better because to be far away from the patients I think is not the ideal, if that makes sense, to be in the same cycle and deliver, you know, for the patient ultimately, you know, the final. 00:15:34:08 - 00:16:08:18 Speaker 2 Final stop. This is what we are working towards together, not just, you know, I'm doing my best. You're doing your best. When two separate buildings, maybe different, you know, towns. No, no, no, we are working together. And I think digital helped also to connect this because we can do Google Meet, we can review visuals. We can have, you know, like an explanation and send a video like look this I think you wrote because remember we're working from basically words to, to to 3D. 00:16:08:20 - 00:16:21:08 Speaker 2 And you know, I would say do something square with narrow embrasures, keep symmetrical line angles. You would do completely different design, I imagine. 00:16:21:10 - 00:16:51:28 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean it's the pictures worth a thousand words is, is is right on the money there. We did it with it did episode with Doctor Marvin Berlin who's the head of the esthetics for heartland. It's also an episode for anybody who hasn't seen that one yet or Doctor Elvis Domino. That was another awesome one. Talking about photography, the influence it has on this, I think a positive influence all just all throughout because, you know, as you're saying, like as a technician, you're in this vacuum, you don't really see what the patient looks like. 00:16:52:00 - 00:17:11:14 Speaker 1 You just see a model, right? You can I mean, any technician that's been doing this for a while can look at a model, go, oh, yeah, this is a young lady. This is an old man usually just looking at the teeth, which, you know, strange to say, you're weirdo, but that's okay, because that's our crap. You know, in the same way that in some mechanics in here in engine and go like, oh, that's a Ford or that's a BMW. 00:17:11:21 - 00:17:32:20 Speaker 1 Like one thing you touched on that I really like, is that what comes out of the popular culture, the Instagram culture, so to speak, the TikTok culture and the university is about like the consumerist, siloed. Like this is what's perfect. It's not always the mark. And when you have the photography to look at, then you can really compare and share notes. 00:17:32:21 - 00:18:00:25 Speaker 1 And again, the digital technology, you can take a screenshot of your work or send, in this case with XO, CAD, a 3D preview of the work to the doctor to the patient. Let them really get in depth and look at it and see like, is that truly what they want? One one case that comes to mind for me anyway is we were we did an all on X case, full upper and lower full mouth reconstruction probably a month or two ago. 00:18:00:25 - 00:18:21:19 Speaker 1 And this lady was, I don't know, in her late 50s, early 60s. And she we the initial proposition was, you know, we gave her perfect teeth, right. It fit her face. The truth shape was right. It looked nice on the pictures. And she looked at it and she just she rejected it and it's like, well, what's wrong? And she goes, it's pretty, but it's not me. 00:18:21:21 - 00:18:45:22 Speaker 1 She wanted her. She wanted her smile to look like her smile. And she had a very fuzzy picture of her at like 25 that was, you know, taken with a potato, I guess, I don't know, hard to tell what it was, but bottom line, her her number ten was canted at like a it was canted one way at like five degrees and then inward at like another 5 or 10 degrees. 00:18:45:23 - 00:19:07:09 Speaker 1 Right. So it was not straight and but that was, that was her as far as she was concerned. And so we went back and kind of redid the case and came back with this like crooked lateral. And she was just, this is it. And she was just happy as she could be because that was her. And now her face, her new smile, her reconstructed smile would match all the pictures that were her from all the years past. 00:19:07:09 - 00:19:33:14 Speaker 1 And that that resonated with me on a whole other level that, you know, I've been working with this photography stuff and I you're obviously an advocate for it. I'm a huge advocate for photography and dentistry. Everyone has an iPhone now. Take pictures. Come on, how hard is it? Obviously you'd rather have a DSLR, but I digress. It's not only a powerful communication tool, it really gets you on the same level and it allows you to connect with the patients. 00:19:33:14 - 00:19:55:10 Speaker 1 Because as you said, we're not really chair side like the doctors are, and the doctor is just trying to trying to translate words into a 3D shape. You know, often, like you said, down the street or over the world, a lot of technicians are completely remote now. One another hero of dentistry that we that we talked to, Seth Potter, who I love, he's all remote. 00:19:55:12 - 00:20:19:03 Speaker 1 Everything he does, he's got clients all over the world. He's great. I think that's super powerful. You're absolutely right on there. What? So what would you say to somebody who's just thinking about dabbling in exochus or opening it up for the first time? Like, where would you. Where would you, like, lean toward telling him to start? 00:20:19:03 - 00:20:24:26 Speaker 1 And what's what do you think is the most important fundamentals there? 00:20:24:28 - 00:21:06:22 Speaker 2 So I think it's 10,000 hours, gets a high end production lab and then just grind it from there, you know, from failures go into books because you need to expand the knowledge. It's not. The quantity is also the quality. If you raise the right questions, why does it happen? And just push that imposter and crack on through hard work, you know, and also working with all the texts because they have that six cent, I call it sixth developed through the years where they can kind of sense that the impression is wrong, something isn't right. 00:21:06:24 - 00:21:10:25 Speaker 2 I think the dentist meant something they can read, mind. 00:21:10:27 - 00:21:15:07 Speaker 1 You see the scan and you're like, that's not the bite. Yeah. 00:21:15:09 - 00:21:37:09 Speaker 2 And if you just thought that, you probably yeah, I'm going to crack on with that. If you can collaborate with more experienced technicians and you can be the youngest in the lab, that can be the best experience ever. That is how I learned. And I was the youngest in the lab, and everybody was telling me why my decisions are wrong. 00:21:37:10 - 00:21:59:06 Speaker 2 Of course, like I needed to swallow my pride and it took me a while to get there. But absolutely, they been right at every step. And sometimes, you know, I had incredible ceramist, you know, the first guy who owned the second son that I worked with. So his name is blood. And he said, like, come in, like, I will show you, though. 00:21:59:07 - 00:22:20:28 Speaker 2 He's a ceramist, incredible ceramist. He said, like, come on, I will show you. I'll show you how to make a narrow tooth in the white space. So you just take these line angles and dry, you know, like make a shadow in transition and you make a narrow tooth. It's optically sound because we need to work with optics. It's not just, you know, I'm making a tooth. 00:22:21:06 - 00:22:46:24 Speaker 2 You need to understand how to manipulate with the with the patient's anatomy. If because the spaces can vary. And I think when somebody else is investing time in you, that's incredible. That's everything what you need. And just some brace. Just dive in. Have fun. Don't be afraid of failures and work as much as we can. Go to the events. 00:22:46:26 - 00:23:08:25 Speaker 2 Execute insights if you can. If you can't, go to the all dental shows possible and experience and meet people. Because unfortunately now we can learn only from each other. Just because how new this profession is, you can't just, you know, learn from the books. Somebody needs to show you. And that is the power. 00:23:08:27 - 00:23:27:13 Speaker 1 It's a hands on. And that's one of the things I've really loved about. I can't speak obviously, for how that's changed in Europe, but what I can say for how it's changed in the United States. I grew up adjacent to watching all these. Again, I wasn't in dentistry as a technician, and my parents weren't technicians or doctors. 00:23:27:13 - 00:23:49:02 Speaker 1 They were selling to both of them, though, you know, gloves, birds, gypsies, you name it. And that was always one of the weird things. It was kind of like doctors versus technicians. And that was that was such a strange dichotomy versus what we have now. And all the, all the, all the labs would hold their trade secrets, you know, it's like, no, I can't share this with anybody. 00:23:49:09 - 00:24:17:22 Speaker 1 But now everything online, everything so democratized with the digital technology is so much more open to. And it's a beautiful thing to see. And especially the conferences, it's good to to meet other people, compare notes, see things. One of my favorite sayings is if you're the most interesting person left at the party, it's time to go home. And if you go to these different conventions and you go to see all these people who are doing incredible work, you're not going to be the most interesting person there. 00:24:17:22 - 00:24:32:22 Speaker 1 And that's a good thing. It's humbling. It's beautiful. You get to collaborate. And so insights this year which is Myakka right. Beautiful place. What were some of your favorite takeaways from insights. What surprised you was this your first insights? 00:24:32:25 - 00:24:52:28 Speaker 2 No, I my first insights was 2021 and I never stopped since. It is addictive. It's amazing because it brings all the dental field together in one place. And also you can meet incredible people that answer any difficult question and have a party. What you want is. 00:24:53:01 - 00:25:02:24 Speaker 1 Yeah, we kind of tip over that. Like man the the, the after party was pretty unbelievable. Like they, they, they went all out. 00:25:02:26 - 00:25:07:12 Speaker 2 They, they definitely put the soul into you know what. What is fun. 00:25:07:19 - 00:25:15:15 Speaker 1 When I say it was fun, they gave out XO swag for us to all wear at the party. 00:25:15:18 - 00:25:21:00 Speaker 1 Other things like they just they went all out. It was great DJ the whole nine yards. 00:25:21:02 - 00:25:42:09 Speaker 2 Oh yeah. And also the theme I love. They always come up with the theme because I'm into hats, you know, fascinating or something. I always get bespoke. So this time I got, you know, the world around me. So I came, you know, on on air balloon to the show. It's just I like I like conceptual art, not just, you know, modern art. 00:25:42:10 - 00:26:05:20 Speaker 2 This is why, you know, I'm getting creative. And because it's my playground, when I go to events, I like to be prepared in one day. Another way, because I wear a hat with a teacup. They set and I went to the event and we spilled the tea about the industry. So this is why I found this so fascinating. 00:26:05:20 - 00:26:17:26 Speaker 2 And having fun, you know, just just like that. So for eggs I get insights. The incredible launching about the the exact hub isn't it. 00:26:17:28 - 00:26:20:18 Speaker 3 Yeah I can't wait. 00:26:20:20 - 00:26:43:24 Speaker 2 I'm so giddy I'm excited. You're going to solve so many problems that I have at the same time is going to solve the communication problem between us and dentists. It's not just randomly throwing, you know, the weblinks, but also they can do the adjustments themselves. It gives them opportunity to explore the technology because we can see the dentist just flying. 00:26:43:26 - 00:27:12:20 Speaker 2 Incidental technology world due to our gadgets, 3D printing, exact you name it, it's fun, is exciting and also you in charge of somebody else. Smile. I went through quite a lot of stages of exec at and for example. So I use, you know, the second version of X, which still has lots of basic, you know, same tools that we're using every day now. 00:27:12:20 - 00:27:30:00 Speaker 2 And they are crucial. They work, they simple is what you need. But then, you know, we had to if I'm correct in the timeline and then go away and go away was absolute smashing and I was I love that I because I wanted. 00:27:30:02 - 00:27:31:20 Speaker 1 Was a big leap forward. 00:27:31:21 - 00:27:53:16 Speaker 2 It was phenomenal. Absolutely being obsessed and I thought, you can't do anything better. And then, you know, everything else came. And now with 3.3 you can do even this, you know, and also art is coming out, which is still in the pilot, you know, testing. So it comes into all cycle of dental technology, how to create a good treatment plan. 00:27:53:16 - 00:28:15:16 Speaker 2 Because I think our profession as a technicians are shifting like that. You need to understand a little bit of everything. You know needs to be everybody and nobody at the same time. So you don't need to be dentist, but you need to understand dentistry. You need to understand the human biology as well as you understand how to make a good medical device. 00:28:15:16 - 00:28:42:26 Speaker 2 So we're making prosthetics and also the beauty, the standards, the pop culture, the older culture, you know, different generations, different expectations, different dentists and be really good at listening or reading prescription. So from there, it helps you to create a good treatment plan. For example, if I see the case, I can tell immediately we need an alignment. So you can, you know, use any orthodontics. 00:28:42:26 - 00:29:11:00 Speaker 2 You can do clear line treatment. And if executed art will start, you know, rolling. And that will bring us back, you know, to the, you know, end in mind because we can design the teeth the way we want, then move them to that position if it's possible, and we can make sure that the patient get the best treatment with the minimal invasive instead of, you know, starting with someone in the middle. 00:29:11:00 - 00:29:13:12 Speaker 2 And then it's like when it's too late. 00:29:13:14 - 00:29:25:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. Or it's like the my favorite is the ones where it's like, man, if I could just move this tooth two degrees, we could avoid cutting away half this natural tooth. We can somewhere for beautiful and less invasive. 00:29:25:28 - 00:29:27:03 Speaker 3 Yeah, it. 00:29:27:04 - 00:29:54:15 Speaker 2 Is powerful because I can make something non prep, especially with the printing materials coming in. You have a bigger palette of treatments that you can provide for the patient. And that helps us to be involved into. Why you know, why patient or how we can treat the patient. And that is the power. And it's incredible because it changes all this, you know, all the it shifts everything around the dental technology. 00:29:54:16 - 00:30:00:15 Speaker 2 We're not sitting at the bench doing just C's. We involved in all treatment planning. 00:30:00:21 - 00:30:09:04 Speaker 1 It's an overall bigger collaborative experience. Are you. You mentioned 3D printing. Are you doing a lot of 3D printing with your with your daily lab work? 00:30:09:07 - 00:30:26:12 Speaker 2 Yes. Back in 2017 I had 50, 50, 20, 21. I was like having one model to cast a month, should I say. And now I'm purely digital because everybody has internal scan. 00:30:26:15 - 00:30:27:09 Speaker 1 Yep. 00:30:27:12 - 00:30:51:04 Speaker 2 And then, you know, you have a tree, you know, so so you have other ways approaching, you know, the dentistry instead of, you know, going the analog, which I can do. But also you have all the digital tools and and why not. It's much easier. You get the scan straight through instead of, you know, looking at the impression, thinking like it has drags. 00:30:51:07 - 00:31:08:03 Speaker 2 I wish that that the seen it before shipping it to us so you can review all sometimes they ring like do they prep enough and the scan comes in like in a few minutes so I can be involved in what I need to achieve the results. 00:31:08:06 - 00:31:29:15 Speaker 1 Yeah, there's almost no excuse for a bad impression these days. You know, especially with like the the newer the trios five, the aorta or leet stuff, the, you know, the allied stars, they are just the unbelievable high resolution color scans of like if something's not right, it's right there and it's you have to actively ignore it to mess it up. 00:31:29:18 - 00:31:37:26 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And it it just makes better dentists as well, you know, because they can review the impressions. 00:31:37:26 - 00:32:00:20 Speaker 1 It seems like the, the channel of communication between the technicians and the clinicians has opened up and become more relaxed in the way that the at least over here, there's been a culture of where the technicians are afraid to approach the doctor, they're afraid to push back at all because they're, by and large, afraid of losing that account. 00:32:00:21 - 00:32:28:28 Speaker 1 Whereas now it seems like there's a more fluid communication. We're all in this together. One of the better catch phrases I've heard over the years is it's not doctor versus technician anymore. It's doctor and technician versus the patients expectations, you know? And then again, the banner and these pictures and the ability to create these digital propositions like do you work with Smile Creator a lot? 00:32:29:01 - 00:32:31:22 Speaker 2 Yes. Every day. Yeah. Every day. 00:32:31:25 - 00:32:42:00 Speaker 1 Being able to show the the patient what your what you're proposing and what they could look like and again maybe push back and maybe I do want that crooked lateral you know. Yeah. 00:32:42:07 - 00:33:08:18 Speaker 2 Or sometimes you know that if you're aiming for symmetry and you have asymmetrical lip line and even though you made absolute symmetrical smile, the lips are throwing everything off. Then we go back, explain this to the patient, and then I'll maybe we're doing a gum contouring here or there, or are we doing most of it prepping. So the patient is, you know, on board with everything. 00:33:08:18 - 00:33:30:22 Speaker 2 And this is where, you know, it helps, you know, to communicate and deliver the right product instead of, you know, I expected this. Now you loaded the Venus. I'm not happy with implants that is popular missing or something. You know, we could address the problems early and help patients to collaborate or look into different treatments. 00:33:30:25 - 00:33:54:06 Speaker 1 Invite them into the process again, invite them to collaborate. And speaking of Smile Creator and the powerful AI tool that that brings me as the artist in the room, let me ask you the does the AI crown design you think threaten the artistry, or does it free you up to do greater work? How do you feel about that? 00:33:54:08 - 00:34:19:04 Speaker 2 I would say second option is definitely bakes me better. Technician. Normally we work. You know, let's say you expected to do 40 units per day. And if you're working on really difficult day, difficult, difficult case and you had maybe difficult day people are bringing you. It's really easy to get the with the AI. Sometimes they get proposition better than I would design myself. 00:34:19:10 - 00:34:44:12 Speaker 2 This is really interesting because I can do by say in an hour, I can do 5 to 5 minutes, you know, all walks up and I can make in one hour one crown because I change my mind because I didn't do a good job. So in that case, when I get the proposal, I prefer to review and tweak it rather than, you know, spend all that time. 00:34:44:14 - 00:35:12:10 Speaker 2 If I did the wrong decision, I still do them. I, you know, I worked since 2013 and I still do the wrong decisions every day with the aid helps me to rectify them. Alea at the same time, this is why implants will be the next big thing. I think AI will overtake, so I'm speculating now. I think AI will overtake the smile creator in one or the other way, because when I've been testing the new. 00:35:12:11 - 00:35:35:22 Speaker 2 So I got a crew of dentists doing smile design like like an agent, like design agency. And I was seeing them. So they design was worse and the dentist trained into the design been worse than AI design because I was feeding ChatGPT, you know, with my books. And at the same time I've been asking, you know, what smile design would you do? 00:35:35:24 - 00:35:43:25 Speaker 2 Which libraries of execute would you use? And AI did a better job in five minutes than them in 24 hours. 00:35:43:27 - 00:35:46:24 Speaker 1 Wow, they said you were using ChatGPT. 00:35:46:27 - 00:35:50:10 Speaker 2 I do. Oh, Claude. Yeah. 00:35:50:13 - 00:35:55:07 Speaker 1 I mean, I use them both a lot, but you said you were using them with, like, the design services. 00:35:55:09 - 00:35:58:11 Speaker 2 I mean, it's more like a second opinion for me. 00:35:58:13 - 00:35:59:24 Speaker 1 Making the opinion. Okay. 00:35:59:26 - 00:36:23:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I fed my BT. So I have a digital treatment coordinator I called it and I said, you know with the books I fed, you know, with anything I can find in quintessence pretty much. And so I fed that with information. I asked them to analyze and take the principles from there. I fed, you know, with dental libraries. 00:36:23:16 - 00:36:46:15 Speaker 2 I like from Exarchate. And this is why I started getting a second opinion. What, you know, to get up front that I wouldn't waste my time trialing. Is it the grim library? Is it? The tribe is really nice. The new libraries that came out, is it any of these years libraries? I get proposition if you would do like give me three proposition for this. 00:36:46:16 - 00:37:09:06 Speaker 2 You know smile design and I normally crop I don't show the faces I show only you know the crop image. And I ask judge to give me a like a vision just to look at my own time. Help me to visualize, help me to see the options. Otherwise I will need to go through all of them manually. 00:37:09:08 - 00:37:17:19 Speaker 1 That's a very clever way to. Yeah. So it's so it's generating you a is it just a critique or is it generating you like a visual like proposition. 00:37:17:22 - 00:37:22:09 Speaker 2 Visual, a proper visual proposition. That's just nice. 00:37:22:11 - 00:37:25:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. 00:37:25:22 - 00:37:39:08 Speaker 1 That's exactly the kind of like trade secret that used to be, you know. Oh, no, no, no, I can't share this with any other lab. This is my secret. What do you think makes the community so generous with knowledge? 00:37:39:10 - 00:38:03:25 Speaker 2 That's a good question, I think. I think everybody's tired. And I think this is what I mentioned earlier, that there is no books, that there is no educational model. You know, none of the universities prep you for this. You basically drop into the working place and learn from somebody else, or you just kind of dive down from the cliff and fly. 00:38:03:25 - 00:38:32:18 Speaker 2 If you if you successful, you know, if that's going to happen, this is a success story. So one or the other way. But this is where I think we are sharing online, because there is nobody to learn from. And if you can cherry pick, it's fantastic because I did a gun contouring guide another day and I forgot how to make it because it's not it's not often product that I do, you know I know it's triple design. 00:38:32:18 - 00:38:55:28 Speaker 2 So you design a smile design, then you create the splint. Then you do the telescopic. So it's easy to forget because it's quite complex. And I was looking at YouTube videos and if not them, I would need to keep a track of my own videos because I used to take screenshots and videos. Not to forget the exclusive workflows that you know, they appear once in a while, if that makes sense. 00:38:56:03 - 00:39:25:02 Speaker 2 So so with with everybody being, I think everybody just got annoyed that nobody's sharing. You can get the nod, but digital kind of help everybody to explore, you know, not you don't need to be in the lab setting to experience dental technology. And that is fascinating because I did the certified training with Joe from exegete, and I never got. 00:39:25:04 - 00:39:41:04 Speaker 2 I never got enough courage because I need to kind of, you know, I'm at the age now where I kind of try not to experiment. Like your brain just rejects the new stuff, if that makes sense. And I was kind of doing that with partial CAD, and I was like, oh, I should, but it's not the same as dental CAD. 00:39:41:06 - 00:40:03:18 Speaker 2 Some kind of like, should they try? It takes too much of my time, you know, you need to find time. And I think that's difficult when you work in a busy lab. But then I did a training with him, you know, private private training. The exit gap provides. And he showed me how simple it is. And next day I was doing the Chrome's on partial CAD and I was just flying. 00:40:03:20 - 00:40:20:10 Speaker 2 The simple one person showed me step by step procedure. This is what you do and then I do the job. But if not him, I wouldn't take that leap of faith. You know, just trialing and testing the partial CAD, which is crazy. 00:40:20:13 - 00:40:43:15 Speaker 1 That's crazy. But one of the one of the jokes about this these days is that unlike in the past with, you know, learning, learning to be the technician, right? If you if you tried and you messed up, you lose material like you. The porcelain is expensive, using up burrs and grinding wheels and time, but all you have to wait. 00:40:43:16 - 00:41:03:04 Speaker 1 And again, not that your time is not valuable, but all you have to waste is your time. If you're experimented with the software and you go in a direction that doesn't make any sense. But like you're saying, there's there's still not as much online to to learn from. There's no books, as you said. And also the software is constantly evolving. 00:41:03:07 - 00:41:39:24 Speaker 1 3.3 is a huge leap away from 3.0, which is a huge leap away from 2.7, you know, and depending on what version you're the lab that you work with happened to drop in with, which hopefully 3.3 because I mean, come on, guys, it's it's amazing. It's worth it. But one of the things that I really enjoy the most about, because I do online coaching every day, and one of the things I really love about that is just exactly that, like being able to hand that off one on one, walk somebody through it, and not just like a generic thing, like bring me a real case from your lab, from your practice that you actually have 00:41:39:24 - 00:41:59:00 Speaker 1 to work on that has real unusual, bizarre challenges. I did one yesterday. That was a, I was training guy on dangerous. He's funny because he was coming from an engineering background. He wanted to get into dental cad because he's like, I'm just bored with making, you know, machines. And, you know, my my dad's a dentist. Am might as well. 00:41:59:01 - 00:42:20:09 Speaker 1 Okay. And in the case we were working on was one of the more bizarre dentures I've ever designed because the patients upper that we were designing it to allude to was it was shaped almost like the like the Omega symbol. It's a very strange. Exactly right. But they had all healthy upper teeth. You can't just have them like, oh, time to get rid of all those. 00:42:20:09 - 00:42:47:18 Speaker 1 So that was what we were training on. But at the same time that's a real world scenario. This is a real danger that this guy had to design. And so we're walking through it. And Guy was young I don't know how old, but the sound of his voice, he's easily in his early 20s. Right. And this is his again like he figured a lot of this out on his own, but again, just spotty bits of YouTube because one version of the one video had this version, another version had that, and it's like bringing it all together. 00:42:47:20 - 00:43:14:22 Speaker 1 The one on one collaboration, finding somebody to learn from, whether you sign up with classes, with evolve or somebody else, or you go straight to exo CAD for their fancy courses up in Boston, those are really cool. I think you've got a really good point there about just like it's about that collaboration. It's about finding some people. So a person to directly learn with, to walk you through your situation and what you're seeing with what you have on your computer. 00:43:14:25 - 00:43:44:25 Speaker 2 I'm still excited for exact art it is. It brings the audio back into dental technology because we normally see, you know, it's 1 or 2, you know, texts out of university who likes ortho. Mainly they want to be grounded or now cat tax. That's it. Full stop. But exact art will help us to bring in like the planning of the orthodontic treatment, which is the fundamentals everybody needs. 00:43:44:26 - 00:43:53:00 Speaker 2 Author. Lots of us, you know, struggling not just of the crooked teeth, but also the breathing channels, which helps us to open the airways. 00:43:53:02 - 00:44:09:16 Speaker 1 Yeah we did. We didn't have said a little while back with Doctor Lynn and like that's her whole thing is she lectures about and then does a lot of work with opening up Airways specifically in almost exclusively with orthodontics, which is so powerful. So and. 00:44:09:24 - 00:44:29:28 Speaker 2 And you know, like we had the patient that he, he was he was in intense like let's say I think it was 12, he was 12 years old and he couldn't breathe through his those that was simple Arthur treatment that he could stop snoring at night breathing better and just having a better quality life if he addressed that. 00:44:29:28 - 00:44:58:13 Speaker 2 Aly. No, no brainer. Why not? And I think, for example, in UK you have lots of dental, dental team is more wide. I think in some U.S. states as well, you have wider, you know, opportunities to explore dental technology or dentistry. And we got ortho Pteropus. So it is, I think 10 or 12 month course that you become an assistant for the dentist. 00:44:58:14 - 00:45:25:16 Speaker 2 So I think for this opportunity when you can come, you know, not from Nurse World to do you know anything of clean check or, you know, removing appliances or adding appliances like, you know, the bracket retainers, anything like that, it helps you to bring the knowledge that the why? The knowledge of teeth. Why did you have moved to that direction? 00:45:25:16 - 00:45:48:20 Speaker 2 And if you're also a technician, you can also do the smile design I think is just no brainer to go to that direction. It helps you to open new opportunities for different people that they want to explore, author, or they want to go into, you know, the dentistry worldwide. You know, I think I found this really, really powerful. 00:45:48:22 - 00:46:16:20 Speaker 1 Yeah. One of the things I thought was particularly powerful with that, and we're beta testing art at evolve right now. I'm training more dentists now than ever before. I would say somewhere close to double the number of doctors that I was training, say, five years ago. And the the ability to have the side by side comparison, if this is what we could do, if we if we just did all restorative and no orthodontic versus right next to it. 00:46:16:20 - 00:46:34:03 Speaker 1 You have here it is with the ortho proposition. And here's how much tooth you're going to have to cut away versus not with just a small amount like 3 or 4 months of clear aligner therapy. Like it's it's going to unlock a lot of potential there. And that's very exciting. New new horizon. 00:46:34:06 - 00:46:44:18 Speaker 2 And for me it's the excitement is not only, you know, for us dental professionals, you know, dentist therapists and technicians, it's also for the patient. 00:46:44:19 - 00:46:45:25 Speaker 1 Oh, absolutely. 00:46:46:02 - 00:47:05:16 Speaker 2 Because when I say like, oh, we need to move this tooth by one millimeter for them, just prep it, just take it off, shave it, you know, because it's their language for us one millimeter. So when we work in the Crown and Bridge, one millimeter is a lot for patients. When you say to them, it's like, well, it's the size of my hair. 00:47:05:24 - 00:47:25:14 Speaker 2 You just just chop it off and just give me the knees. But when you show them and explain, you know, the long term effect, why we, you know, why we need to do minimally invasive or like, intruding the teeth. You know, if we're going to fix this intrusion of the teeth, we're going to avoid the gum contouring, you know, and that can be invasive procedure. 00:47:25:15 - 00:47:40:01 Speaker 2 You know, it can give you some side effects as well. It's not necessarily going to be successful in not every dental treatment is successful. And if we can go alternative path. This is the options we can go. And then we can have a think yes or no. 00:47:40:03 - 00:48:00:28 Speaker 1 They can. They can see their own 3D rendering, especially with the new True smile videos and stuff and able to see it in their face, you know, go home, show their boyfriend girlfriend style sister dog, whoever you know, what their what they could look like with this treatment. But also like like we were saying before, like, yeah, it's one millimeter, but you can see this color gradient of this is what that one millimeter really means. 00:48:00:28 - 00:48:13:13 Speaker 1 And again, you know, to, to the general public, one millimeter is like, that's nothing. But to us, one millimeter might as well be a mile. Like we fight for half a millimeter sometimes to get clearance on a molar. 00:48:13:15 - 00:48:36:08 Speaker 2 We can be one millimeter away from a root canal treatment. You know, this is how severe it is. And we can prevent I would rather prevent. I am on prevention side and more conservative rather than, you know, let's go full on and then in, you know, 15, 20 years, you can get your all next case with implants. 00:48:36:10 - 00:48:58:24 Speaker 1 As somebody who's talking to other young women out there who are on the fence or maybe just hearing this, or maybe this showed up in their Instagram feed, for whatever divine reason that we don't understand. What would you tell a young woman listening now about their place in the world of dental technology and how or if they should jump in. 00:48:58:26 - 00:49:03:03 Speaker 2 Everybody should jump in? My. 00:49:03:06 - 00:49:25:04 Speaker 2 So what we bring because I know it was pretty much male dominance market. I think the woman brings different perspective. It's not just, you know, it needs to be solely women. It needs to be. So it needs to be joined because different genders have different kind of values. So women is amazing with colors because, you know, our eyes can see much more color. 00:49:25:04 - 00:49:46:26 Speaker 2 So ceramist, you know, just why not explore yourself? Because you can be an artist and at the same time you can be an engineer for then we can juggle the task so we can be multitasking. And with digital, I found it is really, really important because formally you start the case and some of those you can't finish it, so you will not stop the job. 00:49:46:26 - 00:50:11:08 Speaker 2 You will probably carry on and fulfill that space. You know, that time that you have with everything else. So juggling female is good at juggling. So take your superpowers as an individual and explore with dental technology because it can take you to any direction. You can be a ceramist. You can work with plastic because I found it plastic, really therapeutic. 00:50:11:10 - 00:50:48:00 Speaker 2 Then you can work with CAD and CAD can give you everything. So you can do roams, you can do benches, you can do telescope X, you can do inputs, you can do smile design, you can advise on structures you know or even shape. Maybe the pop culture as well. In like infinite, you're definitely going to influence because when I started doing some types, you know, straight like when they move from nice and natural to straight, you know, kind of Instagram look or should I say cartoonish because it reminds me, you know, anything from, you know, Cartoon Network. 00:50:48:02 - 00:51:15:25 Speaker 2 The patient started coming, I want this. And they've been very specific and I know I can deliver to them because I make them three try smiles and they always fix that one. That's me. And you can explore yourself, you know, through all this, you know, angle of dentistry, which gives you all the superpowers like, like kind of encourage your superpowers to evolve to the biggest game, you know, which is making people smile. 00:51:15:27 - 00:51:19:13 Speaker 2 It's just I find it fascinating, truly. 00:51:19:18 - 00:51:25:20 Speaker 1 What what excites you about where where dentistry is headed, digital or otherwise? 00:51:25:22 - 00:51:28:13 Speaker 2 I mean, there is no digital without analog. 00:51:28:15 - 00:51:29:22 Speaker 1 Can you say that again? 00:51:29:24 - 00:51:52:20 Speaker 2 So there is no digital without analog. There is no digital without analog. And that's full stop. Why? So I know there's lots of digital nomads out there, and you lose the grip. As soon as you're away from the lab, you will kind of lose the sense of the sizes of the proportions of this style, because it did happen to me. 00:51:52:20 - 00:52:17:14 Speaker 2 So in 2023, I went on maternity leave for about ten months, and I came back and I was not the same, but I was working over ten years already and it was like ten months break. I was still working, not daily, not we're not speaking about 8 to 10 hours a day. I was working on some cases with my sister or like I was experimenting with something else, just test driving. 00:52:17:18 - 00:52:42:22 Speaker 2 But I wasn't working like regularly. As soon as I came back to work, I got complaints from the dead. This is not the same as you've been, and I definitely lost the grip, you know, of not being in the lab. It took me three months to go back, kind of to go back to myself and accept that, you know, I became worse because I'm not doing this every day because it's like it's like a living organism. 00:52:42:22 - 00:53:15:20 Speaker 2 If you if you don't use it, you lose it. And that is scary. This is why I think when you're somebody that's not on site, lab or working like I'm somewhere in Bali or somewhere doing these spiral designs. Be careful because you need to see your work. Still, if I print my small designs and I do the with the extent, you know, to transfer the smile design, sometimes I see that the laterals are not in the right position. 00:53:15:21 - 00:53:29:27 Speaker 2 Oh, this is what not I design because you can ground yourself by mailing and printing. Otherwise you are absolutely delusional. You can't be good technician without seeing your final work. 00:53:30:00 - 00:53:53:19 Speaker 1 I think that's powerful. I agree with that. There's a lot to begin to lost. It's easy to get lost in the separation when you see something. It's 3D on the screen, but it's actually a two dimensional screen. You know it is 3D object on the screen, but it's all virtual. It's a it's a flat screen and overcome the the power of the mind. 00:53:53:19 - 00:54:12:02 Speaker 1 When you're physically holding an object, you know what the other side of that object looks like without even turning it around. But in any kind of CAD design, you've always got to be rotating and looking at it from every possible angle, because again, you don't have that physical intuition there. I think that that's a powerful insight. Christina. This is this has been such a such a good conversation. 00:54:12:02 - 00:54:15:03 Speaker 1 Thank you so much for being. Where do people find you online. 00:54:15:06 - 00:54:36:20 Speaker 2 Oh, so you can find me on Instagram with my surname which is really funky. So sweet. Delete it. VI tele t, you can find me on Tik-Tok. You can find me on LinkedIn. My name and surname. If you have any questions or you want to just say hi, always pick. You know me a message. I'm happy you know, because I love the community. 00:54:36:21 - 00:54:52:13 Speaker 2 I'm obsessed with that little community because we always bump into each other no matter what we know. We know each other one or the other way, you know, through different people. It's so bizarre. But I love it. I absolutely love it. 00:54:52:15 - 00:54:56:08 Speaker 1 That's awesome. Very powerful. Thank you again for being a part of this. 00:54:56:10 - 00:54:58:09 Speaker 2 Thank you for your invite. 00:54:58:12 - 00:55:18:26 Speaker 1 And thank you everyone for watching this episode of the Evolution of Dental Podcast. Please look for us on all the social media platforms under Evolution of Dental Podcast. We're on all the different podcast platforms. We release new episodes every Friday. Please remember to like, subscribe, share the show with your friends. It helps more than you know and remember. 00:55:18:27 - 00:55:20:13 Speaker 1 Never stop evolving.