Q&A: From Family Tradition to Global Innovation

Q: Dentistry has been in your family for 6 generations, going back 170 years. What have you learned about your ancestors?

A: My brother and I are both part of the 6th generation, and that is something that makes us very, very proud. My father and I researched our ancestors and were amazed to find that, generation after generation, each one displayed a high level of passion for the profession. I don’t know exactly why or if it's genetic, but there has always been a lot of teaching and innovation. And, of course, that's what I do for a living—teaching and lecturing, and I started my company, Digital Smile Design, with a lot of innovation involved.

Q: What inspired you to develop the Digital Smile Design methodology?

A: As a dental technician, I was able to work with so many amazing dentists, and that collaboration was always very important to me. I thought, “How can we improve this synergy to work with less stress, make fewer mistakes, and make more patients happy?” Even though I was considered a very good ceramist and was working with great clinicians, I realized we were still lacking in systems and protocols on the back-and-forth between the lab and the practice. So, DSD started 17 years ago as my own effort to organize strategies to work better with my dentists so we could be more efficient and more effective. I created the name Digital Smile Design as the combination of strategies to leverage technology to deliver better smiles.

Q: Since then, you’ve trained more than 50,000 dentists worldwide. How has DSD evolved?

A: When I started DSD, I was trying to focus on the synergy between dentists and technicians, and having that dual training allowed me to speak from both sides. But I was lucky enough to start putting these ideas together not only at the same time that technology started to really impact dentistry, but also when social media was becoming popular among dentists. I was among the first dentists to jump into Facebook in a professional way by sharing content, lectures, tutorials, and ideas, and it really went viral. My friends thought I was crazy to be giving away so much and that people would not come to my courses because they were watching online. In fact, what happened was the exact opposite. Ideas went viral and everybody was talking about it. And from 2009 to 2015, I traveled the world dozens of times—I was away from home 250 days per year lecturing about it.

We moved into the second phase of DSD when I realized that teaching was not enough. People were loving the course, but they needed more help afterward. That’s when I started the DSD Planning Center services, so that we could help you leverage the digital tools after you complete the course—help with digital treatment planning and digital smile design. We can actually do it for you so you don't need to worry.

And then I built a center where we could design and support the implementation of that for dentists around the world. It also became a manufacturing center and a coaching center where we could offer training for dentists and staff. Today, we have teams that go to the dentists' offices to train their staff on how to use the ideas. We also became a full-service marketing agency to support the dentists on how to tell the story to the patients if they incorporated these ideas. So, since 2015, we've been growing this service center beyond the courses. 

Q: How did you get involved with the DentalXP education community?

A: You may not know this, but I was there when DentalXP was created, almost 20 years ago in Atlanta. A friend and I had moved from Brazil to the U.S. to work with Team Atlanta—I was there to take over their in-house lab and he was there to start this online education project. There was a lot of collaboration on ideas with Drs. Ronald Goldstein, David Garber, and Maurice Salama for DentalXP. Of course, it has transitioned and grown to become something much bigger nowadays, but that was a special moment in my career. I was part of the process of seeing these ideas come together, and it's a pleasure to see how it grew and continues to grow, and the community that formed around it.

Q: Why is it important to join a group like DentalXP?

A: Dentistry is a great profession, but you have to work very hard, and it is also a very lonely profession. You work so many hours inside those 4 walls—you and the assistant—many times in silence. Many dentists struggle with mental health for many different reasons. One of the key components of maintaining your health and your desire to continue to do dentistry is to be part of something bigger than you by joining a group, and DentalXP is a great one to join. I know many people who are part of it. They love participating and the sense of belonging and that you're contributing to something bigger than yourself. You can find the relationships that will help you during those tough moments and help you continue to move forward.

Q: You mentioned technology earlier. Where do you see dental technology at the moment?

A: We are in a very disruptive moment in dentistry. Just in the last year or two, many of the technologies that we've been talking about finally matured enough to become the obvious way to go. On top of that, you have AI, and on top of that, the financial world finally found dentistry and is investing. So, with the number of startups and dental tech companies and new solutions, and the fact that we are expanding dentistry into the whole oral-systemic environment, general health, longevity, and prevention, it's just an amazing moment. It is the coolest moment in dental history for sure—right here, right now.

I hope that for the next decade the No. 1 topic in dentistry will be the oral-systemic link, or as I like to call it, Dentistry 3.0. It is not about treating problems that are already there, but about understanding how the dentist can play a completely different role in preventing problems that are much deeper and more impactful in people's health and wellness.