Chairside - Glidewell Dental Labs

usy and make a little more money. So I went and taught
in the dental hygiene clinic. But other than that, I had no
experience in dental education. I went in cold turkey.
MD: So that was in 2005. How long were you there?
LB: I was there until the end of 2008, so just shy of four
years. That accounts for my huge background in occlusion.
I had already been doing that. Actually, as a student, I
had decided at one point that I might focus my practice
on TMD patients. I was taking some courses with Mark
Piper. I went through the craniofacial pain mini-residency
at the University of Florida with Henry Gremillion and
was taking Pankey courses. When you’re there full-time at
Pankey for four years, you are immersed in the conversation
on occlusion.
MD: How interesting that early on you thought you might focus
your practice on TMD patients. For most of the dentists I know,
that’s one of the first early referrals they decide to make — pedo
patients and TMD patients. I used to run from those patients.
What drew you to that?
LB: I still do a fair number of those patients. But I decided
that, as much as I enjoyed TMD, I also missed restorative
dentistry. I loved that, too. So I’ve created a balance now in
my practice. What I love about it is the unknown and the
mystery. In the beginning, it’s daunting, and you wonder
how you will ever figure it out. The more I got to learn
about it, the more I realized it’s just a puzzle that can be
solved if you are willing to stay curious and stay in the
puzzle with the patient, and combine what they’re telling
you with what you are finding in an exam. You really have
to work through it. One of the things that I think is hard for
folks to grasp when they start treating TMD patients is, you
don’t actually know when you start what we call “therapy,”
which for most of us is an appliance, that this is actually
the therapy. The appliance is almost as much diagnostic as
it is anything else, because you make it based on a design
you think might work. But then, if it does or doesn’t work,
that’s diagnostic information. It makes you go, “Oh, I need
to go down this other path.” So I like that piece of it. I like
the investigative piece of it; that it’s different and always a
challenge. It’s not repetitive, like doing an MO composite.
MD: That might be where the disconnect is for some dentists.
We take a bitewing radiograph. We find some decay. We go in
and we drill it out. We place a restoration. It’s done, problem
solved, and we’re on to the next thing. But TMD is not like
that. It’s ongoing and you have to be inquisitive. You have
to interpret what the patient is telling you and what you’re
seeing through the therapy you’re providing.
LB: Exactly. If you’re one of those folks where you like to
just do what you do and be done, and then in your mind
it’s handled, TMD should not be the part of dentistry you
go into. If you like the challenge of it being a continuous
process and asking what’s next and how are we going to
do this, then TMD is a great aspect of dentistry that has
that, whereas a lot of other aspects of restorative dentistry
don’t. For me, like I’ve said, I’ve balanced it. I like treating
TMD patients in my practice, but I would miss restorative
dentistry, so I don’t do that every day that I’m in my office.
I have created a balance, and I think a lot of other folks can
do that, too.
MD: So you like to be able to mix it up and change gears a
little bit, go in and solve a few problems, and then also see a
few TMD patients. This is starting to sound like what might be
called the “thinking man’s dentistry,” if you will. Less about
handpieces and injections, and more about interpretation and
trying to figure out what might make the situation better.
LB: That’s the best way I’ve ever heard it explained!
MD: Well, then we’re going to end the interview here. Thanks so
much for being with us. (laughs) So you were at Pankey until
the end of 2008?
LB: Yep. Then I was asked to join Frank Spear. It was right
when he was moving the Seattle Institute for Advanced
Dental Education from Seattle and partnering with the
Scottsdale Center for Dentistry, which of course now
has become Spear Education and is based in Scottsdale
(Arizona). So he asked me to be part of that transition, and
be the person who moved to Scottsdale, because he and
Greg Kinzer and Gary DeWood were still all in Seattle at
that point. So I did that at the end of 2008, and I was there
full-time until last year.
MD: How did that invitation come about? Because now, for the
second time in your illustrious career, you’re being tagged by
one of the more powerful people in dentistry to come be part
of their organization. Are you just relying on your good looks?
How did this happen?
LB: You know, that could be a part of it, and we won’t dismiss
that piece. But, honestly, I knew Frank as a student because
I had taken his classes in my own continuing education
journey, and he also used to come down to Pankey once
a year to do a program called “Masters Week,” so I got to
know him even better at that point. Gary DeWood, who is
a dear friend who I worked with at Pankey, was already
in Seattle and had joined Frank at the Seattle Institute for
Advanced Dental Education. I also had three kids at that
point, and my daughters, who are now almost done with
high school, were just on the crux of being teenagers. So I
really was looking to not live in Miami anymore, to have my
kids someplace where I felt more comfortable with them
learning to drive and starting to date and do all of those
things in a less cosmopolitan setting. Gary knew that, so I’m
sure that was part of it. And, talk about having your heart
stop, there’s nothing on the planet like having your phone
ring (at that point I still had an actual house phone) and
Interview with Dr. Lee Ann Brady45