The Man Behind Protrusive – Jaz Gets Interviewed! IC045

Jaz Introduction:
Nav Bhatti And he’s an up and coming content creator. I liked his style. I liked his realism. Very real world. I always got time for people like that. He’s actually a British citizen studying dentistry history in Slovakia, previously having studied in Egypt and Ukraine.

So he’s got a really interesting story and we didn’t actually get time to unpack it because he came to my practice where I work and he shadowed for a bit and then the plan was to record. But while recording about 25 minutes in, which is why this podcast is as long as is, which is why it’s a kind of shorter episode. My wife calls me and at this stage, it kind of sums up the entire sort of month I’ve had, right? 

My family has been plagued by illnesses like my baby, Sihaan 10 months had like back to back viruses and when the kids are not sleeping we’ll get like 2 -3 hours sleep a night and then unfortunately my eldest, almost 5 years old, he was in hospital for 2 nights on IV drips, severe dehydration, projectile vomiting, you name it, the whole shebang and then it finally got to my wife as well. I was the last man standing, I kind of told the universe and this is crazy, I had Gary Vee say this once, he said, I told the universe I’m too busy to fall sick.

Right? And so that’s my theory of why I didn’t fall sick. I just told the universe, no, not today. But anyway, it’s been a really challenging few months and then it kind of got epitomized by what happened while we were recording that my wife called me and she was in bed, she just couldn’t move. And she had a baby and I was like, oh my God, I better rush home. And thankfully I live very close to where I work. And I said, Nav, I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go. And so the reason to share that with you is just to remind you that we’re all going to have bad months. Okay? We’re going have bad months, bad weeks, and it’s part of life.

And one of my mentors, Lincoln Harris, once taught me that when you don’t know someone well enough, that’s when you think their life is perfect. And that really resonated with me. And I guess we always have to be careful, like when you listen to this podcast or any podcast or what you see, especially on Instagram, dangerous, dangerous Instagram, right? Where you look at everyone’s cases and think, wow, they’ve got it all made up. Their life is amazing. Ferrari, Rolex. You just don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors and no one’s got it perfect. You don’t.

I don’t, but we all must do this together. And togetherness has been a big theme this last month because we just launched Protrusive Guidance, which is the new website. It’s protrusive.app. So the old platform, we totally outgrew it. And so I did something very dangerous in business terms, right? So you guys know that your subscriptions are the reason that this podcast is alive and thriving today.

I’ve actually given up a lot of clinical time. I only work three days at a clinic now. So I could focus on the teaching and the podcast and I have a team to make sure that I actually get to see my wife and kids. And so things were going great, except we totally outgrew the old platform. When I realized that, Protruserati, you guys were going on this rubbish forum that we had on the old platform and you guys were like, hi, I’m so -and dentist from India and this is what I like. And I was like, wow, this is beautiful. You guys are connecting. And I didn’t envisage the community part to be a significant part of it.

But I realised you guys actually crave community, which is why our Facebook group is doing well and we’ll trust each other. Protruserati trusts Protruserati. But you know what? Facebook is a**** because there’s too many ads, too many spammers and a lot of you aren’t even on Facebook and you message me saying, Jaz, how can I get involved in the community because I’m not on Facebook? Which is why, Protrusive Guidance is not only taking all the epic content that we had and now it’s got a search engine and it’s just visually beautiful and a lot less buggy. The previous one I found was starting to get buggy on my Android device.

This, Protrusive Guidance is just a whole level above. And so the business risk I took is I asked all of you to cancel your subscriptions. Right? It’s pretty crazy, right? I asked all of you to cancel your subscriptions and I said, those who want to, those who want to, yeah, I’m just enforcing on those who want to come over to a brand new experience, come on over. And so this is a very risky thing to do, but I absolutely believe in the future of Protrusive.

And what we’re trying to build here and our community and I’ve just been blown away. Like your guys’ engagement so far, how happy you guys have been with the platform, a few teething issues like Android, the quizzes aren’t working on Android at the moment but they do work when you go on your chrome browser, on your mobile or the web. So a few teething issues, excuse the pun, but it’s just been great to see so many Protruserati on the Protrusive Guidance on Android, iOS, but the best place to start, the best place to actually take a look at what we have to offer and choose a plan, It’s protrusive.app on your web browser. And then once you have a login, you can use it on any device, including the native apps. 

So let’s hear the episode about what drives me. And I guess in a nutshell, I’m all about being a learner. One of my strengths is learner. One of the five strengths I discovered by doing Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0. I was recommended this book like 12 years ago.

Strengths Finder 2.0. I’ve mentioned the podcast before, but if you haven’t heard it, it’s a really cool quiz that you do and it gives you your top five strengths. And it argues that actually we should be working to our strengths. Weaknesses maybe a little bit, but actually let’s focus more on our strengths. And one of my top five strengths is learning. And on the taxonomy of learning, when do you learn the most? You learn the most when you’re teaching and sharing with others. And that’s what my true passion is. And most of the time I don’t have the answers and I’m desperate for that knowledge, which is why I bring on amazing guests.

Some that are internationally renowned and some who don’t have an international reputation. But you know what? Those episodes are just beautiful in the real world journeys of the Protruserati. So I hope you enjoy this slightly different episode and I hope that you will consider joining us on Protrusive Guidance. It’s actually free. If you want to just enjoy that community magic of the Protruserati, it is absolutely free. So check out protrusive.app. There’s also payment plans for the educational content and CPD for those that want it. And students watch this space because something epic is coming for you.

Main Episode:
Anyway, enjoy and I’ll catch you in the outro.

[Nav]
First and foremost, I’ve been given an amazing opportunity today to speak to the world renowned, I must say. Definitely world renowned.

[Jaz]
That was really awkward to me. 

[Nav]
Anyone I speak to, no matter where they’re from, and I have people in America to speak to, they know you.

[Jaz]
They know you. That’s crazy. Yeah, that feels crazy to me.

[Nav]
That is why it’s world renowned for a reason. Obviously I’ve been to Egypt. I’ve been to Ukraine. I’m currently in Slovakia. Everyone knows you and everyone’s a big fan. So as I say, well, renowned for a reason. I’ve got here, podcaster, clinician, as we know, teacher, mentor, and of course, father, the great, the one and only, Dr. Jaz Gulati. Thank you for having me today actually at his clinic. 

[Jaz]
So I appreciate it. Now it is nice when people come in shadow, but it’s nice that we get to record. Not often someone comes an idea today and let’s record together. And so it’s good. And I’ll be excited to hear about your journey as well through all these countries actually.

[Nav]
It would not be as exciting as your career today. I’ll say that much, but we will definitely get into it. For me, first thing, as I said, thank you once again for having me in. And I think we want to just kind of start off for anybody who doesn’t know, and they should know. Your background, tell us more because you’re usually the guy asking the questions so today we’re going to flip that around and find out a bit more about yourself. 

[Jaz]
Okay, I think the most striking thing when I’d have to start, I think I’d feel compelled to start is where the journey begins, your big why in life. And I think I can take everything back to when I was six years old. 

[Nav]
Oh wow. 

[Jaz]
Fled to Afghanistan as a refugee, came to the UK at age six, didn’t know a word of English, my father’s still illiterate. I’m just about to get to my and so I’m feeling incredibly grateful now. Yeah, when I look back that I received a British education and I got a chance and I remember those days coming as a six year old to England and this new place and fleeing all the bad stuff I was going with Taliban and being subject to racism seeing some of that being chased by skinheads on motorbikes or like all sorts of things that I’ve seen in that regard.

But I think that’s all made me resilient. We lived in a council flat for up until I was 24. So I went to a dental school and when I went to dental school, I was like, oh my God, I’ve got my own room. I’ve got my own bed. So that was a huge thing to me. And if I was to show you where I live now, it’s like a small little two bedroom. Okay. But for me, it’s a castle.

[Nav]

I’m with you. 

[Jaz]
So that’s kind of the beginnings I come from. And I think probably the reason why I focus so much on education is that relationship I had coming very hungry and then trying to do the only thing my parents said, just just work hard at school. They never had any more input on that. And then I just took that on board and I tried to embody that. 

[Nav]
OK, perfect. And then to the next question, white industry, I mean, Asian background yourself. Similar in terms of origins. And I think one thing that we could probably agree on culturally, it’s very much driven towards medicine, dentistry, being a lawyer, being an engineer, something along those lines. You just said your parents didn’t give you that kind of pressure. So what made you think actually dentistry, maybe not medicine, for example, what was the key driver there? 

[Jaz]
Definitely no parental pressure. Like I remember doing my A levels. And my mom was laying down to like Jaz, what are you doing at the moment? And I was like, I’m just working on this project. And they’re like, what do you do? Are you doing English, math, or science? What do you do? And I’m like, beyond GCSE, like she had no idea what I was doing in school, right? And so that’s the kind of level of input my parents had in that regard. But I’m so grateful that they still made a difficult journey and decision to come to a brand new country and set up the foundations for me. So I’m so grateful. But in that way, I had no pressure. So it’s very much my own choice. If it was up to my dad, I would probably be doing eBay.

But my dad was like at a time where he owned these two corner shops, one corner shop at the time, and I kind of did a bit of work experience there. And I got to see what life was like in that regard. And then he was like, oh, so and so son is doing, you make a lot of money on eBay and that kind of stuff. This was maybe, what was it, like 2005? And that kind of stuff. 

[Nav]
Oh, just when it was breaking through. 

[Jaz] 

Yeah, exactly. And so my dad was like, why don’t you do eBay kind of thing? And it wasn’t on my radar kind of thing. I just wanted to be a dentist because I had this one upper left central incisor.

which was like a dilacerated almost, so sticking out. Very embarrassing, hated it. And then when I had that treated orthodontically, it completely changed me as a person. I completely broke out of my shell. I just wanted to bottle this up and spray it everywhere. 

[Nav]
Okay. 

[Jaz]
It’s very cliche. I got to say, oh, I had ortho and therefore, but it was my own personal experience. And I thought, okay, this one would do it. In fact, if you’d asked me at dental school, I wanted to be an orthodontist. Okay, when I look through dental school as I want to be restorative, then suddenly a specialist. And now I’m just a general, just a general dentist. 

[Nav]
Okay, so you’re clearly not just a general dentist. I’ve just spent some time upstairs with Jaz actually, fortunate enough to shadow. And I’ve seen stuff that I have never seen before. And I’ve shadowed a few dentists in my time. Most of the things- 

[Jaz]
If you come on a different day. I would have been seeing little old ladies with low left caries, premolar root caries, but yeah, you just look at the draw. 

[Nav]
They came through. I would say one thing that I picked up with most dentists and maybe that’s what most of the public perception for dentistry is, is that they will look for the quickest and easiest fix and try to get you in and out the chair as quickly as possible. What I saw today was a lot of empathy and understanding of the patient and it was very patient focused. 

And it was what I felt from my lack of experience, but for want of better words here, you really did focus on the treatment and not just the time involved. It was very much focused on what’s the patient feeling and how can I make sure they have an easy journey through this. And this wasn’t the end of the journey for the patient. Your patient’s coming back, of course, for the rest of the treatment as well. What makes you have that feeling of I need to focus on the patient and not my bank account? Because a lot of dentists, with all due respect, I would say I’m quite money driven myself in all honesty. How are you not tempted into the dark side? What keeps you looking up with patients? 

[Jaz]
Good question. And I see that sometimes when you’re there and you’ve adjusted this denture 50 times now, and you’re there calculating your hourly rate, and you think I was already better off working at Tesco, right? Sometimes you have this patient, right? Other times you’re winning, sometimes you’re losing. I think when you stop focusing, whether you’re winning and losing, and you focus on quality, that relationship, the patient,

I was always taught, at that dental school, I had some good mentors and they taught me, if you do a good job, the money will come. If you refine your skills, the money will come. I can definitely vouch for that. I mean, the more I invest in my skills, like what you saw me today, that machine I was using, the T -scan, right? 

[Nav]
Amazing, yeah. 

[Jaz]
I was doing this T -scan assisted equilibration, so exclusion time reduction on a TMD patient, a purely muscular TMD, a real live wire, as my physio called her basically, crazy referral patterns everywhere.

And so we’re trying to get a, we’re closing her AOB, so Anterior Open Bite with Ortho within the invisalign, and to get a nice occluding scheme on her own teeth. She will go on to have a retainer and occlusive appliance, but what I was doing with her was using this T-scan, and that T -scan cost about 8 ,000 pounds, right? So the training with that, spent 1,000, the kit itself I bought myself. I kind of pitched it to the principal, but I feel the only one using it. So now I’ve got this arrangement, if I use it and I charge for it.

 
Like a subsidy. I get that basically, right? Just paid for itself. But whether or not I was making money from it wouldn’t be the main thing. It’s about actually getting the outcome. So I told you that what I liked about it is I’m not chasing red and blue marks on teeth. I’m led by data and that me feeling as a safe practitioner that I can adjust this and then medico-legally. I’ve got all those scans to show that. Okay, what was the occlusion like before? What was the occlusion like after you don’t truly get that from a photo. So I invested in it.

Not to get money back at the end of it, but so I can give better care. It’s a bit like an endodontist investing 50 ,000 pounds on a microscope, right? Patient not gonna pay any more for it, but you’re going to get better outcomes. 

[Nav]
Correct. 

[Jaz]
So I’ve got your question now, mate. You said about the patient. 

[Nav]
Yeah, it was about the patient. What keeps you focusing on that and not the money and I think you’ve explained it quite well that at the end of the day, it’s more so you’re investing to ensure that the patient’s happy with the outcome, but also for yourself, you’re not really cutting corners doing it. And it’s a long term investment. And I think, again, when you do speak to not all but a fair few general dentists out there. It is more about just can you reduce chair time and can you just increase input, output, input, output? 

[Jaz]
So that’s important as well. I’m not a practice owner, but that’s important to respect your time as an associate. I’ve got a friend, Sunny, DRE composite, he talks a lot about making sure you value hourly rate and how to improve that with composites and that kind of stuff. It’s important. Yeah, but it’s not the only thing, right? You want to go home and sleep at night knowing that you know what?

I did a good job. You want to have fun. To make dentistry fun, day to day, to fall in love with the little details. That’s where the longevity of your career comes from. If you focus on just the money, money’s numbers, numbers never finish. Eventually, if you focus on just the money, there’ll come a time where you are clock watching, you’re not involved. But if you actually dare to visualize the end result of some treatment to really care about the mechanics of what you’re doing to fall in love with a little details, gamifying dentistry if you like. That’s where I think longevity comes from. 

[Nav]
Okay, that’s a very good point. I think I need to do that a bit of a game by myself. So I think I need to take that tip on board and try to enjoy the process as it goes along. So my current situation being a student, that’s my process. Let’s wind the clock back a little bit. So we’re which university did you study at?

[Jaz]
Sheffield. 

[Nav]
Sheffield right and for the students out there, what would you say were the highlights and the lowlights of your studying process? And not the dentistry now as it stands, but if you can think that far back, let them know. 

[Jaz]
Highlights is just, it was a great time, the community of these 80 odd people that you followed through with five years, the social aspect. Partied a lot in first year especially, second year. And towards the end, I got a little bit more level-headed. But it was great. 

For me, it was like living out for the first time, getting my own place. It was very special. But then obviously, the dental school aspect of it, it’s like you’re the sponge. You’re the sponge, and you’re there to learn. But it can be a little bit dark as well. I mean, I guess the low light of it, and I’ve spoken about this before, is whereby, and a theme of my life now is when things get difficult.

When you’re stretched as a husband, a father, a dentist, a content creator, when you know all these things are pulling at me and my patients are emailing me this, I’ve got five different inboxes and they’re full, right? And I feel that pressure, right? And stretching you. The thing that often has to give way is health. 

[Nav]
Right. 

[Jaz]
Whether that’s through sleep or no longer going to the gym, no longer looking after your body or your diet. And so during dental school, I had this like this strange fixation on I want to get 100% in exams. It’s stupid. I look back now and it was just stupid because no one ever hires anyone thinking about what percentage they get in finals. But yeah, it’s all about your emotional intelligence. By the time I was just determined, I did achieve it. I was the first person to get 100% in the final exam in Sheffield. That was one exam basically in finals. But at the cost of my health at that point. 

I stopped going to the gym. I was literally just not in a good place. So that’s a dark thing. I wouldn’t recommend it. I want students to have fine balance and I would have done fine without sacrificing my health. 

[Nav]
Of course, of course. 

Interjection of Erika:
Hi guys, it’s Erika here, the producer of Team Protrusive. I’m just interjecting here with the announcement that we’ve now got this amazing community platform. You can access it from your laptop. It’s called Protrusive Guidance.

There’s also a native Android and Apple app. What we really want to do is to harness the power of the protrusive community and create a platform you can share and grow together. And you know what? It’s way better than Facebook. So if you haven’t already, check it out. Just do bear in mind that we manually approve every single application. So it might be a little bit slow to approve you, but we only want dental professionals on this network to keep it a safe place and so that we can share failures together. Head over to www.protrusive.app to know more. 

[Nav]
Because I think that’s the thing that we see nowadays, sorry, excuse me, that dental students are almost falling out of love with the profession itself just simply because of the amount they’re putting into the studying aspect. I see students as well, they’re burning themselves out before they even hit the chair, for example. 

So it’s one of those things that hearing it from yourself as well. It’s seeing yourself now is successful where you are. And that’s great. But even you’ve fallen prey to that. So what would be the best way to give advice to these students that are trying to push for the best grades and really killing their social life to just keep a balance so that they still enjoy dentistry at the end of it? Because one thing I kind of see is dentists, they come out into the world and they are just grumpy, they hate everything because they’ve hated dentistry. Now they’ve despised the trade. So by the time they’re out there with their patients is basically, how much money can you bring in? 

So I think what you’ve done is you’ve fallen in love with dentistry and therefore you love treating patients and all the rest of it, which is good for everyone. Now, how do we make sure that students that are currently in that university aspect, how do we make sure that they’re not making the same mistakes that you might be? So what would be your advice there? 

[Jaz]
I would firstly say it’s a noble thing to want to do well at university. It’s a very noble thing, right? To have to desire that for whatever reason, why make your parents proud, you want to do it for yourself. You just want to master something even if it’s as a dental student, you don’t really master a book, right? You can’t actually master anything except memorizing the words, right? It’s like a memory test in a way. So it’s a noble thing. I wouldn’t discourage trying to aim for the best. But you have to draw the line somewhere to see, okay, what are the sacrifices I’m willing to make? If I ask myself that now, now all those years ago, I wasn’t willing to make my health sacrifice, but I did. And I just need better ground rules to understand what I’m trying to achieve here and for what reason.

And number one thing to remember is your grades at dental school will totally not determine your success in the future. Your emotional intelligence, your charisma, your network, how nice you are to patients, the quality of care that will eventually build on time. But these are things, these are factors that are gonna determine your success, not how much you scored in these exams. I think when we focus so much on books and less on people, we have to remember that dentistry is a people business. And so the more you remember that, and remember that, okay.

You’re better off and you’re finally done dental school to do the bare minimum to get the pass. But then the rest of the year go to toastmasters, which is like public speaking. Put yourself in awkward scenarios. Learn about body language. Learn about the art of communication talking to people getting out there. That’s gonna be far more important in your success in the future. I think. 

[Nav]
Okay. That’s actually fantastic advice and I think that’s somewhere where people do slip up that we focus way too much on the educational side of things so take that advice on board for anybody listening, but that’s huge. I think people skills are so underrated and undervalued. But in reality, that’s kind of what takes you on to the next step in your career and with your patients as well. So amazing advice. Thank you very much. Let’s move it along. 

So you’re a massive advocate of TMJ as a whole, the temporomandibular joint and TMD disorders of. What pushed you into that other than the story about the orthodontic side of things and obviously your teeth being dodgy from the start and all the rest of it. 

You said earlier, what made you really focus on TMDs as a whole thing? And that’s basically made you who you are. That’s your brand, essentially what people know you for. So guide us through that journey. And what made you get there at the end? 

[Jaz]
It’s a scary one. I think about it because I often think, am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path? 

[Nav]
Right. Okay. Interesting. 

[Jaz]
I had a book to call with someone recently. I can’t see, I can’t reveal who, but this is like someone who’s really up there in the world of TMD academically, especially, but clinically as well, but very academically. And I arranged a meeting with him just to talk about, okay, if I’m committing to this, what do I need to watch out for? Because when you start treating patients with chronic pain, things can become very tricky for you as a person, the communication required from you, how you deal with people’s emotions. Managing expectations. 

And so, famously on some videos that I did like two or three years ago, an episode was called, I think it episode 39 or 40, it was like, Stay Away From TMD. And I said, are you sure you want a cue of pain to the patients outside your door? Because I kind of miss doing more standard dentistry. I love doing crowns. I love doing tooth wear and stuff.

But I’m seeing more and more TMD. It’s a double-edged sword because I love helping people with pain. I love getting a diagnosis, getting into all the detective work, getting the right diagnosis and explaining that to a patient and figuring out, okay, what are the different ways to go? And with that, I do still find the more deep I go into TMD and I’ve learned from several different courses and people. But I still find that it’s the Wild West when it comes to TMD. 

But I mean, you can do all sorts. So my philosophy at the moment, 2024 is my philosophy right now, might change five years later. My philosophy right now is get a diagnosis, figure out, okay, what are the range of treatment options we could do? And if it aligns with the patient values, do the most conservative first. Try and do the most reversible. Some people say, oh, splints are not a cure and then that kind of stuff. And I understand that. And I see where that comes from.

But I believe in symptom modification, i.e. if I can modify your symptoms, like I told you about that email I got from the patient, right? He’s got a KOIS deprogrammer, and we don’t want to go into that basically, but he’s feeling, he’s had pain for 11 years, and he just emailed me saying that, wow, this is amazing, right? So to have that impact is absolutely brilliant, but by modifying his symptoms, now I feel okay to recommend to him to have orthotics to improve his overjet. 

Now I feel okay about that. I feel like, with chronic pain, anything that’s been longer than three months, what the evidence suggests, which isn’t amazing evidence, but the evidence suggests is actually the more hands off, the better. I don’t fully believe that, but I have to respect it because that’s the evidence. So in a roundabout way, what I’m trying to say is I’m sometimes worried about am I in the right space because it is a challenge. I do find it challenging. I’m not going to lie. I sit down, I do a TMD report and it takes me a lot of time because I really want to proceed carefully. 

It’s not like, caries removal, like it’s very definitive, you restore it, tooth extraction, restore it. With TMD as a whole, patience, emotion side of things. That’s what I found the toughest, right? Because they kind of, they want me and they want me for life and they email me and stuff and I’ve got to be there, I’ve got to be their advocate. So when I spoke to this guy about the top dog in TMD and I spoke to him, he told me, do you have a contract with patients? I’m like, no, I don’t. So I’m gonna continue some mentoring sessions with him, because he’s got 20, 30 years on me.

And so I appreciate that you see me as this up and coming TMD, but I’m very, very careful. I don’t know if you’ve seen on social media, especially on my personal Instagram, I very rarely would advertise to patients that if you’ve got clicky joints, come and see me. If you’ve got- 

[Nav]
True, true. 

[Jaz] 
I talk more about family now and cosmetic stuff. I’m already swamped with TMD patients. Already swamped. And it’s more than I can handle. And it takes a lot of personal strain to manage these pain patients. So whilst it’s very rewarding and it’s like a thinkers game. Professor Okeson in Kentucky, he says that TMD is a thinkers game. I like that. But I’m constantly like, hmm, is this the best thing for me in my future? And I’m committed to it. I want to help my patients in pain. But I am perhaps from an outsider looking in. They say that Jaz, he’s a bit too conservative. He’s a bit too cautious and that’s me right now. 

Okay, and I’m happy here, right? I might change in five years, as either new evidence comes to light or my own personal experience change. Yeah, but I’m very careful about over-promising and under delivering when it comes to pain patients. 

[Nav]
I’m with you. That’s the perfect response. I think for anybody I know there’s a lot of people that are full-on dentists They know this stuff inside out but anybody who’s coming through via my route is probably a student and won’t know much about TMD. So would you be happy to do like a 60 second or a bite size crash course on TMDs? What they are and the importance of treating them in comparison to just typical dentistry to see it. Okay, so that anybody who wants to know what the hell we’re talking about, we’re just throwing TMD, TMJ at each other. It will give them a bit more insight. 

[Jaz]
TMJ is two of them. It’s a joint. It’s anatomy. Don’t confuse TMJ with TMD. TMD is a disorder. TMJ is anatomy. TMD isn’t even a diagnosis. There’s many different types of TMD, okay? So you have purely muscular TMD, right? Because the stomatoma system is full of teeth, muscles, and joints. Even the joint has got a capsule. It’s got so many parts of anatomy that you should learn first. So if you want to not embarrass yourself in the future when your patient comes in with that TMD emergency, first thing, and serve your patient, number one thing is learn anatomy of the TMJ and the muscles. If you can learn anatomy of the TMJ and the muscles, you’re pretty much halfway there.

Combine that with a history and then you can get a diagnosis. And then how do you know the range of diagnoses? If you look at the international classification of TMJ disorders, they’re all there. So if you know the anatomy, you’ve got the history and you look at the different diagnoses there are, you can actually begin to start making diagnoses. Only when you start making a diagnosis can you think about helping a patient. 

[Nav]
Right, right, right. 

[Jaz]
And so that’s my six second crash course. 

[Nav]
That was crazy. And then you’ll end up in this crazy wild west as you call it, where Jaz is sitting at the moment. And good luck to you if you follow that route as well. So, that’s awesome. Thank you so much. I had questions from people online actually, specifically for you because we did a little Q & A thing. The first thing actually ties in with family. So we had a message from a girl who said, I’m considering doing dentistry, but I want to have kids in the near future. Does it work? 

[Jaz]
100%. Okay, like mother mothers who want to say work part time and stuff. in the right place, right environment, you can be supported, you can, the world’s your oyster, but to have kids and be a part-time dentist in that phase of your life works really well, I think. 

Especially if you happen to be a practice owner or something, then you can manage your own hours. If you want to work 10 till two, you could. I know it’s a bit of a unicorn in some ways, but what I’m trying to say is you can totally fit dentistry around your children’s life. And it’s something that pays more than most professions. So even if you’re working part time during that phase of your life, you can still be doing financially well to support your family. I think overall it’s a great profession and so and then that includes being a parent. 

[Nav]
Okay, perfect. Let’s give you two more quick ones and then we’ll wrap it all up. Why is dentistry better than medicine? This is actually a question I got through. So in your words, you can’t say it the other way around. Now you have to stick with the statement.

[Jaz]
Okay, why is dentistry okay? Okay, because I get to look down someone’s mouth rather than look up someone’s ass. Did you know this one already? 

[Nav]
I always advocate for this, always say I’d rather my fingers going one way than the other way. So this is think alike, okay, perfect. And the last one I’ve got is from somebody who’s actually had a really bad experience. He said, I feel like the dentist I went to is like a mechanic. He went in there and just found problems, right? And maybe this is public perception as well. One, how do I find the right dentist that I can trust? And two, how do I know they’re not just fobbing me off and finding problems that they’re going to make me pay for? What would be advice for most patients out there? 

[Jaz]
It’s a real tough one. I see on YouTube, even though the podcast is for dentists, I get loads of patients commenting. And my stock answer is look, I’m not here to give advice on YouTube. It’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to serve my dentists and raise a game of education. But now and again, I’ll give some looks to do this, do that. And the number one advice I give is they’re doubting their dentist. Just have a conversation with your own dentist. 

And it’s totally fine to get a second opinion. But if you’re getting a third, fourth, and fifth opinion, then maybe something’s wrong with you, not with the dentist. So second opinion, cool. Maybe a third opinion if it’s really complex. But it’s totally cool to get a second opinion. It’s totally cool to question what your dentist is doing. But ultimately, you’ve got to trust in your dentist. You always have to put the trust in. 

Now if you find that you can’t trust that dentist, then that’s where the second opinion comes in handy. Eventually you’ll find someone who communicates in a way who you can resonate with, who then you can trust. And once you trust them, then it’s very difficult in dentistry because most issues are painless. And that’s why the patient trusts issues there because most issues are completely painless. Caries, unless it’s to the pulp, it’s often painless. And so I totally understand why patients are skeptical, but they have to at some point find latch on to that individual that they’re not buying the dentistry, they’re buying that.

Yeah, they’re buying you that okay, I like this guy. I like everything about him I trust this guy and the way he explains things I would like him to to do it if it’s aligned with my values and budget and if my values and goal is I don’t want to have pain anymore I want to keep on my teeth and great, but if you’re suggesting something that’s not in line my goal, then of course that’s different. 

[Nav]
Perfect and that obviously goes back to the point that you made earlier about it’s all about interpersonal skills as always very. 

[Jaz]
Always, always. You can have the best crown margin in the world. The patient’s not going to know. But you’ve got the worst paralysis in the world, but you’re so sweet to your patient. I’m not advocating that. I’m not advocating this, but the value of communication and just being nice to patients. It’s a really great one, actually. Three things. It’s not mine. It’s a dentist called Amin Aminian. You came up with it, read it in a book. Three things. If you could do two of these three things well, you probably won’t get sued. You probably won’t get in trouble. Three things. Doing the correct treatment plan. Doing it well and being nice to your patient. 

So you might have done the wrong treatment. It really needed ortho, but you did veneers. Wrong. But you did really good veneers and you’re really nice, you’re going to be okay. If you did the correct plan, you did it really well, but you’re rude to your patient. Well, you’re technically excellent. You’re probably going to be okay. You see what I mean? But that’s an easy one to get at the end. 

[Nav]
I’m with you. I’m with you. Keep those in your mind. That’s perfect. Honestly, I can’t ask for anything more from you. I think this has been an amazing insight. 

[Jaz]
I’m sorry. I have to be cut short. 

[Nav]
No, no, we’ll definitely reconvene over the summer. I’m sure we’ll find that. 

[Jaz]
We’ll continue on the usual route online. Right. We’ll just get it from there. 

[Nav]
No problem. And like I say, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I’m sure everyone’s going to enjoy this one. And I hope to see you again soon. My friend. Thank you. 

[Jaz]
Thanks so much.

Well there we have it guys, thanks so much for listening all the way to the end. We had to kind of cut it short obviously because I had to go and attend to my wife and she’s absolutely fine. She’s an absolute soldier. It’s actually Valentine’s Day today, I’m recording in the morning so I’ll be taking her out for lunch today. I’m not the most romantic person in the world, I’m a typical bloke. In fact I was going through Google Photos and I was searching for, Google Photos is brilliant, you can actually search for like know, Jaz wearing orange and you’ll find all the photos of me wearing orange. So I typed in romantic photos, right? And I had to scroll a long way to find photos of me and Sim together basically. And they all seem to happen before we had kids. 

So there we have it guys, I’ve been taking my fair lady to a nice lunch. I hope you guys had a good Valentine’s Day. I hope you enjoyed that post I made on protrusive guidance with the endo access cavity on a molar in a heart shape and if you’re not on protrusive guidance yet head to protrusive.app and of course I look forward to interviewing Nav in the future to find out about his fascinating journey. How did he end up at three different dental schools and well into his 30s and what drives him?

Bye for now and catch you at the same time, same place next week.