In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Cristian Pavel, DDS of Smile First Dental Wellness in Chicago to explore the human side of dentistry—and why it matters more than ever. A UIC-trained dentist, Chicago Dental Society member, and certified yoga instructor, Dr. Pavel shares his holistic take on care that connects oral health to overall wellness. As the industry grows more corporate, he makes the case that empathy and genuine connection are what set great dentistry apart.
Transcript:
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, joining me now is Dr. Christian Pavel of Small First Dental Wellness. Dr. Pavel, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
You know, I had a really positive, I just wanna say it from the outset, I’ve always had really positive relationships with my dentist. You know, I’m a little fearful sometimes sitting in that chair, but I just had a really good experience, got a crown. So kudos to you.
And the members of your profession, because I think overall you’re doing a great job. You wrote a piece for the American Dental Association on the future of dentistry. And the reason why I reached out is because in a world of AI and technology, everything seems to be trending in that direction.
But your piece really had a different tact. Tell us about what your position is on the future of dentistry.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
So mine is a personal anecdotal view based on my recent experiences and based on the trends of dentists. First off, thank you for commending dentists. You are few and far from a standpoint of patients because the typical reaction we get, which is understandable, is I hate the dentist.
Or, you know, most people do not. We equate the dentist with pain, with high costs, with insurance confusion, and so much red tape. And the reason that I felt compelled to really write this piece, and the reason I feel a calling in lecturing on health and wellness to dentists is because burnout amongst our profession has never been greater.
And I can personally relate to this because technology is a double-edged sword. It’s intended to give us more freedom and relieve time and effort from work, but what it actually seems to be doing is creating more work because now we can do so much more and we’re expected to do so much more. And I think this is one of the pieces that’s leading to burnout.
And one of the biggest dangers is that now we can take our work with us everywhere, so we never really shut it off. And the way we shut it off now is also overstimulating to the brain. Doom scrolling on social media, going through news, going through all these things that keep the brain overstimulated, even entertainment, Netflix, and all that stuff too.
So it’s never been more essential to find balance and there’s a tilting dentistry as a whole has been in this big consolidation phase, which happened to medicine a few decades back where big companies and private equity are buying up practices and gobbling up more and more, but now it’s hit a tipping point where it seems like private equity is slowing down and there’s some big issues going on on a bigger scale in that capacity. And the underlying reason and cause from my purview is because I think these companies underestimated the value of the personal relationship and the intimacy required with dentistry. So this is the precedence of the article.
Essentially, what we need is more of that personal connection. And that is what most dentists are following when they decide to go through all the loops and challenges of becoming a dentist. And I think that’s what gets lost along the way, especially if a dentist becomes a private practice owner because there’s so much that goes to that and we don’t have the training and often the bandwidth and capacity to really create a successful dental practice.
So that relationship is lost, sorry.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I think you bring up some really interesting points and it’s interesting to me because you talk to anybody in a lot of different industries, I wasn’t aware it was happening in the dental practice, but in my industry, the financial services industry, there’s consolidation everywhere. And I think that people are trying to leverage technology in order to streamline and reduce costs and reduce overhead. So I can relate in some ways to that.
I wanna touch on the humanity aspect of the piece that you wrote because I think you make a good point. I think what made my most recent visit to the dentist was that aspect. I will tell you that I’m a big wimp.
Like most of your patients, I don’t like pain. I don’t like anything to do with the drilling. So that was hard for me, but the dentist and his assistant were able to put me at ease because they were there to say, hey, it’s okay, we’ll take a break.
So there wasn’t that pressure of, we gotta get this done in 10 minutes, give Jeff a crown in 10 minutes. So I think that that’s a really important aspect to not just my business or any business, but especially to your business.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
100%, yes. And yeah, with all of these factors, technology and everything being off stream, the intention is to create more time, but really, and especially with consolidation and bigger groups, that time is condensed. And the insurance model really caters to this too because to be a network with insurances, especially HMOs and bigger groups, you have to reduce your fees like crazy.
Then the only way a dental office can be successful is if they become an assembly line, run of the mill, see as many patients as possible in as little time as possible, and that’s not beneficial to anyone. A lot of new patients I get now are from these run of the mill practices where they had things rushed and a lot of the work has to be redone because if one little step is skipped or done a little bit too quickly on something very complex, like a crown, for example, the end product becomes something that needs to be corrected.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, well, I mean, you wanna get it right, obviously. I think everyone wants to get it right, but if you’re rushing to your point, you may miss a step or take shortcuts in order to keep up with the volume that you need in order to run your practice.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
Go ahead, go ahead. For what you were saying, the humanity aspect is the step that’s usually condensed the most in these rushed practices, and that’s where things really get lost.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So, you know, I’m on the older end. I’m kind of considered middle-aged. Do you think that the expectation of my, I’m Gen X-er, so Gen X-er, the boomer generation, is that humanity, that touchiness, but is it the same expectation with some of your younger patients, the Gen Zs, the millennials maybe that grew up in this technology, they’re the ones doing the scrolling, doctor.
So do you think that maybe expectations are a little bit different, or are they the same?
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
That’s a great question. I think one thing that I see in older generations, a common denominator, is a poor dental experience and a traumatic dental experience, if you will, and that has impacted the way they see the dentist and how they respond to it. And, you know, I think there was less oversight in the profession before, so there were more, and it was a kind of like, oh, tough it up mentality, especially the boomer generations, you know?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
There was, I mean, I still can’t believe that 30 years ago, the dentist didn’t even wear gloves. You know, it was a whole different world.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
That is crazy, I remember those days, that’s how old I am.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
Okay, and yet you still enjoy the dentist, so that’s impressive. Yeah. So I think with that, there is a lot more value to that humanity aspect, to feeling taken care of.
Like you were saying, I think that could be part of the reason why you felt reassured when they said, okay, we’ll take our time, no rush. Let us know what’s comfortable, or whatever was said to make you feel comfortable, right? I think for younger generations, if they didn’t experience that, or any sort of bad experience, they might value something quicker, like just get in and out, but there is another trade-off that I’m seeing with younger generations and younger people, and this is to no fault of anyone, but there seems to be an overtreatment, an over-diagnosis now that is more rampant, especially in large practices, and I think the recipe that set this up, the old model used to be, you graduate, you become a dentist, you buy your own dental office, you put up a sign, and then things are generally taken care of. Now it’s, you graduate, you have an enormous amount of debt.
There’s no way you can afford your own practice to start with, so you have to start as an associate somewhere. Now most private practices won’t take somebody straight out of dental school. They require experience.
However, these large group practices, they’ll take anybody, and these large group practices set up corporate structures where you’re incentivized to produce as much as possible, and there’s usually production bonuses and things structured in, and not enough mentorship, and this is, again, just in general, and I’m not putting down my profession in any way, but this is just what you tend to see. New dentists in these large group practice models don’t really have much mentorship, much oversight, but there’s a competitive structure amongst their peers in there, and they get bonuses based on what they produce, so putting myself in the shoes of a new dentist with a ton of debt in a time where it’s not as easy to earn, everything’s inflated right now. They’re thinking probably I wanna buy a house.
I can’t afford that. I just wanna start paying off my debt. I wanna finally start making money, and here’s a new patient, and oh, you got a cavity in between the teeth, but it might be actually a little bigger, and if I just put in the dental treatment software that it’s a little bit bigger, I’ll learn a little bit more on that.
That little slip turns into, oh, well, actually, this needs a root canal, and that’s like quadruple, and I hate to say all this, but I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen a good amount of new patients come in for a second opinion, and I’ll never forget one recent one was just like, wait, are you sure that’s all I have? I don’t need any root canals, and I’m looking again, and I’m like, how could, what?
No, absolutely not. I tested all your teeth. I looked, and you’ve got a couple minor cavities, but nothing even close to necessitating a root canal.
Now, granted, after a filling or something, there could always be side effects that might necessitate a root canal, but right off the bat, absolutely not, and it’s a more common thing that dentists get over, dentists will over, new dentists will over treatment plan, so I know I went on a big tangent there, but.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
No, that’s okay. I think that you raised a good point, and it’s almost like some of the corporate structures that attorneys use, or new lawyers, if you think about a law firm, so it’s analogous to that. I wanna ask you, in the remaining time we have, we’ve got about three or four minutes, but I do wanna hit on this.
There’s been a lot of new developments and research in dental dentistry, and you are the front lines for a lot of health-related issues. Through your work and the work of dentists, you’re able to detect other diseases beyond just periodontal disease and things like that, so you’re actually on the front lines. You and your peers are on the front lines.
You actually, I think, have a greater role in overall health.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
100%, yeah, and it’s, I think, a great responsibility, and there’s a great level of trust within that, too. What I tend to see, from a health standpoint, two things that are pretty much the results of all dental disease, stress and inflammation, and it’s almost a given now. With the stress, there’s usually a laundry list of pharmaceuticals that patients are on, anti-anxiety, ADHD, all these things, and this is typically younger patients, but I’m seeing it almost.
It’s almost ubiquitous amongst younger generations now, and going with technology again, they’re usually phone in hand. They’re usually on the phone the moment I walk out of the operatory. They’re on their phone the moment I walk into the operatory, and I think this is something I’m very passionate about, preaching not just to people in my profession, but people as a whole.
If you look at humanity throughout our evolution, we’ve always abused every technology before we’ve kind of figured it out. Agriculture, we’re still kind of abusing. I mean, we’re totally abusing from a food production standpoint, but even from an ingestion standpoint.
When we got more efficient in making food, fast food became the thing, right? And now we’re finally realizing, oh, there’s side effects of that, and that’s my other point, inflammation. Most of the inflammation that I see are side effects of poor diet and just not taking the best care of ourselves.
So the way I like to approach things is I tell patients, hey, I’m seeing all these things in your mouth. They’re probably related to the medications you’re taking as side effects. Are you aware of what the root causes of these things are?
Do you wanna talk a little bit? And I ask them first because some people, they just want to hear what they want, right? Some people are not ready to make changes, but other people are very curious and they want to know the root cause and they might be ready to take responsibilities.
The greatest impacts that I make are to those people and helping them see or dissect and see, okay, yeah, you’re probably not sleeping enough. And this morning fast food thing you have, I understand that you need to be efficient and you need to be at work at this time, but can you just try changing that? Can you eliminate that?
Can you replace it with something? And those that listen to these little things, they make huge, huge differences. Suddenly, they’re not on blood pressure medications anymore and their oral health is much better as a side effect, even if their brushing habits barely changed.
But yes, to your point, we are on that front line and I think we have the opportunity and ability to make such a huge impact, way beyond getting patients to floss more often.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I feel like that message has really satiated the environment. We know to floss, we know to brush. It’s these other things that I think you point out.
Dr. Praval, we’re gonna have to leave it there. It’s a very compelling piece. I think you’re spot on in terms of the humanity.
Thanks for joining us and we look forward to having you back on the program. Again, very soon, sir.
Dr. Christian Pavel, DDS, Small First Dental Wellness
Thank you, Jeff. It’s an honor.
