In this testimonial, oral and maxillofacial surgeon Donald Nikcevic recounts his 18‑year partnership with orthodontist Dr. Bill Hang, highlighting how their combined expertise in orthodontics and dental implantology has transformed patients’ lives. Nikcevic describes treating primarily bicuspid extraction and retreatment cases, where Dr. Hang creates space for implants in challenging, non‑ideal sites. He emphasizes the multidisciplinary workflow: orthodontic space creation, precise implant placement, and restorative dentistry that restores smiles, facial profile, and airway function. The narrative underscores high patient satisfaction, global patient draw, and the growing importance of airway and sleep dentistry as a central theme in contemporary orthodontic and surgical conferences. Nikcevic argues that with additional knowledge and collaboration, any practitioner can successfully place implants in limited spaces, thereby improving facial aesthetics and airway health.
Chapters
My name is Donald Nikcevic, and I've been working with Dr. Hang since 1997. He came to the Westlake Village area where he set up his orthodontic practice. It's been a pleasure to be able to treat patients with him. One of the greatest things about Dr. Hang is seeing the testimonials that come forward from his patients. It's amazing. He has patients that'll come into the office, and I do mostly dental implantology. They'll come in for their implant consults, And they'll spend half an hour to an hour talking about all the great things that they've had happen to them in their lives since Dr. Hang had intervened with his orthodontics. A lot of these patients are bicuspid extraction patients. They're patients that have had prior orthodontic treatment. And these are mostly retreatment cases. And the fact that the patients sing his praises on a daily basis when they come in just really— my staff even noticed. How much that happens. And it's funny, when they were saying they were going to interview me today, they had staff that all said, well, they all come in and they say that they're just doing so much better. So it's a nice thing to be able to be part of the treatment. My part of the treatment is basically the dental implant part of the treatment. And at this point in time, Dr. Hang will open up bicuspid areas for me. I will place implants, and we have a number of great restorative dentists that will go ahead and restore those areas with great-looking teeth. Giving the patients just a wonderful smile back, opening up their airway, making them feel fantastic. And I think that's one of the reasons that people should be involved in this. When you see how many people are positively affected in their lives, they have a positive effect in their lives, then I think it's really important to take heed to this. My practice has been limited to dental implantology for 18 years now. I've been a full-scope oral and maxillofacial surgeon during that time, but I've had other partners that have picked up the slack with regards to doing the mainstay of oral surgery, and I've been very blessed to be able to really focus on dental implantology. What I'd like to talk about during the lecture is going to be the placement of dental implants in areas that are not always ideal. In a lot of these cases, Dr. Hang is really struggling to get the ideal placement of the teeth and to be able to get these patients to restore their facial function, their facial profiles, as well as restoring the ability for their airways to open up. And in doing so, we're sometimes left with areas that we have to get implants in little smaller spaces than what would be considered the norm or the average. We've done hundreds of cases together, and we've had the ability to have long-lasting implant results. So I have great confidence that with a little bit of extra knowledge, with a little bit of extra help, anyone would be able to place implants on these cases and to be able to do a great job. And we can show cases upon cases that have been restored in this way, and the patient satisfaction has been tremendous. Working with Bill has been fantastic because I've been able to see patients from all over the world that come into his practice. And it's fun to have patients fly in from somewhere, you know, well out of the United States to have their implants placed to replace their bicuspids, and to watch them get restored, and to be part of a team effort that allows such a nice result for patients. So, I'm really pleased that I'm part of that team. I think it's really important to consider this event and attending this event because of the fact that I attend a lot of lectures, both in oral surgery and dental implantology, and even in orthodontics. And at this point in time, the keywords that I'm seeing over and over again are issues with sleep dentistry. with airway dentistry. And these are the buzzwords that on every lecture that I tend to open up a pamphlet on from any of the major organizations, this is what they're talking about. And this is a lecture given by somebody that was really on the ground floor with this. It was not necessarily the mainstay in 1997 when Dr. Hang came to the Conejo Valley and the Westlake Village and Simi Valley area, but at this point in time, if you just open up any brochure talking about any national meeting, be it oral surgery, prosthodontics, orthodontics, you're going to find that the fact that airway management, airway opening, facial aesthetics in relationship to orthodontics is really what the buzzwords are today. So, coming to this lecture gives you firsthand the ability to talk to somebody and hear from somebody that has really been pushing this agenda well before it was common to do, and I think it'll give you an eye-opening experience and might then tend to put your practice into a different position that you might find is very, very helpful to your patients.
