“Preserving Smiles and Saving Teeth: A Conversation with Dr. Edward Feinberg”

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That's bombas.com/listen and use code LISTEN at checkout. Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success Today we have on the show none other than Dr. Edward Fittinberg. Hey, how you doing today, Doc?

I'm doing great.

Yeah, I'm doing good, Doc. Thank you for taking time out your busy schedule today and coming on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show. Really appreciate it. So Doc, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.

Well, I have a very unusual background. I grew up in dentistry. And I was trained by a master and pioneer of full mouth reconstruction and crown and bridge dentistry, and I learned everything from him. And the techniques and the philosophical approach that I learned from him is completely different from what's being taught today in all of the dental schools. I have 100,000 pictures of crown and bridge cases that go back to 1950 all the teeth prepared and handled the same way, and the cases followed for decades with x-rays. And this is an absolute rarity. And what I'm doing has the real track record in dentistry. And I'm watching all my colleagues doing things that don't conform to the basic principles that allowed my dad and I to have so much success, and they're having a lot of problems with things that were solved in the 1930s. And you like to think that you're advancing, but my area of the profession, I can't say that's so because they can't really show the longevity and the health that I can show. I have dentistry that I did on patients in the mouth 30 and 40 years with very few changes in the x-rays, and that is the best feeling in the world for a dental practitioner. You know you did something great for that patient. You save their teeth and they know it too. And that's the best marketing you could have because they have friends and relatives who are having a lot of problems with their teeth and they are not.

Yeah, and I know teeth are important. I just went and had a wisdom tooth pulled probably about 6, 7 months ago. Oh my goodness, that's just the worst pain that you could feel. And my wife took a picture of me.

I'm glad I don't do that.

Man, and so Doc, so you say that your father was the inspiration. So is that what inspired you to go into the profession of dentistry?

Absolutely, yes, because he was a genius. He gave courses in his office for 40 years to dentists, and they would come and he would demonstrate in like 7 Wednesdays how to make a fixed bridge on a patient, and another 7 sessions on how to make a precision attachment case. And nobody knows how to do either one from what I could see today, which is very, very sad. And one of the things that I really don't like is the overuse and inappropriate use of implants, and teeth are being extracted that I could easily save, and I think that's wrong. And a lot of it is because the dentists don't know how to save them. That's the bottom line. They only have one technique in their armamentarium, and that's implants. A lot of people are very good at it, but it is not the answer to every problem. In fact, most of the time it's not the answer. If you know how to do good fixed bridge work, you can do something good for the entire area, and that's the end of the patient's problem. So when you look at the articles on implants or go to one of the implant courses You don't see implants being placed among teeth that are completely virginal, meaning no decay, no fillings, and no periodontal bone loss. You see them placing implants in these spaces, and the teeth around them have big fillings or crowns or are going to need crowns. And as the single tooth implant, I call the signature of the piecemeal approach to dentistry because it just fills a space and does nothing for the teeth around it. Whereas if you know how to do good bridge work, you can completely change the architecture. You can bring the forces up close to the supporting structure. Very often you can nip periodontal disease in the bud, and that's the end of the bone loss. And the way I make crowns and bridges, it's on the model of the mason jar cover, which is the best known thing ever devised for preserving food. So I almost never get decay under my crowns. And then you solve the patient's problem. That's it, they're done. There's a point at which dentistry may need to be replaced, but if I don't get at least 10 years out of it, I think it's a failure. And the best feeling in the world is when the patients come in year after year for their hygiene visits and you get to watch the work that you did last in health. That's why I'm a dentist, because there is no better feeling than that.

So, uh, I guess the next question I was gonna ask you, I think you answered it in the first question and this one. And what I was gonna ask you was this. So what makes your practice different from most because of all these things that you was just talking about that you implement into your dentistry?

Yes, my philosophical approach is completely different. Somewhere along the line, dentistry went off the track of where it came from. So I'm doing what actually came from the roots of dentistry, or the roots of crown and bridge work. My dad had an amazing mentor too, uh, Dr. I. Franklin Miller. And so the chain of what I'm doing goes back to dentistry's roots. That's what has the track record. So I just mentioned that I make all my crowns on the model of the mason jar cover. Well, modern dentistry can't do that because their techniques don't go down far enough to seal the teeth. So what they're doing a lot of is what you call butt joint restorations, where you prepare a ledge on the tooth and then you make the crown to that ledge. That's what most people are doing. And the thing is, is that bacteria are microns, and that can never be sealed. There's always an opening to a bacteria that might as well be the Grand Canyon, and you can't see it. And the bonding materials and cements, you can't see what's sealed and what's not sealed. So there's a much higher percentage of failure with that approach. And of course they came along and invented technology. See, technology is a tool, not an engine itself. And it's very impressive. Oh, you could make a crown in a day and put it right in, and I don't have to come back. But that's what they're doing— butt joint dentistry. And that doesn't have a very good track record, and that was known at least in the 1960s. So they have this machine called the CEREC machine, which makes butt joint dentistry, and essentially the end product is exactly the same as the old high-fusing porcelain crowns that were baked in an oven in the 1960s. You think we didn't know what was wrong with those? So now they came and made a machine that does the exact same thing. So you're going to get the exact same results, and that's exactly what's happening. And yet everybody is concentrating more on economics and workflow instead of longevity and health. And a lot of it is because corporate entities want to sell the $100,000 machine that makes the crowns in a day, and they want to sell implants. And so that is what's going on, um, in my profession. In my area of the profession. I can't say that all areas are that way because they made huge strides in other areas like endodontics and orthodontics. It's so far superior to when I graduated, but my area seems to have gone backwards.

Hmm. So Doc, you touched on, you know, corporations and things of that nature want to sell these machines, you know, for implants and things of that nature. And so I guess my question is, why is it important to save teeth? Rather than extract them to place implants?

Well, you know, implants are not foolproof. There are areas where they're not going to work well. If you have— if you don't have enough bone where you could put a deep enough implant in, that's going to fail. Like, if you were to make any engineering structure, let's say you were going to make a bridge over the Hudson River and you don't sink the supports for the bridge deep enough in the ground, That bridge is going to collapse. And there are many examples of engineering failures because they didn't take into account the forces that were going to be acting on that structure. Well, that's common. The same exact things that happen in structural engineering happen in dentistry, the exact same things. So in areas of really bad, bad bone, or where you can't put, good implants in, like where the sinuses are, for example, and that's— they have to put grafts in in order to see if they can put a longer implant in. Um, those have a high failure rate. And also on the lower, if there's not enough bone, uh, above the, uh, inferior alveolar nerve, you can't sink a deep enough implant in. That's going to be a failure. See, I have other options treatment options in my armamentarium, so I can offer patients options for treatment. And most people can't do that. They only have one thing in their treatment armamentarium, and that's implants. And I don't think that's fair. A lot of it's simply a lack of knowledge. So that's why I started the Onward program, which is a teaching website for dentists online so that they could learn how to do some of this dentistry. So I have solutions for areas of bad bone where I don't have to put implants in and I can still restore the entire arch. Really good solutions. And part of the problem is, is that dentistry forgot about those things. You know, one of the things that I grew up in, when there were no implants, my dad stuck his neck out to save teeth and made cases on the worst teeth you ever saw. And a lot of them worked because when you change the forces on the bone that are acting on it, especially if you have destructive forces, very often the teeth tighten up and you can maintain them. That's true, and that's what I like to show, that this can be done, and you shouldn't be so quick to pull out the teeth because a lot of them can be saved. There are a lot of dentists also who don't know how to restore teeth that have no crowns above the gum. And all of dentistry is geared toward hanging crowns and bridges on whatever tooth structure is sticking above the gum. And I don't care if there's any tooth structure sticking up above the gum because I go below the gum and get a good grip on the root. And I restore many teeth that are flush with the gum without posts, without buildups, without any problem whatsoever. And I don't have crowns falling out and I don't have decay under my crowns. And then that's usually the end of it. And God, that's what I would want for myself. I think that's a very good yardstick rather than pulling a tooth out and putting an implant in, because I've seen a lot of them fail and you don't know who that patient's gonna be. And it's not too pleasant when you put one in and it doesn't work. It's not a nice thing. So I think that implants, except in certain circumstances, like if you have a perfect mouth and a tooth is missing, that's a perfect spot for an implant. But that's not really what the norm is. So I think it should be a last resort rather than a first resort. That's what I think, but that's not what's being done. And I've seen some really horrendous things where they pull out all the teeth and they put this case called an All-on-4 case and they put 4 implants in and very often restore the whole arch with these big superstructures that are clearly overloading the implants, and it can't possibly work. And then sometimes they don't even make it possible for the patient to clean around these things. That's not where implants came from. The person who invented implants was from Sweden. His name was Dr. Branemark, who I got to meet. He was a genius. He did 20 years of studies before he ever brought them to this country, and he outlined a lot of things, reasons for success. And I looked at some of those cases recently in his book, and he made all those teeth narrow and small, and I see the exact opposite happening. And then not thinking about how these things are going to support big superstructure because they're not gonna— that's— you can't— they're feats of engineering. You can't overstress any engineering structure or it will fail. So if you can't do fixed bridge work, you have to do something else. And a lot of them shy away from doing other forms of treatment because nobody likes removables. But I know how to make a really good removable that is the best case in dentistry called the precision attachment case. And almost nobody knows anything about it. Invented in 1906. That's really sad when you think about it. And they work great with implants. So I have the ability to place 3 implants in the front where the good bone is and make a precision attachment removable for the back that's worn 24 hours a day, only removed for hygiene, and very little maintenance, and lasts longer than any other kind of case on the worst teeth you ever saw. So it's a no-brainer with implants and nobody knows anything about it. This is very sad. I wrote a textbook on that and I can't make my colleagues understand that would change their practice life to learn how to do that. And they could do something great that they could hang their hat on. Yeah, that's what I teach.

So, Doc, let me ask a question. You said something earlier in the conversation. You said that decay can come under the crown. So if decay comes under the crown, what does that do? Like, what kind of effect does that— something hits the nerve, you know, like how we have a nerve pain in there and can't get it out?

Well, it can. Yeah, decay can progress into the nerve. Inside each tooth is the nerve chamber, or the pulp chamber they call it, and that's where the nerve tissue is. And if decay continues into the nerve You're gonna get a big toothache, usually, not always, but usually, or an infection, and then you're gonna have to do root canal therapy to save that tooth and probably redo the dentistry. So by making my crowns on the ID model of the mason jar cover, I avoid a lot of that. That is not one of my problems, is having decay underneath, except after many, many years and there's been changes and areas of root are exposed that weren't exposed previously, those areas can become susceptible to decay. But then dentistry needs to be replaced at a certain time, and everyone's different. So I have some cases that I did in the mouth 40 years, and because the changes were minimal and gradual, I didn't have to replace the dentistry, and they got away with it. But other people, after 10 or 15 years, the dentistry should be replaced.. And it can be a very tough call as to when you should step in there and do it because it's happening gradually and not all at once. And so that can be a very tough call, but invariably you need to remake the dentistry to compensate for the changes, and that should be done. So there's no real rule as to when you should do it because everyone's different.

Mm-hmm. So, Doc, you kind of touched on it a little bit. I would like for you to elaborate on this part right here because we was talking about the decay and then you said that they will have to go through treatment. And so why is it important to have a variety of treatment options for dental care?

Because there's no one-size-fits-all. There's no such thing. And one of the hardest things is when I get a new patient, for example, I take a full series of x-rays, I take study models, I want to study it and see what's good, what's bad, what can I do for this patient, what are the choices, what, what do I think would be the best choice for that patient. A lot of times I'll go to a specialist, especially an orthodontist, and I'll bring my models and x-rays and I'll say, what can you do for this patient? And that might be part of my treatment plan. So it's not cut and dried, and one of the worst things that you could do is to make snap decisions off the top of your head. That's how you get into trouble. So a lot of people want to do that. They want cookbook, they want, you know, make a snap decision. And in a complex case, that isn't going to work. You have to think about it. You have to think about what caused the problem in the first place. What's really going on and how do I correct it? What is the best way to correct it? Sometimes it's just plain orthodontics, sometimes it's a combination of orthodontics and restorative dentistry, sometimes you need to do some endodontics. So everyone is different. And what I try to do is figure out what would be the easiest for this patient and what would be the least amount that they would have to go through. And a good yardstick is what would you do for yourself if you had the same issue? I think that's a very good yardstick because I see things being done at the lectures. I'm horrified. I said, oh, I got up once and I said, This is malpractice. Would you like that done to you? Because it's unkind, you know. I really believe that if you're going to— let's say you have to change the type of treatment that a patient's getting, you want to ease them into something new, not do something drastic. You got to give the body a chance to accept it. You got to see how they function before you make anything. And a lot of people are in a hurry. They want to make a quick buck, slap something in. That's not right, and that's not the way I was taught, but this is what's going on. So I'm honest. Don't miss out on CJ Moneyway's book, Both Eyes Open and Both Eyes Shut, and get ready to pre-order his upcoming release, The Issues of Life, coming soon. Moneyway, aiming to inspire.

Hey, you want transparency, especially when people dealing with your health. You know, when you're dealing with your health, far as teeth or, you know, medical doctors, you want people to be transparent and let me know what I'm looking at or what I'm getting into before you actually do it. Then I find out the results later.

So, you know, we need transparency in these type of, uh, yes, you know, most patients have no idea what they're getting, and they might be overly impressed with technology and not know what that is, um, because not all technology is good technology. Yes, it's cool, but that doesn't make it better, and it's not— most of it, most of it is not better. And the only thing that counts is the outcome. I guess for your audience, the best advice I could give is dentists are all different. We have different skill levels. We're not all the same. And what I see is that people readily will seek a second opinion from a physician, but not so much from a dentist. They'll just take— they'll just do whatever their dentist tells them. And if one dentist can't save your teeth, that doesn't mean another dentist can't. And you should get other opinions and make sure that you're doing the right thing for yourself, especially when there is a lot of treatment and you're going to need a lot of restorative care. You should really be sure or give yourself the best chance for having a success with it. So you want to go to somebody good.

Now, Doc, let me ask you a question on that one right there, what you just said, because most of the time when we have a dentist, you know, we go for, like you said earlier, the hygiene cleaning, you know, to have our teeth cleaned, or if we need a filling and things of that nature, we got an ordinary doctor, a regular doctor that we go to. Now, you being a dentist, would a dentist be upset if they couldn't save your teeth and then you went out and did get a second opinion? How do you guys take that?

Well, I never minded it. I stood behind what I thought, you know, and I'm not for everybody, you know. I didn't feel like I needed to be everybody's dentist, you know, so I had no problem with that. I would say, fine, you know, come back and tell me what they said. I'd like to hear it. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't, you know. Yeah, it depends on what they're looking for, what they want, you know. If they want make something quick and stick it in, that— I'm not their guy. And there's somebody out there who'll do that, but I try to do the right thing, and I'll do whatever I have to do. I never look the other way, and I do the very, very best I can, because bacteria, microns, you are not going to get away with it. And I know a lot of people will pass off an impression that's not so good and say Oh, that's the best I can do. Well, that's not good enough. You know, there's no rule that says it has to be done that day. And think about why it didn't come out. And, you know, like, for example, when I teach, I tell the dentists, this is kind of like doing crossword puzzles. So I like to do the Times crossword puzzle every day, and sometimes I pick up the puzzle and I look at it and I don't know anything. I can't do this puzzle. And I put it down and I come back an hour later, and now I'm looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes, and all of a sudden I see something that I didn't see before. Bingo! 1, 2, 3, I fill in the entire thing. Well, taking impressions is very much like that. You know, maybe you're tired, uh, the office manager comes into the room and aggravates you with somebody who's out in the waiting room, and you can't think clearly because, you know, we're human. We're all human beings. Close them up. Don't keep doing the same thing and putting the person over and over and over again. And I say, Mrs. Jones, I have to make a special band for this impression. And then the next time I think, oh my God, this is going to be really tough, and I set aside all this time. But again, I'm looking at this now with a fresh pair of eyes, and I see exactly what the problem is, and most immediately, and I'm done in 5 minutes. I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me. And that's a very good lesson in understanding how the human mind works, because we're all human. And so never put pressure on yourself that you have to do X, Y, and Z in this visit because it says so on the day sheet. So when a patient asks me, Doctor, how many visits is this going to take? I tell them, I don't know, it depends on How it goes. And I only care about giving you the best I know how, Mrs. Jones. I'm not going to look the other way no matter what. So if it takes me a few extra visits, I just want the best for you. What are they going to say to that? Hey, thank you.

And so, Doc, with that being said, on how you treat your patients and, you know, the care that you give out to your patients, the thoughtfulness that you give That takes me to my next question. So you've won some prestigious awards. So what is it like to be recognized for the great service that you provide?

Oh, wow. I don't really like talking about myself that way. I'm happy to help. You know, I'm also involved, very involved in the Dental Association. I care very much about my profession. I was involved in New York State, the New York State Dental Association. And the 9th District Dental Association. Now I'm involved in the Arizona Dental Association, the Dental Editors Association, and the Dental AI Association. And I think part of what's important is not just to be a great dentist, but also to make the profession great. And I very care deeply about our reputation. And some of the things that I see, I'm afraid we're gonna lose our reputation, and I don't wanna see that happen. So I hope that we can turn things around. One of the major problems is that today dental students are graduating with debts like half a million dollars before they even do anything. So instead of focusing on building their knowledge and skills, because they know nothing when they get out of dental school, um, they are forced to think about how they're going to pay back these loans. And a lot of them go to work for these corporate mills and they're forced into a production mindset. And you could never be any good that way, and they're never going to like the profession or give back to it. And that's, that's terrible for the public and for the profession. And that has to be changed because we didn't have that. It wasn't that expensive, you know, it was expensive, but it wasn't, you know, over-the-top expensive when I went to dental school. And when I went into— first went into practice with my dad, I spent a lot of time watching him, at the chair with him. I did all the patient emergencies. I was carving teeth all day long. I carved temporaries and made teeth all day long before I even worked on patients. And then my dad lined up these full-mouth cases for me to do in my first year of practice that most people would never do until they were in practice for 10 years. And he was going to check every single step. And that's how I started. My first patient, I had to prepare 32 teeth on this patient, and that case lasted well over 20 years. And I learned everything from him. He was a genius. And today, most dentists never even heard of him. And that's, that's very painful to me because I know he was way ahead of his time, way ahead of his time. And I would like to see my area of the profession go in the right direction. I really hope I can make a difference. So I'm trying. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy. My dad was a tough taskmaster. He was rough. It was not easy. He made me what I am.

Yeah, he knew what he was doing. You know, I'm sitting here thinking about some of the things you said, you know, how you talk about the younger ones coming out of college and Listen, now you kind of like got a head start because there's something that your father had excelled in way before you ever got into it. And so you had a great learning tool, somebody great to learn this profession from. And so it kind of gave you a head start. And like you say, he had you doing things, the basics that some people wouldn't be doing for, you know, their whole career. So that was pretty cool.

Yes, I was smart enough to know when I was young that I had something a unique, special opportunity that no one gets. In fact, you know, my dad was my mentor, and I think everyone should have a mentor. You know, I want to be somebody's mentor, and I could not find a single young person in New York or Arizona who even wants a mentor. That's really upsetting. You know, some of them think that you can get everything online in a YouTube and they don't need anybody or anything. That's not true at all. That's not— you can't find most of what I have to offer in a book or online even. And you can't beat one-on-one experience. I used to listen when my dad gave these courses. I'd pick up on everything that went over the heads of all these people sitting in the audience. And I would say, Dad, how come you never told me this, that, and the other thing? And I'm there every single day. And so there's a lot to learn, and the little details are what's going to make you great. And you can't get that from a book. You need somebody to guide you and point you down the right path. And I don't think I could have done that without my dad's help. No way. It would have been impossible.

Yeah, I understand. You do need mentors and professional— you know, when you're doing professional things, you know, you need somebody that know more than you. That's been there, done that, and like you say, that you can learn from. And so on that aspect, you touched on it earlier, so could you elaborate on this a little bit more? So talk to us a little bit more about your Onward program.

Okay, well, as I mentioned, I was very upset about the fact that so few dentists understand the basic principles of crown and bridge that came from dentistry's roots. So I made like 35 courses for the website of theonwardprogram.com. It's a teaching website for dentists, but anybody who wants to learn about crown and bridge can go there. I mean, there's no restriction or no requirements. There's a lot of information on the documents library, and I write these blogs, you know, a couple a month. Some months I do more than other months. And they're on different subjects related to dentistry. Some are about leadership, some are about some of the marketing things that I've done, some about certain issues in dentistry, and some are scathing indictments of things that I don't like that should be changed. And I recently compiled all of these into a book that I published on Amazon called Open Wide, appropriately. And I think it has public appeal because it gives you an inside look at what's going on in my area of the profession. I think most people have no idea, and I think it should be wide open that people should know so they can do what's the best for themselves. And that's what I see, and I'm trying to do what I can to turn this ship around. Yeah, I'm not afraid of technology. There is some technology that's good technology. Scanning and milling are very accurate. I think milling is going to replace castings, and, uh, certainly techniques of laser welding are superior to torch soldering. So there's been a lot of advancements that I approve of, but my yardstick are basic principles that allowed my dad and I to have success. And new technology that violates those principles, I don't even want to look at it because what we're really responsible for is the outcome. Not the means by which we arrived at that outcome. And I think people have to realize that. What is it that you're putting in a patient? What is that really? Just because it comes out of a computer doesn't make it better. In fact, most of the time it's not better at all. Do I think that one day that might be something? I do. If they could invent a technique for registering the impression of the entire root surface below the gum by some kind of X-ray technique, I'd be all ears because that conforms to what I believe in. But until that day, I think maybe the best dentistry might be a combination of what I call analog, which is like hands-on and digital, but not digital. That's butt joint dentistry, and it's not good. And most people don't know the difference.

So you keep saying butt joint. What is that technology? What is that really, man, where you say butt joint dentistry?

Okay, yeah, so I did explain it before, but I'll go over it again. When teeth are prepared, they're prepared with a ledge all around the tooth on the outside.

Okay.

And when you make a crown to that ledge, that's called a butt joint. So when I make a crown, I go beyond the ledge onto uncut tooth structure. So my crowns are like mason jar covers, which is the best-known thing for food preservation. So that's a completely different concept. I have far superior retention and protection against decay. And I have so many— so much proof, 70 years of documentation for what I'm doing. And the profession just kind of brushes it off because everything is being corporate controlled these days. That's what's really wrong. And nobody cares about science. That's scary.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you on that one. So before I get to my last question, where can we find your book at again, and where can we find your program?

Well, my program is at www.theonwardprogram.com, and my book is on Amazon. It's called Open Wide, and it's available in print, as an ebook, and also as an audiobook.

Okay, so what about your social media handles? Where can we follow you at on social media?

Oh, well, I'm on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn, and I haven't done much with YouTube, but I'm on it. Okay, you know, and some— a little bit of Instagram, but I don't really do much with Twitter. I'm not a big Twitter person. Yeah, so, but I'm not too hard to find.

No, not with this type of—

my website has everything on it, so all of my information.

And so what is the website again?

www.theonwardprogram.com.

Okay, so that's my last question for you, Doc, before I let you out of here. What are some of the difficulties that young practitioners face today?

Well, I think their chief obstacle is the overwhelming debt that they get when they come out of school. It's not their fault, and it's so crushing, this debt, that they are forced to think about how to pay it back. They're supposed to be focusing on building their knowledge and skills, which are rudimentary. In all fairness, dental school can only give you a rudimentary foundation. In the few years that you're there. They have to give you a lot of background stuff first, and then they teach you a technique. So in crown and bridge, I don't like their techniques, but I accept the fact that they have to teach them something in order for them to graduate and be able to do something. But they neglected to tell them that that's not the only way to do things, nor the best way. I'm not doing anything that I learned in dental school. It was so long ago. And everything changes. So you have to— your education really starts the day you graduate. A lot of people don't realize that, and as I mentioned, they're, they're focused on economics and workflow and not on doing things for longevity and health. And that's how you build a really great practice, when you have people, they know the difference. Most patients can't really evaluate what they're getting if it's any good until 5 years afterwards. A lot of what we're judged on are very superficial things like, oh, he has a nice office or he's a nice personality, or he gives a good injection. That has nothing to do with the work whatsoever. And there's no way that they can evaluate what they're getting most of the time, and they won't know for a few years whether or not that guy was any good.

Yeah.

And so that's part of the problem. I would love to help some young people. I'm more than willing to. And I'll tell you, just to show you what the attitudes are, I once gave a lecture to a residency program in Brooklyn a couple of years ago, and I was there for an hour. And I called up the director, who I knew really well, and I said, you know, an hour isn't really enough for me to teach them anything, but I'd be willing to come on a Saturday at my own expense and spend the whole day with them and teach them how to do crown and bridge work. And you know what he said to me? He said, oh, they would never come on their time, only on our time. And when I graduated and was on my residency program, I know that my fellow residents and I, whatever they told us to do, we were there. We knew we didn't know anything, and we wanted to learn as much as we can— we could, because we were there for a short time. That was why we were there. And we wanted to make the most of our residency programs. I was shocked. I just couldn't believe it. And that— these are the attitudes now, and that's a sad thing. But I think maybe the newest generation is going to be better. I'm very involved now in the Arizona Dental Association, and the people I'm involved with are fantastic. And I think things may be changing for the better after we get through this tough period. So I'm gonna continue being the gadfly of dentistry.

Hey, so we appreciate you, Doc, for doing what you do, man, and being a great service to the communities, man. And so with that being said, if anything else, any last thoughts that you would like to share before we get out of here?

Well, I want to thank you for allowing me to spread my message because that's really most important to me. I really want to make sure that the legacy that my dad and I created doesn't go by the wayside. And I've seen that happen to other fabulous practitioners and their entire life, you know, that they created something amazing and it is as if they never existed. I don't want that to happen to us.

So yeah, I appreciate you coming on, giving us your wisdom and insight on dentistry. Hey, so you all, New York, Arizona, stand up! Dr. Edward Finberg, hey, he want to be a mentor to some of you guys, man. Quit turning him down. He want to give you some of his knowledge so that you can be the best that you can be. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your boy CJ Moneyway and my guy Dr. Edward Finberg. Hey, we out of here. Peace.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows, your story might be next.

Mm-hmm.