Redefining Wellness Dentistry with Dr. Katie To

Welcome to the Dental Slang Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Reza Ardalan. Our guest today is Dr. Katie To. Dr. Katie To is a leader in the fields of cosmetic and wellness dentistry. Her dedication to continuing education has led to sharing her knowledge with others and has helped her stay at the forefront of the latest and greatest in dentistry. Dr. Katie is probably the first dentist with both a master's in biological dentistry and is a master of digital smile design. She's highly trained in cosmetic bonding, non-invasive cosmetic dentistry, dental ozone therapy, biological dental therapy, and clinical nutrition. Dr. Katie always seeks the safest, least toxic way to take care of our patients in the most biocompatible approach. In 2013, Dr. Katie married her best friend, Dr. Barwin, in Chicago in a Pixar Disney Up themed wedding. In 2016, they welcomed baby boy Bailey and baby girl Apple in 2022. They enjoy cooking and traveling the world together. Her favorite vacation spots are Japan, Greece, Morocco, and Australia. Please welcome Dr. Katie To. Katie, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the Dental Slang Podcast.

Azad, thank you so much for having me, especially on a weekday like this. Have a conversation with you.

I love it. So I got to tell everybody, like, I want to start just by the story of my first interaction with you. We happen to be at a dental meeting and we were sitting next— I don't know if you remember this, but we were sitting next to each other at a dinner and we hadn't really met and we just started, you know, chit-chatting like we normally would. I'm not one to be at a loss for words, and honestly, by the time the salad came I was so enthralled with you, your passion, your journey in dentistry. I couldn't tell you what we ate. I couldn't tell you about anybody else at the table. But for hours, I sat there just peppering you with question after question. And you're so gracious to answer everything. I think by the time like they were closing up, dessert came, I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. But But at that point, I was like, I have to have her on the podcast so the rest of the audience can, you know, hear what I heard. And what I'd love to do is talk a little bit about, you have this like national reputation as a clinician who really focuses a lot of her practice on the use of biocompatible products. You know, you're really known as a wellness dentist, biological dentist, all of these terms. But I was wondering if you can just talk a little bit about your journey and how you got it into like this particular style of practice.

Thank you. Thank you for always being so curious and so open-minded. I remember that dinner, by the way, 'cause we talked so long and we're like, oh my God, they closing. And interesting story, I actually, when I was in dental school back in 2006 to 2010, everyone in my dental class thought I'm gonna go to pedo residency. And then Bar, my husband now, um, he, um, got into the orthodont— uh, ortho residency program in Oklahoma, and they had no pedo program. So I said, you know what, you're gonna go ahead and do your ortho, and I'll do my pedo when you're done. And then during that 3 years that he was in residency, I'm practicing, and I realized that, oh, I don't really like pediatric dentistry. Number one lesson for me there is things happen for you.

Yeah.

And not to you. And so I found the passions, and even in dental school, I love a lot of cosmetic dentistry, love working with composite, and had a great mentor and professor named Dr. Nasser Baji, which is really famous for teaching veneers. Yeah. And so I'm very fortunate. And so I've been practicing cosmetic dentistry until 2018. I got really, really sick and doctor keeps saying, you are fine. You're a mom, you're a business owner, you stress. And deep down inside, I know it's not just that. It's more than that. And the lesson number 2 for me is like, listen to your gut. Do not question it. Like, look for the answer. Dig deeper. And so I follow my gut. And the funny thing is, people send to you, you know, not by accident. No one sent to you by accident. So one of my patients actually said, oh, have you seen a functional physician? I said, what is functional physician? I only know primary care and specialist. And they're like, well, they look deeper and they, they do more testing. And so I made the appointment. Had my exam and fascinated by their process of 2 hours new patient exam asking about when you were born, what kind of like birth was it, were you breastfed or not. I mean, it's just so deep and so thorough. And when I get to occupation and they, you're a dentist, let's go ahead and test for heavy metal. And I'm like, okay, I know I don't have any metal filling in my mouth, but a test result came back. I have 10 times limit on, um, lead and 5 times the limit on mercury. And I was in denial. I'm like, hold on, this is not— and then they show me the 66 symptoms of mercury and lead toxicity. And I said, okay, I have 20-something of those on the list. So not a coincidence, but still in denial until 2 more medical professionals confirmed the diagnosis with similar testing, hair testing, urine testing, and blood testing. And I said, oh my gosh, I do have mercury toxicity. What happening? And, um, realized that it's coming from dentistry. And at that point, I was forced to either practice safely or have to quit dentistry because my body could not handle it. And it depends on the person. And this is lesson number 3 for me, is medicine and dentistry should be personalized. It should not be one size fits all. My husband have amalgam filling and his level is fine. So it means his body can tolerate it, he can excrete it, he can detox it, but my body cannot. So for me, the choice is obvious. I cannot give up dentistry. I eat, sleep, everything dentistry. So I realized, oh, I can still practice, but I had to practice in a way to protect myself and my patients and my team. And that's when I start my journey in wellness biological dentistry, 2018. It's this very selfish reason. I need to do it for myself. And then when I start diving deep in it, I said, oh my God, it makes so much sense. It makes so much sense that why European country ban amalgam filling, why every single dental office in the country had to have amalgam separator. If not, it's a federal law, you have to have it to practice. So I realized that it makes sense when you put the pieces together. And I really enjoy treating patients that come all over the country. We actually this week saw a patient flew in from Nebraska, last week saw a patient coming from Seattle. I'm like, there's a lot of dentists in Seattle, you know, the birthplace of Seattle Study Club. So definitely, um, people are asking questions and people want to live healthier, not just longer, healthier. And being a dentist, being the expert of the mouth, we are crucial part of the medical team. And I learned that from my own personal journey. And now I learned so much more working with medical colleague on cases that you like Alzheimer's, autoimmune, and cancer. And I'm like, oh my God, we are not inferior to the medical physician. We actually at the same level or sometimes more superior because we control up here in the mouth.

Correct. You know, one of the fascinating things about our conversation that we were having at that dinner was the way that you collaborate with the medical professionals. Now, as a pediatric specialist, I have a lot of interaction with them, but it's sometimes it's not on the same level. Most of the time in, as, as general practitioners, we're just maybe asking for a clearance to do a particular procedure. But the way you were doing it was completely different. Like the amount of testing that you're doing, the things that you're doing interactive with them, um, was, was amazing. One of the directions I want to kind of take this conversation is I wanna give like our listeners who are listening, like we talked earlier, we could go into 1,000 different directions talking about airway, talking about holistic approaches. One of the things I wanted to do was to give some specifics. Can you provide maybe some specific examples of particular products that you will maybe not use in your practice? And then also how you found ways to replace those? You know, Dennis, we're creatures of habit. So you had to change things around in your journey So are there any things that you would not use and how you kind of replace those?

Oh, absolutely. As I mentioned, that medicines and dentistry should be personalized. Our number one rule in the practice when we're seeing patient and follow that rule is patient body accept different material. So in general, our practice is metal-free practice. We don't do any metal filling, amalgam restoration, PFM, no gold, no stainless steel. So we, really a metal-free practice. We also remove it safely if they in the patient mouth. So that's number one rule in our practice is no metal. If patient need implant, we prefer zirconia implant over titanium implant. And so those are the thing that we start seeing more and more patient showing that their immune systems are not optimized and not ideal. So anything that can trigger the reactions or burden to their body, we need to stay away from it. So definitely in my practice, you won't find any metal there. Then on the fluoride, the fluoride topic, so fluoride-free toothpaste, and we instead using hydroxyapatite. And I'm so glad that now it's a very common ingredient in toothpaste. No, obviously topical fluoride. We doing a lot of MIPs and hygiene and home care prevention. We are incorporating, I would say, nasal hygiene, cleaning for the sinuses, mouth taping for a better microbiome in the oral cavities. So things that patient actually take more ownership of their health versus like, I go to dentist every 6 months, they put fluoride on, I still have cavities. Come on, you floss once every 6 months. That's not gonna work. I don't care how much fluoride we put on, it's not gonna work. So we remove certain things, but we give patients more homework. Every patient in our practice have homework.

You know, and it's funny because I think a lot of times, like, the term, especially the past few years, like, you hear somebody say like holistic dentist or biological dentist, and it gets pigeonholed into a certain way. And I think a lot of the premise of what you're doing is really saying, I want to put some of this ownership and onus on the patient and having them understand to take care of their body. And we always, across dentistry, we talk about the mouth-body connection. And I think you kind of just try to take that to the next level. But I do find that, you know, dentists, we tend to be very, you know, say price conscious with things. We're kind of frugal. And frequently biocompatible products tend to cost a little more than the alternative. So how do you address the cost issue with your patients, especially if they're also price sensitive when you're, you know, talking about a lot of this?

Yeah, I love that you really upfront with this question because I had a lot of dentists ask me this question like right away. How did you get patient accepting your fee or how you're compensating for this overhead because this is more expensive, or it's less selection, and only certain brand or certain company provide this material. And I said that first of all, as a dentist, you cannot compromise clinical outcome. As a business owner, you cannot compromise, you know, running a practice and be able to afford rent and payroll and pay for your material. So there's a sweet spot to really understand your numbers and your clinical in terms of material cost and time some material take too long to do, to use, then it costs you more money. It's not just the cost of purchase, it's also the uses, right? The time that you're implementing. So for us, we know the unit of time, we know the cost of material, and we make sure that that offsets the cost. And patients who are looking for biological wellness industry, even though they are concerned about the price, they know they don't really have a lot of places to go, or they can trust, or provide a service. So that's the reason why I love to share this information with anyone that willing to listen, because there's so many patients looking for the practitioners that open-minded and understanding, like you. Like, you having holistic practitioner in your area send patient to you because you're willing to listen and willing to work with them. And so for me, As long as you meet the patient where they at and you not compromise your clinical outcome, the price-sensitive patient will have to say yes to your treatment because you offer what best for them. And especially in pediatric dentistry, it's their children. You know, like, as parents, sometimes we're saving money on our clothes or on our things, but for our children, we're like, okay, we're gonna do it because that's our children.

And so we take care of them. Correct.

Well, I know that when in 2018, I'm an insurance-dependent practice, I accept plans. There come that questions all the time. Oh, ozone is not covered by the code. It's not insurance benefit. How do you address that? Well, we tell the patient what they need for their treatment, for the clinical outcome. And if the patient say no, and it's not going to align with my clinical practice, then I'm not doing the case. I draw the line really clear. I remember when I first implementing safe mercury removal, and it takes a lot longer because we rubber dam every single tooth. Not every single patient, like yesterday I removed 4, it's 4 rubber dam that you take one off, you put another one on, and it takes a lot longer. And I have to suit up and wear this respirator, and my face like, you know, have all this mark everywhere. It's really uncomfortable, take a lot longer. You cannot go to see another patient during that time. You block that schedule for that patient. So we're charging more for our time for that. So it's not always the material, it's not always, you know, the cost of what you use and what company. It's also the unit of your time. So in our practice, we really personalize, not just for the patient but for us. If I take longer on the case because the cavities are deeper, or it's more challenging case because it's this this is number 15, we charge more for that. And medicine already done that. They do 15 units for like sedations, for everything. And as dentists, we like MO of 15, of MO another 15 is the same. It's not, it's not at all. And so I know that for dentists it's unfair in a lot of cases, but for patients, as long as you draw the line really clear what clinical acceptable and what align with your practice philosophy, It's okay if patient doesn't accept it. That means you don't start the case.

Yeah, and I love the fact that, you know, this— you're obviously very well informed about this, but I love the fact that you said we have to understand our unit of time. So I'm, you know, that, that goes across board. I don't care what type of dentistry you're practicing. If you're a business owner, you need to know what your time is worth. And the fact that you know, you can say, well, listen, if I'm going to do this procedure Um, this is what my value of my time is. This is how I'm going to do it. And you kind of touched a little bit on this when you talked about the patient from Nebraska coming down. Yeah. Do you find that patients come to you specifically because you offer this alternative approach to dentistry, or do you find yourself having patients that are coming in and then you're educating patients who just happen to come to your office not even knowing about the choices that they could that they could make?

Yeah, no, this is, this is great question because in reality I have both in my practice. Um, in our conversation, in, in previous conversation, you mentioned, Katie, you can have like totally two different practice. One is the wellness biological, one is cosmetic. Well, in reality I do in one practice. I only have see two type of new patient, the wellness new patients and the cosmetic consult new patient. So the, the cosmetic consult new patient come in and have no idea fluoride or not fluoride, metals or not metal, bacteria in my saliva. They don't really know any about that. However, when I see them, which is just happened 2 days ago on Tuesday, I saw a cosmetic consult, a 13-year-old, and she's, um, coming for 4 white spots, um, on the front teeth. The first thing I see is she's a mouth breather. The second thing I see is narrow upper arch. Her intermolar distance is like an 8-year-old and not a 13-year-old. She just got out of braces a month ago. Gums are swollen, bleeding everywhere, and she just want to do whitening and cosmetic. I sit down with mom asking question about her journey of like since the birth and, you know, through her sleep habit and everything. She walked away from the cosmetic consult with a digital smile design, a sleep study, and a saliva test. So that patient come in for cosmetic consult, walk out with anything that we know is beneficial for that patient. And the other type patient come in travel, say, from out of town is because they was referred by another medical professional, or they heard about me or look at my credential on certain organization related to biological and wellness, and then they travel for that particular service, which is the wellness biological. And so in our practice, we doing the same for whatever patient coming in, for the new patient, for cosmetic or wellness. We having our Same protocol, we treat all patients the same. However, some patients will be aware and concerned and ready to jump in. And one day, some patients will say, you know, I'm fine. I know I'm not, I'm not breathing well, I'm snoring, but that's not my concern right now. And that's okay, because the patient has to be the one that say yes and committed to their journey. If we force it on them, they're not going to do it. And then they blame us when things doesn't go well.

Right. But at least I think you did the right part. Like, it just seems true to you, and everything that you've talked about is even when that patient comes in for a cosmetic consultation, if you notice other things, there's no way you're not going to mention it. And then it's not just like a quick thing— hey, by the way, you might have an airway issue. It's like, let me show you and educate you. What you do from that point may be a little bit different, but you wouldn't be true to yourself and your practice philosophy if you're not going in there and actually expressing everything. Hey everyone, if you haven't already heard about Berman Instruments or you haven't gotten around to placing an order, now is the time. They offer quality instruments for a whole lot less, anywhere from 30 to 70% less. How? Well, it's run by my good friend Dr. Lou Berman, who did the research and found that instruments just shouldn't cost that much. For other companies, it's the large overhead costs that drive up prices. Check out Berman's website and see for yourself. My personal favorite instruments are the amazing assortment of scalars and iris scissors for under $3. Go to bermaninstruments.com. Now, if you found, like if somebody's listening to this podcast and they're like, man, this sounds so interesting. And let's be real, when I went to dental school, probably when you went to dental school, a lot of this topic was not covered. In my residency, I went to a great program, great school, but I don't think a lot of this was covered. So are there any particular like resources or, you know, particular lectures on this subject of biocompatible dentistry that if somebody's like, man, this sounds really intriguing, I'd like to learn more, like kind of dip my feet in this, is there anybody or anything that you particularly recommend?

Oh God, there's so much. I'm saying in a lot of interviews that I'm a lifelong learner. And in the last few years, I noticed that my CE is a lot of medical-related CE versus dental-related CE, because we realize how much we don't know our colleague in medical field doing, as well as they don't know what we're doing. Correct. Therefore, they give us permission to work on patient versus like, hey, I'm just going to let you know we're doing this, what do you think, right? So, um, for me, definitely big thing about biocompatibility is understand patient DNA and blood work. And of course, you're right, we don't we don't have that class in school, right? We had genetics in college if you are a major in life science, but it's really not targeting on our patients and how we're looking at that. But I think the future of medicines, and I know future of medicines and dentistry, are personalized. So DNA and blood work are crucial. And so we learned that from, by the way, learn that from wellness practitioner. Don't learn that from just primary care physicians or the mainstream, because they, when you go get blood work at the laboratory, they compare your numbers with all the patients that they collect in data, which is— could be like a cancer patient, a sick patient, right? Usually healthy patients don't really get blood work as often. So your number can look amazing compared to cancer patients. But if you take that number and you compare it to Tom Brady, you don't look so good. So you have to understand what does wellness number look like, what the wellness standard looks like. So I want to compare my number to Tom Brady. I want to be like, that's what I want to achieve for my, for my wellness and health.

So if those numbers aren't there, find a route and a path to try to get to a number like that.

Yes, yes. And so if you say the resources, there are a few organizations that very big on biocompatibility. One of those is called IAOMT, International Academy of Oral Toxicity. And so they learning the study material, especially amalgam, and kind of showing you all the study about amalgam, fluoride, and chlorhexidine, and things that you use in practice for so long you realize that it's so toxic. And then another organization is called International Academy of Biological Medicines in Dentistry, IABDM, and they have lots of courses and curriculums on material. A lot of great speakers and resources. And so I would say starting from those group, and then from there you keep learning and growing and you find yourself taking medical CE. Yeah.

And I find that too. It's a lot of times as I go down different journeys, it's— I end up somewhere completely different than where I started, but it's nice to have some resources. Well, I'm gonna start here. And it's like, well, maybe like dentistry isn't the path that's going to give me the answer to this. And I'll go a different, a different direction. Um, now I know that you're kind of working yourself on a book on biocompatible dentistry. Can you just talk a little bit about, if somebody gets on, like, what we might expect to learn about some of the less common aspects of the, of the practice?

Is this a public announcement for accountability? Because I have not make it public, but now you make it public, so I have to get really work on this book. Yes, I'm working on this book and really excited to not only sharing what I learned on my journey, but giving some, I would say, guidance for someone who wants to start on the journey. And we actually make it a textbook where photos, video, case study, right? Takeaway point. Um, get people to really feel comfortable that, oh, I didn't learn this in school, but this textbook's showing me from the basic step to if I want to learn more, where do I go from it? So yeah, I'm excited about this 350-page textbook. Yeah, it's a great project. It's a big project, but I love this challenge and I know that so many can benefit and I know it will be translated to so many languages.

Yeah.

So for me, that's a huge honor and almost like a legacy that you can put, contribute to.

And I love the fact that for you, it's all about disseminating information. You've mentioned that multiple times. Why are people coming to me? You would much rather that there be somebody that's similar to you in Seattle, in— but wherever it is, so that they're not having to travel. So it's really just getting out that information. One of the things that I find interesting, you kind of talked about it a little bit, is as I do more of these podcasts, and I'm always surrounding myself with people outside of pediatric dentistry— I love my pediatric colleagues and I'm with them all the time, but I learn a lot. And as I talk to my more general practitioners I learn more about things that I don't particularly do every day, like implants. So you kind of talked a little bit about, say, like ceramic implants come to mind as we're talking about like a biocompatible material that has to be handled in the mouth quite differently than the standard titanium implants. So how do you go about learning these alternative techniques?

Yes. Do you remember in dental school we have a class called biomaterial? I remember that.

Well, it was painful.

I know. And a lot of us probably fell asleep. And, you know, study when we have to.

Were you watching me in class? You might have been watching me.

So what I understand is, you know, first of all, very simple, is, um, company that, that work with ceramic implant like Straumann, Nobel I love Straumann ceramic implant. In fact, my sister and my mom have ceramic implant in their mouth for a long time. So whenever that the company introduced the material, first of all, they invest a lot of time and money. Yeah, into that project. Then they have tons of study, and it have to go through so many approval and study from so many different continents for the material to come to the market. Especially in the US, the FDA is just a challenge process to go into the body. So for me, the company already have the resources. They come with instructions. They come— most of us tend to not reading the instruction because this instruction booklet is like, you know, 26 pages, but it's in like 26 languages, right? Maybe the English instruction, like one page. So I always encourage, you know, all dentists just taking the package out and read the instruction that in English or Spanish, if that's your language, and then just read that because they tell you step by step by the manufacturer how do you work with that material. And also you have to understand that if you work with zirconia, can you using this material, do you have to air braid it? Do you have to using, you know, primer like Z-primers or any sort of zirconia primer, how do they bond together? You know, for example, anytime that they say zirconia crown come up, I say, where is the cement? Is it in the crown or it's on the tooth? And so you know where the interface fail. So for me, it's really not fun in dental school learning biomaterial, but now in real life you'd be like, I need to bond a zirconia crown to zirconia implant. How do I do that, right? And who in the field have the experience and expertise to do that? Well, number one, manufacturer have a lot of expertise and research and study. Second, like, a lot of professors already studied this in school. So just like I mentioned, Dr. Nasserbaji, like, I remember back in 2006, he already talked about veneer make out of zirconia, and we're like, no way, it's kind of ugly looking, it's like mono. Chromatic. And you know what, now it actually could work, right? It's translucency and it's like really natural looking. So some pioneer in the field like that can have tons of experience and research and study to show you. But my number one resource is to go to the manufacturer and ask them, how do I do this?

That's the best. Read the instructions. Like, it's— they're the one that developed it. So if you want to like minimize your chances failure and maximize your chances of success, maybe just follow the rules.

Just follow the rules. Follow the recipe. If you change the recipe, it's not going to have a good outcome. So, yeah.

So, Katie, one of the things that I know our listeners will get this as they hear this is that you, in addition to like your obviously very good science background, you've got a really good business sense. So I want to kind of pick that a little bit. Do you, when it comes to, say, marketing, you know, do you— and, and I love your social media profiles and everything on there, so I'm asking this a little personally too— do you market yourself as like a biocompatible dentist? And, and if so, how do you go about finding the particular audience for your work that's most likely to be receptive to the concepts and products that you're using? Because You know, some people will find this like very argumentative and say like, you know, well, no, this is, this is not what we were taught. It's not like that. So how do you market yourself and gear that side of the business?

You know what? This question alone is like a 2-day seminar.

100%. But I was like, oh, I just really want to know.

So I can give you, we call this the $50,000 tips. So if you listen to this podcast, you better need to like stop what you're doing and listen right now. So the number one rule that we know, no matter you're doing wellness, biologicals, or pediatrics, or airways, or anything specialty, implant, full mouth rehab— so number one rule is you have to connect with the patient, especially these days with social media. They want to know who you are as a person outside the office. I don't have problems to to share with the patient on social media, like, hey, I'm actually going to take the CE this weekend. Like when I go to Amanda's CE course, I'm like, hey, I'm hanging out with my friend. Hey, I'm taking a vacation with my family in Cabo. I'm a human. So I'm always connect with patient. I love to share my children's story or my own personal story with the patient because nothing more powerful than a provider that went through what they going through. Hey, she actually had mercury toxicity. Hey, she had fertility issues. Wow, her kid having, you know, immune issues. I ordered the gut issues or the skin issues. Like, if you going through what they go through, immediately they connected with you. And number 2 rule in marketing is you have to educate and provide some helpful information. People scrolling so much every day, and if you don't provide any valuable information, why do they follow you? Why do they connect with you. So connect and educate. And number 3 for me is you got to position yourself as an authority in that topic. Nobody wants to go and get work done from a newbie. I'm pretty sure the reason your practice is so busy because you've been practicing for a long time, you're teaching, you're lecturing on stages, and they were like, I want, you know, Dr. Reza to do my case or take care of my kid. So I think a big part of marketing is authority marketing. You got to be able to overcome your public speaking phobia and share information, even like maybe with the ring light and in the closet, like closet, share your story, talk about your journey. And if you don't really go through that, know somebody in your practice or your patient going through it and share that and say, oh, I learned so much today. I would say being honest and connect and educate and positioning yourself. Is the authority in that topic, people just drawing to you.

That was, that was solid gold. That was way more than $50,000, as I hope our listeners are appreciating these nuggets of information. But it is, it's about the connection. That's with any business, you know, across platforms. I think that's great. I'm gonna not give such a broad question this time. This will be a little more controlled. Are there any particular companies that you find provide maybe a broader array of biocompatible products, maybe for the general dentist to use? If somebody's like, wow, I'm interested in this, but I have no idea because I'm just looking at my particular, you know, dental books and I'm using the same stuff, and they don't even know where to start. Are there any particular companies that you're like, well, this would be a great place to start because they have a good array of products? Products that you can kind of delve into.

Yes, I noticed that when we go to the show, we either like know somebody from the company or know somebody using the product, and we're like, oh, my friend used it and great results, I'm gonna use that. For me, there's so many, it doesn't matter from what continent, in Asia or Europe or American company, there's— these companies are well aware, especially, especially after the pandemic, they're well aware that people spend more and more time and money on wellness. You know that before COVID not many people having like tracker for their continuous glucose monitor, their sleep, right?

Their ring. I got one on my finger right now.

And it's all subscription. That's how they get you, right? So, so for me, knowing that these companies are way aware of the trend, way aware of the research, and what the consumer looking for. So it doesn't matter what company— like, for example, Ultradent. Ultradent have a lot of great product. VOCO have a lot of great product. GC from Japan have a lot of great product. And I would say Ivoclar is my favorite. I'm using a lot of Ivoclar product, but not all patients is compatible with Ivoclar product, even though that's what I have in the practice, like majority of my composite. So I carry VOCO because a lot of my patients are compatible with VOCO So for me, reach out to company, asking them like, what material, do you have BPA in this, right? Patients are all concerned about, you know, if it's the resin, is the BPA in it? If it's glass anomer, how the fluoride being released? I would say be genuinely interested in the science. And so when patient asks you, you having solid information to answer versus kind of like, oh, That's, that's just not what we're doing. I think there's emotional and there's a science base. If you always science-based, people may not like your answer, but they respect you because science is science.

And you have something to back it up with.

Yeah, but if it's emotional, you're like, oh, that's just her opinion. No, this is what's research. I know you don't like my answer, right? Because I have patients that said, oh, I don't want fluoride in my kid, but the only material work for that case is glass ionomer.

Right.

What? I'm going to use that. And if you don't want me to treat your kid, you can have your kid treated by someone else, and that's okay. So for me, regardless what company you work with, ask about a material, and you know, you'll be surprised. They love to give you a sample. They want you to use it. They want you to be educated. They want you to learn more about it. So I think that as a dentist, our responsibility is really get to know the company voice what we want and what we need. So they just not hear from the patient, they also hear from the dentist that, hey, we need more biocompatible material, we need more material that easy to deliver. I know SDI is an Australian company, just come out with material that compatible, like you don't even have to etch, you don't have to light cure, that you just mix it, applied it, and you're done. I mean, for a lot of cases, especially pediatric dentists, I'm like, I want that material, right?

Absolutely. It's about just to be a great product and we can be efficient. You know, one of the things that I've heard you say repeatedly is this really seems like it's, it's a worldwide movement, right? It's like it's not just happening in the States. Now, do you think that there's any particular, um, like any particular countries that are kind of leading the way in advancing biocompatible dentistry? And if so, what do you think it's going to take for like this movement— I like to call it a movement— to be more readily accepted as like the approach to clinical care kind of globally?

Oh great, I, I— this is like so deep, it's so deep what, what I'm thinking and, and seeing every day. Number one, you know, is an American dentist, I have to say we the leader. So many countries in the world want to say that, hey, we banned amalgam 2007. You know what, but the world watching us, like Asia watching it, Europe watching us, South America watching us. Um, we still like a biggest market for all the technology and materials. So if America adopts something, the world will follow. And so I think that not just for our patient but for the world, we have a bigger responsibility. And this movement is going to be starting with us because not only that, we have such a— as a country, we have a huge amount of dentists compared to the whole, you know, continent in Europe and in Asia and, you know, so many places. And I would say combined between US and Canada, we have just a huge amount. So in just us, we adopt this movement by being open-minded, by learning more about what our medical colleague and what our patients are looking for. I think the biggest reward is actually we learned so much about our body that we get healthier, our children get healthier, our family get healthier, our team get healthier. And you were like, oh, I started this journey, just want to learn more from my patient. I realized that my team now know more, I know more. And so now everyone benefit from it. So I think this movement is unstoppable. The world is already heading to this direction. You probably notice the Black Friday. Everything is wellness, like the cold plunge, the sauna, the treadmill, the bike. I mean, everything is about not just live longer, but live healthier. So in our practice, we always talk about confident smile for healthy life. You can't be smiling unless you're healthy, and you cannot have a healthy body unless you have a healthy mouth. So you know what, dentists, we are so important in that role. And if we don't start this movement, who will?

Yeah. Oh, that is awesome. Katie, if people want to learn more about this, learn more about you, what's the best way for them to follow your journey? Um, you know, whether it's on like social media, can you just give a little bit of that contact info so as our listeners can, can log on and actually just start, start following this and they can be part of the movement as well? Absolutely.

If you, you want to listen to more, just subscribe to podcast. Podcast. Follow Dr. Aza. Like, he have amazing, uh, social media. So fun, so educated. Uh, obviously, like, I love, um, you know, connect with people on DM on Instagram. DM me, connect me. Dr. Katie To is my handle. And same thing on Facebook, Dr. Katie To. And website, drkatietodds.com.

Yeah. And I'll say this, as somebody who, who follows you. Um, the stories are great. It, and it really is like you're very true to your word. It is very educational. Like when we hopped on before we recorded, we were talking about vacation. I only knew about that because I saw it on social media. So I was like, how was the concert? How was this? So I, I 100% would recommend everybody to follow, follow Katie. Uh, while you're at it, make sure you follow the Little Slang Podcast and also give me a follow while you're at it at Dr. Reza Ardalan. Katie, thank you Dr. Katie To, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the Dental Slang Podcast. We appreciate you so much.

Thank you. I love all your questions. Thank you so much for having me.

I love it. And to all of our listeners, thank you for joining us, and we look forward to talking to you again the next time on the Dental Slang Podcast.