Dr. Victoria Rose Veytsman (DR. V) discusses the emotional and mental aspects that accompany dental transformations and how patients’ past trauma or lack of childhood care can lead to insecurities and poor oral health. She defines a "smile makeover" as cosmetic and restorative treatments (primarily porcelain restorations, veneers, full-mouth rehabilitations, anti-aging dentistry) performed holistically with facial symmetry and patient-specific design in mind, noting broad benefits for confidence and systemic health. The interview also covers her all-female practice model, patient comfort, and brief advice to female entrepreneurs to persist and make the next best decision.
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There is a huge emotional mental component to undergoing any kind of transition, whether it be dental or otherwise. You know, we see patients that a lot of times have had trauma growing up, or like you mentioned, didn't have the resources as a child to get the care that they needed. And that resulted in major insecurities, not ideal oral health, you know, and that can really emotionally affect people as they get older and step out into the world. So when we undertake these cases and do these transformations, we see that everyone really has a story behind it. You know, often patients will come in, say, during a major life event. You know, they're wanting to get back into the job market or a wedding, a divorce, and they just want to feel more confident, feel better about themselves. Yeah. What is a smile makeover? So a smile makeover is anything you can do to your smile to obviously make it look more beautiful, make it healthier. We do primarily porcelain restorations. We don't use any metal in our practice. We do things like anti aging dentistry, where we can really take 10 to 15 years off of a patient's face just with a smile makeover. And when we do our smile designs, we take into account the entire face. We have a very holistic view and approach to smile design. We want to make sure that we enhance the symmetry, balance and harmony of the face. It's not about getting the perfect smile, but it's about getting one that's unique and tailor made to you. So we do porcelain veneers, we do full mouth rehabilitations where someone may have had, like old crowns in their mouth that are 30 years old and all need to be replaced. So we do a lot of work like that. That's actually one of favorite things to do, sort of out with the old, in with the new. And that has a tremendous impact on patients. Confidence, overall health, you know, the way they feel about themselves and just the knowledge that their mouth and smile is healthier. It just feels good when, you know you're taking. Taking care of yourself. Feels good. So I see oftentimes when patients have had a smile makeover now, they get the confidence, like I said, to do other things and make other changes. I've seen happened so many times. Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people don't realize that your dental health does affect your overall health and vice versa. I mean, everything in your body is an interconnected system. You know, they're not two independent things. The mouth is a big part of your overall health. Any bacteria in your mouth, if there's bacterial overgrowth, can travel to other parts of your body. And conversely too, any inflammation that's going, going on in your body. A lot of times the first place we see it is in the mouth. So they're very connected and, you know, it's not often seen that way. Dentistry is sometimes seen as the lone ranger of the medical field, but yeah, it's very important to take care of your oral health just for systemic reasons. Oh, my God. Well, thank you for calling it an empire. I would hardly call it that. I think everything is a work in progress. But thank you. Day by day, you start with a vision. And we started, like I said, with one patient. And I can't say that when I started I had thought that, you know, we would be bi coastal or anything like that. But it's really about making the next best decision as it's presented to you. And as far as having an all female practice, that was just a natural progression. You know, I find that being that 90% of my patients are women, they're females, you know, of all ages, the comfort level of having an all female staff, it's just different. This is what we hear from patients. And again, that wasn't super intentional. But as we trial and error, we saw that that just worked better for our practice, our demographic, especially when patients are, you know, in our office in these vulnerable, you know, situations. And it can be, you know, it's a vulnerable experience. So I find that patients do feel comfortable with our female staff. We understand, know what it feels like to want to look good, to want to feel confident, so we can actually understand the emotional and mental component that goes into all of this. What advice would I give a female entrepreneur? I mean, keep pursuing your vision. You know, it will likely have a few bumps along the way, but don't let that deter you and just keep putting one foot in front of the other and making the next best decision. You may not have the whole path clearly laid out in front of you in your head, but just making that next right decision, right step, will eventually lead you to where you want to be.
