Dentaltown March 2013 - (Page 16)

howard speaks column » Dentistry Could Come Back with a Vengeance by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine This recession has been hard on all of us, but there is a little economic secret that you all should know that will turn your frowns upside down. It’s called pent-up demand, and you’re going to be seeing the results of it very soon. During an economic contraction, if you decide at lunchtime you are not going to go to Arby’s and get a sandwich, fries and a Coke, but instead bring a sack lunch to work, Arby’s loses that sale. It’s finite, they’re never going to get it back. Knowing money is tight, you go home and instead of taking the family out to the local Mexican restaurant, you might stay home and eat Ramen noodles. That’s a sale the Mexican restaurant will never ever see. This always happens in down economies. The thing we all need to keep in mind is with the nine recessions we’ve seen since World War II – the current one being the 10th – the economy always comes flying back. Why? You might not be spending discretionary income on things you don’t need, like going out to lunch or getting a facial, but you are still driving your car, your tires are getting bald, you’re still using the refrigerator you’ve meant to replace for years, lightbulbs need to be replaced, etc. Important things are breaking down; they are things you use every day that you need to replace soon before you end up in the dark, with a flat on the side of the road or with a refrigerator full of spoiled food. That also pertains to dentistry and orthodontics. I’m 50 years old and when I was kid growing up in Kansas, there were a lot of families that had around five children. Usually then the child with the most crooked teeth was the only one in the family who got braces. Now, with birth control and as America progressed, we average around two children per family, and every child gets ortho. Since the beginning of the recession in 2007, a lot of orthodontic practices have experienced a huge drop in the number of cases they’ve started. Several ortho practices have had to shut their doors because of this. For the ones who have stuck this recession out, I want to remind you that all those families who put off braces for their children over the last five years are going to come back and get braces soon. It’s pent-up demand! Maybe Molly didn’t get braces at 12, but she’s sure as heck going to straighten her teeth when she’s 16! Maybe she’ll even pay for Invisalign herself when she gets her first job out of college. You might not have seen her in the last five years, but I guarantee you’re going to see a lot of her soon when she finally comes around to get treatment. The economy is coming back in America. They say it’s always darkest right before sunrise, and I’m here to tell you I’m already seeing the sunrise in Phoenix, Arizona. We were hit massively hard here during the recession. Construction companies were building 60,000 homes a year here up to 2006, and after the great economic contraction, that number shrank to 10,000. All the people it took to build those other 50,000 homes each year lost their jobs. Home prices contracted big time. Also during this time, around 150 dental offices here in the Valley of the Sun closed their doors forever. The other issue we had in Arizona was until recently the state didn’t have a dental school. Now we have two: Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health – A.T. Still University, and The College of Dental Medicine-Arizona (CDMA) at Midwestern University. See Fig. 1 for the number of new dentists each school has graduated since 2007: DENTAL GRADUATES Fig. 1 Year A. T. Still CDMA 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 53 54 54 55 59 69 – – – – – 110 continued on page 18 16 MARCH 2013 » dentaltown.com http://www.dentaltown.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown March 2013

Dentaltown.com Highlights
Howard Speaks: Dentistry Could Come Back with a Vengeance
Professional Courtesy: I’m No Anti-Dentite
Continuing Education Update
Second Opinion: Should Endodontists Place Implants?
Needle Stick Question
Am I the Only One Who Didn’t Know How to Use My Loupes?
The Patient Blames Me for Cracking His Tooth
Corporate Profile: {KöR}
CAD/CAM Materials
Dentaltown Research: Cosmetic Dentistry
Do-it-Yourself Finance, Part IV: Savings and Investing
Product Profile: Centrix
Keep Them Coming Back
You Should Know: Likeable Dentists
Multimodality Endodontics
Endodontics for the Recent Graduate: Instrumentation
Continuing Education Porcelain Veneers: From Case Selection to Cementation
8½ Tips for Dental Safety Checklists
How Prepared Are You For a Medical Emergency?
Dental Stem Cell Preservation and the Dawning of Regenerative Oral Medicine
Product Profile: Ivoclar EvoCerem
Narrow Diameter Implant Overdentures with Locator Attachments
In This Issue: Zeroing in on Xerostomia
Perio Reports
Ad Index
Profile in Oral Health: Substances for Targeting Xerostomia
Dentally Incorrect

Dentaltown March 2013