Implementing Dental Photography in your Practice with Dr. Dawn Wehking, DDS

Host: Ladies and gentleman, this is the Dental Up podcast. Brought to you by Keating Dental Lab, a full-service award-winning dental laboratory. Each week you’ll learn tips and techniques from real world dentists bringing you in depth interviews, motivating stories, current events and sports. Here is your special host, the senior technical advisor for Keating Dental Lab, Brandon Fetters. Brandon Fetters: Hey everybody, Brandon here. Welcome to another episode of the Dental Up podcast. Our guest this week graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. She was awarded the Masters status with the Academy of General Dentistry. She is a visiting faculty member at the Spear Education, a speaker for the ADA and has been published in numerous dental publications nationwide. Currently practicing from Lafayette, Colorado. Please welcome Dr. Dawn Wehking, DDS, MAGD. How’s it going, Dr. Wehking? Dr. Wehking: Hey, I’m great. How are you? Brandon Fetters: Doing well, thank you. Appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to meet with us here on the podcast. Dr. Wehking: Yeah, thanks for having me again. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, you got it. Yeah, because what was it back in I think May 2018, you were on the show with us. So I appreciate you returning. Dr. Wehking: Yeah, thanks a lot. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, so we can kind of recap on everything, because I’m sure there might be a couple of repeat questions, but just for our listeners that may not be familiar. What was it that drew you toward dentistry and why did you want to become a dentist? Dr. Wehking: Well, initially I really wanted to own a bar and so I went to school as a business major, because I just liked the energy of the whole bar, restaurant scene. And of course after working a couple of summers in a bar, I decided that maybe that wasn’t really what I wanted in terms of hours and lifestyle, but in a lot of ways, I think dentistry fits that same goal for me. My mom had mentioned dentistry when I was a kid, because I always was pretty mechanically-oriented and I like to do stuff with my hands. But in my world, my office is sort of run with that same energy, like a bar. I kind of want everyone to feel like they’re in that. You remember that TV show Cheers? Brandon Fetters: Oh yeah. Dr. Wehking: Where everybody knows your name. So when people come into our office we’re like, “Hey Tom, how was your weekend?” Brandon Fetters: Oh, that’s awesome. Dr. Wehking: So we’re part of the community and in a lot of ways it’s that same energy, which is fun. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, no doubt. That certainly would help with the customer retention, I would imagine. Does it not? Dr. Wehking: Right. Yeah. We’ve got some big fans. Brandon Fetters: That’s awesome. And now when you were changing your career path, where did you end up attending school? Dr. Wehking: I went to undergrad at the University of Central Florida, in Orlando and then when I, dental school in Maryland. Brandon Fetters: Most excellent. Dr. Wehking: So, yeah. Brandon Fetters: And throughout the years of practicing, did you end up having a procedure that you found is your favorite to do? Dr. Wehking: Oh my gosh, I love anterior composite. And if you would’ve told me that in the beginning that this would be my thing, I would have told you, you were crazy. But, for me it’s so artistic and I’ve found a way to, in the right occlusion, it just works so well and it’s super conservative and I love to be able to offer that to patients where most people won’t. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, and I saw that you had published, was it the Dentin Samich, is that what it was? I believe I saw in quotes. Is that how you say it? Like a sandwich, like making sandwiches? Dr. Wehking: Yeah, I can’t believe they’re still asking me to write for them. I came out with the article called the Dentin Samich. But yeah, that was my first article for peer education and it was just about kind of simplifying that procedure. So you can turn an interior composite into a three or four hour process, if you’re really layering it and making it super artistic. And the truth is not a lot of those details you can see in person, from a social distance. So that article was just about simplifying a little bit, so you can make it work better financially in your office and make it easier for more dentists to do it. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, Imagine quite a bit easier on the patient’s pocketbook too. Dr. Wehking: Oh totally. Yeah. Brandon Fetters: That’s great. Do you actually, now obviously you’re doing all that in-house, do you outsource any procedures? Dr. Wehking: I have decided that I hate endo too much to spend any time on that. So yeah, I said no endo and some surgery and assholes, I don’t do assholes anymore. Brandon Fetters: Good choice. Dr. Wehking: We outsource those. Brandon Fetters: Now, when it comes to your practice, how would you describe the layout of your practice and do you actually have a certain area in your office that you’re shooting your photos? Dr. Wehking: I’ve just got a real small little house, so I work usually out of just one operatory. We’ve got three total, and my operatorys big enough that we have a little corner that I set up a little photo studio in. But, more often than not, I kind of just use the wall and a speed light to do the portrait photography. So actually, that’s one of my upcoming articles for Spear, is kind of simplifying that whole portrait process. So you don’t need all of the studio lights and the soft boxes and all the complicated stuff. Brandon Fetters: Got you. Now, how did you get into photography, because I saw that you did have some publications with that as well. Dr. Wehking: Yeah, I started going to a lot of CE and in that process I noticed that all of the good dentists were taking photos. It’s just, I put it off for a long time because, buying all of the equipment is a little bit expensive and then learning how to use it and stuff seemed overwhelming. But God, I wish I had done it so much sooner, I think it’s probably the best money could buy. And it helped, as you guys know, with the lab communication to send a photo versus just to say make it A2, helped with my website a lot to have nice photos of the work that I’ve done, and with patient presentations. Holy cow, you could blow somebody’s teeth up to the size of a head and really show them what the problem is, then they can’t really argue with you when you tell them that they need certain treatment. Brandon Fetters: Yeah. And yeah, just like you mentioned about from the lab point of view, that’s so true. I mean getting those nice digital photos, oh, it’s so extraordinarily helpful. Now you mentioned about the equipment. Is there any equipment that you would suggest that dentists purchase for them to begin taking their digital photos? Dr. Wehking: Yeah, you can get into it pretty cheap. I think the biggest key is to get a camera with a preset option, so that you can kind of set your settings and then not worry about it. So you’re not always having to redo the aperture and shutter speed. So I have a Nikon D7000, and that has two presets. So one, is that to keep photos. One is, that the portrait photos and now that kind of took over and does all of that. So we don’t have to worry about changing the settings. And then, we’ve also got a twin flash on the camera. You can get real artsy with the twin flashes, more so than just a ring flash, and then the light is a little bit nicer than if you did just the ring flash. And then, if you really want to do more portrait stuff you can get a speed light. So, I mean all in, you can probably get a really nice setup under $2,000 and I would say it’s the best money you could spend. I use my camera more than I use the digital sensor that I bought for the office. Brandon Fetters: Got you. Now are you doing all the photography yourself or have you trained some of your office staff to take the photos as well? Dr. Wehking: Both. I started doing it myself, because I think you can’t teach your staff to do it and until you really know what you’re doing. I started doing it myself first, and now the team takes some for all of our new patients. And then if we have, we do some photo shoots when we’re done with the big case and usually I take that over cause it’s just, I think it’s fun. Brandon Fetters: Excellent. Now, you had mentioned about the photos helping your website. What else have you done for your marketing strategy as far as maybe the, I’m sorry, as far as social media as well as mailers, anything of that sort. What do you do to help your practice in that regard? Dr. Wehking: The website’s been really big. We’ve got a decent number of Google reviews and so that brings a lot of traffic to the website. But, really being a member of our community has helped so much, so people are into our office energy, dynamic that we’ve got going on and they tell their friends about it, and that’s helped a lot. And we’ve got this referral program, that’s also helped where, I feel like it’s uncomfortable for everybody to ask for referrals, and so we do something where it’s if you refer a friend then we’ll donate to a local charity on your behalf. It’s made it easier for us to ask for the referral, but then they get a nice letter after that, afterwards that’s like, “Hey, thanks for your referral. We’ve donated this money to this local charity” and that’s been really great. Brandon Fetters: That’s awesome. Yeah, now I know that you’ve, Oh sorry, go ahead, keep going. Dr. Wehking: No, I’m sorry. We tried those mailers, and boy that was a huge fail. Brandon Fetters: Just spending all that postage, and not getting much return. Dr. Wehking: Oh my God, I think we got one patient out of like a $10,000 campaign. Brandon Fetters: Oh wow. That’s definitely one to notate through, for those new dentists out there. Dr. Wehking: Yeah. Did not work for me. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, I got you. Now I know that you do some speaking for, do you still speak for Spear? Dr. Wehking: I do mentoring for Spear, so they have a number of hands on courses and so I’ll go and help just with the hands on stuff. So, they call it more like a mentor or visiting faculty. And then, I’m a success speaker for the ADA, which means that they’ve got this program in the dental schools, where you kind of go and talk about life after dental school and just to get the students excited about finally starting their career. Brandon Fetters: Yeah. Oh, that’s great. Have you attended any dental conventions so far this year? Dr. Wehking: I went to the AACD is my favorite meeting of the year, they’ve got all these really great hands on courses. And Spear just had their faculty club summit in September, and that’s always amazing. The Rocky Mountain Dental Convention, is coming up in January, and I’m excited to go with my team and we’ll make a weekend out it. Brandon Fetters: That’s awesome. Do you have anything other than the Rocky Mountain coming up here soon? Dr. Wehking: Well, then the cycle starts over again, so then we’ll be back to a AACD and the faculty club for Spear. Brandon Fetters: Awesome. Awesome. Now kind of switching gears, going back toward the digital factor of the photography and all that. What are your thoughts on the impression scanners and CAD/CAM technologies? Dr. Wehking: I think it’s so cool. I haven’t gone there yet. Every year I started to look into it and I just haven’t done it yet. I feel like my ceramist has been doing this for 20, 30 years and they’re experts and I don’t want to learn how to be an expert in making crowns and onlays when it’s working right now. Brandon Fetters: Got you. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Dr. Wehking: Yeah. And maybe that’s a narrow-minded view of it, but I don’t know. I keep looking into it and it’s like, God, you could take a lot of impressions for the cost of a scanner and in my little tiny office, I just don’t know that I do enough numbers to justify it, you know? Brandon Fetters: Yeah, as a viable option, I hear you. Now, when you’re not actually practicing, what do you tend to do when you’re not working? Dr. Wehking: Oh, I’ve been a little adventurer this year. I’ve been to Italy, and hiked in the Grand Canyon and Havasupai, went to Costa Rica and then camping. Brandon Fetters: Wow. Dr. Wehking: It’s been really awesome. Brandon Fetters: That’s great. Making me jealous. Dr. Wehking: Yeah. You know what, It’s all back to the whole photography thing in a weird way. You learn photography and the dentistry and then I was like, God I have this nice camera, I should really learn how to use it. And so, a lot of the adventuring, it comes down to I’m always trying to get a nice photo and it makes me get out and about a little bit more, because I’m like okay, now I have to hike this mountain to get a cool shot. Brandon Fetters: Awesome. So you’re doing some landscape photography as well? Dr. Wehking: Yeah, I mean not a lot, but I went to Italy for a landscape photography workshop. That was amazing. It’s been really fun. Brandon Fetters: That’s cool. Do you display any of your work around the office? Dr. Wehking: No, but that said I need to, because that’s a whole nother level to this thing, is learning how to Photoshop them and make them look a little bit nicer. And then printing them is just another level of, I mean I guess I’m a little bit like hesitant to print them, because you wonder what if a professional photographer comes in and starts judging it. But, I guess that’s what we all deal with, posting things online and everything. It’s a little bit of a humility I guess that comes with it. Brandon Fetters: Yeah. Yeah. Anytime you’re putting your art out for the rest of the world to judge, you kind of have that little risk kind of going with it, don’t you. Dr. Wehking: Totally, yeah. Brandon Fetters: Now, along with the photography there’s, we do have quite a few young dentists that listen to the podcast. What would you be willing to share that you’ve done differently with your practice? Dr. Wehking: Well, in terms of photography, I would say I wish I had started sooner. Like I said, I put it off for a couple of years because it was sort of expensive and I was like, I don’t know if it would actually be worth spending that money on it. And I’ll say, you can’t afford not to do the photography. You’ll, you know patients will accept treatment way quicker. And just in terms of showing off your work on your website, I kind of think, who cares if you’re doing great dentistry if you can’t show it off. And before you’re doing great dentistry, because there is this window of like, Oh that looks like crap, I don’t want to take a picture of that. But, if you photograph even the crappy stuff then it helps you learn, you can look at it and be like, Oh, I see there where I should have done something a little bit different. Brandon Fetters: Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, those before and afters really are a great tool to be using. Dr. Wehking: Oh, totally. You know, aside from the photography, I just wish that I went a little gung ho on CE for a little while, because man I sucked when I got out of school and I think most people do and it was helpful to be like, dude, I suck at this. How am I going to get better? And I think that if I took a ton of CE, and I think you could be the best dentist ever and run your office into the ground, which I can’t say I came close to it, but it’s so different, where as a dentist you wear so many hats. You’re expected to run this business and be an amazing dentist. And I just wish I had a little bit more business training before I did my whole practice thing. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, certainly. Now when you’re doing your before and after photos, do you share those on Dentaltown? Dr. Wehking: No, I don’t. I haven’t been on Dentaltown in a little while, but I used to search Dentaltown a lot. I put them more on Instagram, Facebook, and then just my website. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, you’re going to reach more potential customers that way anyhow, right? Dr. Wehking: Yeah. Brandon Fetters: Do you have any, now as we move forward with the dental industry, do you have any concerns about the future? Dr. Wehking: No, I think, I feel like there’s always going to be a place for really high quality care. And kind of where dentistry is going, I think it’s even more important to just set yourself apart, make sure you’re providing really high level care. I’m not in network with a lot of insurance, so I think it depends on the setting for sure. If you decide you’re going to be scared or not. And there are a lot of people who just are really concerned about the future of dentistry, and they’re really negative about it. And I think that I’ve just decided, I don’t want to spend time with them anymore, because the flip side is you get to hang out with the people who are super excited about dentistry and excited about setting their offices apart and incorporating new technology and that feels better to me. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, that’s a better vibe to be around. Dr. Wehking: Than to be doom and gloom. Brandon Fetters: Yes, good choice. Dr. Wehking: Yeah, thanks. Brandon Fetters: All right. So now, speaking of the Spear Education. Do you ever visit the Spear Education Headquarters, in Arizona? Dr. Wehking: Oh yeah, I’m there, I used to be like kind of a nutcase and I was going like eight times a year for a little while. I’m really dialing it down and I’m going three to four times a year now. I’m not going to be back there until, I think February this year, and I kind of don’t know what to do with myself, because I love it there so much. But yes, I go a lot. Brandon Fetters: Excellent. And are there any courses or seminars that you would recommend for other dentists? Dr. Wehking: My favorite is facially generated treatment planning and that’s one that I go and mentor quite a bit. It’s so valuable. I think, like I said, I really sucked when I got out of school and you know, you don’t realize what you don’t know. And that course facially generated treatment planning, is where I sort of realized like, Holy cow, there’s so much that I don’t know. And it felt so good to just learn and get better and then go back and continue the process. So for me, that’s, I tell everybody, you have to start there and then you’ll figure out what you’re into after that. Brandon Fetters: Excellent. And are you do, I know you had mentioned about how once we hit 2020, you know the whole year kind of starts back over. Are you planning on doing any more speaking engagements in the year to come? Dr. Wehking: No, they’ll be doing stuff with the ADA, if they’ll continue to have me. I’m working hard on finishing my accreditation cases for the AACD. I’ve got one more to go, so hopefully this year is the year for that. And then, I hope to just take some more trips. I’m looking at Costa Rica, maybe Machu Picchu. I really want to wrap the Grand Canyon this year, so we’ll see. Brandon Fetters: Yeah, I was actually about to ask, because considering all the adventuring that you did this year. So you still have more to go for next year, huh? Dr. Wehking: Yeah, it’s too fun. Yeah, I love it. Brandon Fetters: Excellent. Well, Dr. Wehking, a really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show with us. It’s been great having you on again. I just want to thank you so very much. Dr. Wehking: Yeah, thank you so much for having me again. I really appreciate it. Brandon Fetters: You got it. We’ll take care of yourself. Bye. Bye. Dr. Wehking: Okay, you to. Bye. Host: Thanks for joining us on the Dental Up podcast show this week. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or search the Dental Up podcast on iTunes for our weekly feed. Don’t forget to visit keatingdentallab.com/promo for exclusive offers. Keating dental arts is a full service dental laboratory and we’re nationwide. We’d love for you to send us a case, so we can show you the Keating difference. If you dig what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes and we’ll be back next week.