Episode #392: Is the Stoneage of Dentistry Dead?, with Dr. John Cranham & Lee Culp, CDT

Does a dental practice with robots and artificial intelligence sound far-fetched? It may seem like science fiction, but advances in digital dentistry make the impossible a reality. In today’s episode, Kirk Behrendt brings Dr. John Cranham and Lee Culp, CDT on the show to discuss how digital dentistry has evolved, the challenges it presents, their brand-new collaboration of Cranham Culp Digital Dentistry, and much more. To find out why the future of dental is digital, listen to Episode 392 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways: 

• Digital dentistry is primarily about communication, and making things is secondary.
• A scanner is the best place to start when first going digital.
• Today’s software is easy and fun to use.
• If there’s a focus on digital during dental school, it will become second nature to young dentists.
• The future of dentistry is moving toward digital, even to the extent of robotics and artificial intelligence.

Quotes:

• “When we look at digital dentistry—and this is where it’s so important—digital dentistry is more about communication than anything else. Making things actually becomes secondary to the communication we have as a dental team, whether it’s restorative dentists, periodontists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, laboratory, whatever. We build virtual patients, and diagnose and treatment plan and restore, if necessary, those patients that we’ve created digitally as a team, on a computer, at the same time, while we’re all looking at the same patient. That’s never been done in the history of dentistry, and that’s really what we can do today, so we can virtually do anything you can conceive.” (07:11—07:59)
• “One of the things I think challenges doctors that look at it, is they tend to look at the technologies like a scanner, and they look at the CBCT, and they look at maybe T-scan or a variety of different things, but what they lack often is a way to bring all of these technologies together to be able to evaluate data and to be able to treatment plan and to then make things like wax-ups and provisionals and splints, and all these things. And so that’s where I think the next real evolution is—getting software in the practice that allows the team to, as Lee would say, either be doing things completely in-house or share with an orthodontist or surgeon, and communicate in a way that, if you pull something up and share a virtual instrument through Team Viewer, they can be a hundred thousand miles away and still be like you’re sitting right next to each other.” (10:21—11:24)
• “I think the first thing is you get a scanner and you learn how to scan for simple crowns. My concern is a lot of doctors stop there; it’s like the scanner becomes only for simple things, where they can be doing diagnostics and interfacing with labs and utilizing at a much higher level. To me the message is…digital provides us the ability to visualize three-dimensionally for simple and complex things so much better and easier than ever before. And so what I’m most excited about is the ability for doctors to really embrace comprehensive care in maybe a way that they’ve avoided.” (18:23—19:14)
• “The software available today is very easy, very intuitive, very fun to use, and it’s great for diagnostics—for just looking at models on an articulator, for just evaluating while the patient is in the chair. The world of digital doesn’t even really know this or comprehend that you can do these things. So, I think that’s our message today—the software or the systems are so much more powerful to do all kinds of things that you didn’t even know they were capable of, and John and I want to bring that to the world and show people how much better it can be, doing what you’re doing, and doing a whole lot more—doing it digital.” (20:06—20:49)
• “Since we’re not dealing with any physical, three-dimensional objects—it’s all virtual—it goes right into the software, and we can design a denture in about the same time—30-40 minutes. More predictable, more accurate than can ever be done by hand.” (24:56—25:14)
• “Dental offices really have the capacity if they have the printer, to print some of these diagnostic things. We’re printing all our diagnostic wax-ups and doing a lot of this in-house, and that’s really exciting.” (25:29—25:41)
• “People like Pete Dawson had their own master technician in their practice, and it kind of went away because there’s so many materials, but more and more this digital thing is bringing the ability to create things in the dental office if that’s what the doctor desires.” (25:47—26:03)
• “For the young doc, I think one of the biggest challenges is figuring out ‘Where do you want to go?’ Because you can spend all your time running all over, and it can be too much, so I think you have to really focus on what it is you want to become and look for the best sources that you feel comfortable with that’s going to be in line with your values.” (27:42—28:06)
• “There’s a lot of phenomenal educators out there, but I still haven’t seen anybody doing full-blown courses, education, diagnostics, and everything based on a digital format…you’ve got this elephant of education, and to try and change it…to try and change everything to digital, to take an existing educational format and try to change it into digital, that’s tough. That is tough, but if you live it every day, to create education based on digital, because that’s what you do…that’s what John and I are trying to do.” (28:19—29:08)
• “One of the most rewarding things of dentistry is to remember that we always have the opportunity to change and evolve and get better. And I’m honestly having more fun in dentistry maybe than I’ve ever had, partly because I visualized this 15 or 16 years ago; I could see where this was going. And when I think about AI and robotics, it’s really just the next level past what we’re doing right.” (33:49—34:17)
• “I think one of the first things we’re going to see is full AI for doing dentures. Just push a button, it looks, it measures; there’s so much math involved in doing a denture, I just think we’re going to see that go pretty quickly, and then as other things come in, we’ll see AI starting to take over those designs also.” (35:46—36:06)
• “I think what we’re really after is creating a community of first, quality-oriented dentists—dentists that care about occlusion, care about esthetics, care about biologic health—but have the passion of doing this inside of a digital framework.” (39:03—39:21)
• “There’s a lot of really great education on how to make something. There’s not a good amount of education on really how to look at the patient and how to use digital dentistry to serve a patient—to diagnose, how to treatment plan, all the options and the efficiency and the speed at which you can report that back. (41:42—42:06)

Snippets:

• 01:18 Introduction.
• 02:37 Lee’s background.
• 03:44 Dr. Cranham’s background.
• 06:12 Evolution of digital dentistry.
• 10:20 Pitfalls of digital dentistry.
• 11:45 Relationship between the lab and the dentist.
• 14:45 Young dentists and technology.
• 16:44 Building a digital system.
• 19:25 Nobody really knows the power of the software.
• 20:49 Dr. Cranham and Lee’s process.
• 24:22 Turnaround time for the process.
• 25:16 Creating more in the office.
• 26:06 What’s missing from dental education?
• 29:09 Will digital take away from the technician or dentist?
• 34:22 AI and the future of dentistry.
• 38:40 Cranham Culp Digital Dental.
• 44:10 Wrap up.

Reach out to Dr. Cranham & Lee:

Dr. Cranham’s Instagram: @johnccranhamdds

Dr. Cranham’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.c.cranham 

Lee’s Instagram: @leeculpcdt

Lee’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.culp.cdt  

Cranham Culp Digital Dental website: https://www.ccdigitaldental.com

Cranham Culp Digital Dental Instagram: @cranhamculpdigitaldental

Dr Cranham Bio:

Dr. John C. Cranham is a highly respected and renowned dentist in Chesapeake, VA. At his state-of-the-art office, he delivers unsurpassed general dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, and restorative dentistry, including TMJ THERAPY and DENTAL IMPLANT SERVICES. Dr. Cranham uses his vast experience and expansive knowledge to create healthy, natural-looking smiles.

Dr. Cranham was an honors graduate of the Medical College of Virginia in 1988. He’s an internationally recognized speaker on the esthetic principles of smile design, contemporary occlusal concepts, treatment planning, restoration selection, digital photography, laboratory communication, and happiness and fulfillment in dentistry.

Dr. Cranham founded Cranham Dental Seminars, which provides lectures, mobile programs, and intensive hands-on experiences to dentists around the world. In 2008, Cranham Dental Seminars merged with THE DAWSON ACADEMY, a world-famous continuing education facility based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

As The Dawson Academy’s acting Clinical Director, Dr. Cranham is involved with many of the courses and provides continuing education to dental professionals across the globe. He spends approximately two-thirds of his time in private practice and the other third as an educator. He believes this balance keeps him on the leading edge of both disciplines.

A published author, Dr. Cranham is committed to providing the highest quality patient care, as well as developing sound educational programs that exceed the needs of today’s dental professional.

He is an active member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Dental Association, American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, American Academy of Fixed Prosthodontics, and American Equilibration Society.

Peter E. Dawson, D.D.S. is considered to be one of the most influential clinicians and teachers in the history of dentistry. He is the founder of the “Concept of Complete Dentistry Series” as well as The Dawson Academy.

Lee Culp Bio:

Lee Culp, CDT is the CEO of Sculpture Studios, a dental laboratory, education and, research and product development center, for new and innovative digital dental technologies, and their applied applications to diagnostic, restorative and surgical dentistry. He is a pioneer in digital dentistry, and a leading resource/inventor for many of the materials, products, and techniques used in dentistry today, and holds numerous patents for his ideas and products. Lee writes many articles per year, and his writing, photography, and teaching style have brought him international recognition, as one of today’s most exciting lecturers and innovative artisans in the specialty of digital dentistry, dental ceramics and functional esthetics.

He is the 2007 recipient of the Kenneth Rudd Award from the American Society of Prosthodontics, the 2007 recipient of the AACD Presidents Award for Excellence in Dental Education, as well as the 2003 recipient of the National Association of Dental Laboratories, Excellence in Education Award, and the 2013 American College of Prosthodontics-Dental Technician Leadership Award, as well as the 2014 Spectrum Publishing-Lifetime Achievement award, and the Dr Peter Dawson-Dawson Academy 2016 – Dentistry Distinguished Service Award.

He is a leading resource/inventor for many of the materials, products, and techniques used in dentistry today, and holds numerous patents for his ideas and products.  Lee writes many articles per year, and his writing, photography, and teaching style have brought him international recognition, as one of today’s most exciting lecturers and innovative artisans in the specialty of digital dentistry, dental ceramics and functional esthetics.