Dr. Yong Peng San
“What made you decide that your practice had to go digital?"
To remain competitive, to be ahead of time, but the most important thing is that I always think of my patients. What can we do for them? What is the best value that we can deliver to them? Most of our patients request for consistency, a predictable treatment outcome and of course a simpler procedure in a way that they do not need to spend so much of their time in the dental clinics and at the same time I think is of interest to everyone. Everybody wants a more affordable, lower cost of practicing dentistry. By having digital devices that allow us to design and mill and print out, it is definitely a way to bring down the cost so that everybody has a pretty decent smile and most importantly is teeth for good functions.
“What is the most used digital device in your clinic and what is it for?”
Well, pretty much whatever you have mentioned. The three devices we use routinely in our daily practice. Whenever there is a new patient coming in for consultation, we usually take a digital panoramic X-ray. Occasionally and depends from case to case, we take a CT scan, and it is a must for us to do a three-shape TRIOS scan which I find very effective in dental communications with our patients as they can see, visualize and understand fully what are the dental issues that they may have. For that, I will say patients value our service by having all those dental devices.
“Dr Yong, I am aware that your area of interest is implant surgery. What are the common downfalls of implant surgery?”
I think the question is based on the case selection. As long as the dentist selects the case properly according to their expertise, most of the time putting the implant into the bone is not so much of an issue, but how do we get the implant that can last 20 to 30 years inside the patient’s mouth. I think the biggest issue here is peri-implantitis, the awareness of maintaining the implant prosthesis in the mouth is not that high in generally in local patients. Sometimes, I find the dentist himself does not emphasize on how important good oral hygiene around the implant prosthesis is different from the normal teeth. How important is the maintenance of the hygiene around the implant prosthesis is the key factor in prolonging the dental implants, so we routinely recall the patients back for implant cleaning and check-up, most of the time we will remove the whole implant crown or bridge so we have a direct access onto the fixture level to do a good cleaning for the patients. As long as we can maintain good hygiene around the implant, the implant can last a long time and that is exactly what the patients would want, to have teeth that can last a very long time for them to enjoy their quality of life.
“The government has decided to allow new graduates to do their compulsory service in the private sectors, some find it is not the best decision to allow fresh grads to skip the government service, others think that it gives flexibility when it comes to choosing their career path.So Dr, as an employer and a mentor, what are the qualities and skills you expect from younger generation dentists?”
I think it all depends on what young dentists want and also what the private practice has to offer. If the dentist wants to pursue a hospital-based dentistry, which is of course oral surgery and may be special needs dentistry, then government setting is the most ideal, but if it is talking about Restorative or Aesthetic Dentistry, or even Endodontics or Orthodontics, sometimes private practices are more well equipped than government clinics, which would be a plus point for the young dentist in the early exposure to the latest technologies which is available nowadays. But of course, choose a clinic that is already a playground with plenty of toys nowadays for those who are willing, who want, who are hungry to learn more in-depth new technologies. But my advice to the young dentists nowadays is don’t forget the basic GDP, the most important is to do a very comprehensive examination and diagnosis and start from the very basic of doing a good scaling and polishing, giving good oral hygiene instructions, doing good restorative work before you jump into implants, Orthodontics, which is a hip of everyone nowadays. Without a good foundation in general dentistry or basic dentistry, it is very difficult to gain trust from patients to let you do expensive treatments. So, if you don’t put a lot of focus into basic dentistry as a young dentist and set a good foundation, it would limit growth in the future. That is what my view is. So, to me, set the foundations strong and solid first.
“What motivated you to take the risk and start your own business and what were the hardships that you went through?”
During our times, no one offered us a clear career path. So, we are quite unsure of what, either you join the government, or you join the private practice, but we are quite unsure of our career path. So, I would like to have a practice which is modern, progressive and hence I decided to start-up my own and set a vision for myself. I’m lucky to have a team and we have grown together till today. I think we want to be proud as a dentist. We want our professions to be recognised, on par with medical specialists and that is why we need to raise our standard, on par with the international standard. So, by setting up my own clinic, I’m able to do it but of course there are a lot of sacrifices and investments involved as well.
“Digital dentistry is overshadowing the conventional techniques’ Do you agree with this statement?”
Yes and no. Recently, I attended a master course by Professor Daniel Buser and Dr Janner, where there was this opinion on guided surgery and brain surgery. Brain surgery means that without a guide the conventional way of doing implant, based on your tactile feeling, your experience, your assessment, of course you do have a CBCT and all those things you still do it properly, just without a surgical guide. So conventional techniques which are very much based on experience and individual skills of a dentiststill play a big part in day-to-day practice. Sometimes being too reliant on digital dentistrycan actually make our skills less sharp because we are too dependent on surgical guides andon softwares. The artistic skills will somehow reduce or diminish over time. So, I think it is a balance of it. we need digital in certain cases, we need conventional techniques or wisdom in other cases. I don’t think that digital dentistry is going to overshadow conventional techniques but use it wisely. In my practice, I will say about 30 to 40% are digital but there is more than 50% that is still conventional. I’m talking about implant dentistry. So not fully digital in a way that we can do for all the cases, some very challenging cases we still need a lot of experience and tactile feeling and so that we are able to visualize the operating field that is where we are today. So, I think we have to embrace digital dentistry but to not be blindfolded by the promises of digital dentistry.
“What advice would you give to dental students looking to get into digital dentistry?”
Stay hungry, stay foolish, do everything you want, do everything you can. Walk the talk and just do it. I think the best advice for young dentists is to find a clinic which is already a playground for digital dentistry, because as a young dentist you might not have financial means to afford all those digital toys, which is quite a sum of money to invest in, but you can get into a practice which already has all those toys, and grab the opportunity and the chance to learn from it. anyway, I will say be more proactive and you will be able to be a successful dentist in no time.