High-Performance Smiles: Unleashing the Potential in Kids’ Dental Care with Dr. Emily Letran

Welcome to the Dentistry for Kidz podcast, where Angelina and Cameron and we love candy. Do you all love candy? We've learned how to enjoy all the candy we want without getting cavities or getting in trouble with our dentist wants to learn our magic. Join us discover how to enjoy sweets and have nice bright, clean, shiny white tea. Let's go.

Dr. Emily is a general dentist who owns two multi specialty group practices in Southern California. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from UC Riverside and received her Master of Science in Oral Biology from UCLA. Dr. Emily is one of it's an author of several books and is also a certified high performance coach helping business professionals achieve the highest performance in personal and business life. She created the Emily foundation dedicated to providing basic dental care to veterans and families of disadvantaged backgrounds, including the monthly free dentistry day, where she and her dental team work to provide free dentistry for the less fortunate in areas. So welcome to the today's podcast.

Well thank you so much for inviting me.

So our first question today is can you share with us why you chose to become a dentist.

This this is called the uninspiring story of how I became a dentist. So when I when I first came to this country as a refugee, when I was 13 years old, and my aunt, I came to this country with my aunt and she she encouraged us to go to go into healthcare, because the belief was that it's easier to find a job. Right because healthcare you always have a demand for health care. So I was looking into medicine, pharmacy, and really just medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and medicine. I didn't want to wear a beeper. This is a long, long time ago when you have a little pager, little beeper when you put it on your pocket, and then it will, it will vibrate. And I did not like that idea. I didn't. I didn't want for people to always get hold of me, though. Do we know now we have the cell phone, right? And then I didn't want to be a pharmacist because I went and talked to a pharmacist and he says that he counts pills. So what what am I friend finally said, You know what, you should go into dentistry. And then I chose dentistry. So I kind of chose it by process of elimination. But as I started, I really, really enjoyed I really enjoyed the patient relationship. Because I think it's one of those health care field where you have a built in relationship per se, where people keep coming back with a checkup, and then you can really get to know your patients.

Wow, that's really cool. So you are a world renowned in high performance, played, what High Performance Coaching is and how it generally helps people achieve their goals?

Well, high profit, high performance is a heightened and sustained level of clarity, energy, productivity, courage, and the influence, and all of these things. And the key the key word is sustained. Because sometimes people feel okay, I got great energy today, right? And then the next day or in the afternoon, your your energy just crash. Or people say okay, I'm really productive right now. And then it's an other time where they feel like they're just busy. They're just spinning the wheel, and they're not accomplishing or finishing things. So it's really a mindset, right? That you always be very intentional. And you think about those particular things. And then the mindset leads to the action. So a lot of times when you see high performers, so for example, let's say an athlete, right, that's right, somebody like you, right, where we playing golf, and we have that goal, right? winning tournaments. So you would you would spend the time to make sure that you can do your homework, but at the same time you have time to practice golf, right, because everybody has 24 hours, but you can fit that into your schedule. And then you'll be very intentional. You're looking at when is the next time that there's a there's a tournament, you practice toward that. Okay. And so, at any age, we can all be high performer depending on what we're working on. And so that's what I do, but I do it with business, and I'm very honored to have also worked with you and your sister. Yeah. And so it's it's really is a way of life is what we shooting for.

And many children struggle with the discipline needed for the consistent dental care. Do you have any tips for building better focus or consistency?

Or for dental care? Well, you know, I think that's really has a little bit more to do with the parent, right? Because as children, you could talk about the younger children, or you could talk about teenagers like you is really built on the parent. Valuing total health, right? Because oral health care is part of total health. If you don't have good oral health, let's say you have a cavity, then your tooth is gonna hurt, and then you can't really eat something. And then you don't eat well, or maybe you or maybe you skip certain meal, you avoid certain foods, right. And so when you make it part of the total health, for example, every day you take a shower, right? So then every day before you go to bed, you should brush and floss, right, make it part of that routine. For kids, I think that's the most important thing. And then the other thing is to, you know, if the kids are younger, I would say to make sure that you introduce them to dentistry a little bit earlier. You know, when you go see the dentist before anything hurt, so become a regular checkup, right? Just go in the dentists look at your teeth, and then it just a prophylaxis or cleaning. And we don't have to get shots or you know, make a killing. And when you're an adult, you need a root canal and any of those things. So, focusing on dentistry, what I encourage on the younger patients is a lot of prevention. Right? And making sure that is part of your total health is not okay, we're gonna go to the dentist when it hurt. And then we're gonna pull teeth kind of thing. But we're gonna go to the dentist where we will do the annual checkup, right? When when you guys are kids, you go adults, sometime we sort of like off them. But as kids you go, you go do the regular checkup, the physical checkup? And so make the dental checkup part of that routine.

And how does diet affect the child's oral health? And are there any foods that we should avoid if we want to keep it better?

Or you know, as a general dentist, I see patients as young as two years old, right? Patient as old as you know, they're ladies, I'm one of those people that I believe you should be able to eat whatever you want. But make sure you brush and floss. Right? As a kid though, because you sometimes you don't know, everything. Obviously, don't eat anything real hard, right, like biting onto hard things. So you can break your team, making sure that things like second your thumb for young kids second, your thumb is not a good thing, because you can actually affect the job, the way your jaw grow. Some, some kids may have a tongue thrusts, when you talk, you tend to put your tongue forward, that would also tend to splay out the teeth, instead of the teeth being like this, it go like that, right? So that that actually has more to do with your speech, right? The way you talk with you. Sometimes you may hear people listening a lot. That's because of the speech patterns, you know, looking at how you speak and then watching what you eat, obviously, you want to avoid cavities don't get anything with a lot of sugar. Right? But for me, I joke around with my patient, you can eat it, but then make sure you brush your floss. Right. And so I think it again, it falls more on the parent, making sure that the kids eat healthy. So you're a parent that just don't buy candy and leave it around. Because your kids won't eat it. If you don't have a candies around and the kids are not going to eat the candy. Right? If you don't have the soda around, the kids are not going to drink the soda. So it's really is a healthy way of life.

And since we're on the topic of teeth, what's your opinion on electric toothbrushes? Are they more effective than regular ones?

Well, you know, the cleaning teeth is is a is a mechanical thing. So I have younger patients and I have older patients who may not have the dexterity, right. So the electric toothbrush as far as I'm concerned it helps in that sense. So if the if the kid put the brush, you know when the back and the brush has been by itself, it will help them clean the teeth better rather than you give a manual toothbrush and saying hey, brush this way, right? Same thing with the adults on the adult may have there may be a little frail or they you know they're not holding the brush well and so that may help. But it doesn't. You have to put the brush where you need to put the brush which is now toward the gum line. Right? So for me I don't necessarily recommend okay, you need an electric toothbrush or you don't or you it's more you know, you put your toothbrush in there make sure you manually can clean down to the gum line from the top to the bottom. Now if a patient come in and say hey, I brush all the time, and it doesn't look like they brush really well. Then I may say you know Why don't you consider an electric toothbrush, because you put it in the same place. But now this thing spend more than you manually do. And maybe that's going to help improve the way you brush. So I think, depending on the patient that dexterity, they can choose either one.

And how effective are sealants and who are the best candidates for this treatment,

or Sealants are used when you have so the teeth on the chewing surface of the teeth, you got little what we call it a roof rather than the anatomy, it has little lines. And when you're brushing, you can brush right on top of that, but some maybe sometimes you don't brush real deep into those little crevices. And so the sealants while it's been around, I think must be 30 years, I think it first came out when I first started practicing dentistry. So the recommendation is to put it on teeth with very deep groove. Okay, so I don't put it on all the teeth. Because if you put it on a really shallow groove and the patient go home and do, they may just, they may just break it off. So it's really to put it on the area where there's deep groove. And that is to prevent food debris from getting stuck in there. And causing cavity. So a lot of time, we recommend putting those on what we call the first molars, which are the first permanent teeth that come in, in the back. And so the first and the second molars, and usually it's on, you know, six years old, nine years old patient when, when those seeds start coming in?

And do you recommend any special dental treatments for children with braces?

Yes, for well, you know, for children with braces, it's hard to brush when you have braces. So there are those, those little brushes. It's the usual ones called proxy brush, which is it looks like a little tiny bottle cleaner. Right. And so you walk it around the brackets and the wires, making sure that you brush it real well. I know the best electric toothbrush that you can actually put it right outside of the the brackets and brush but they have to you have to make sure that they they kind of have really soft bristle. And it's it let's say you usually spend two minutes brushing your teeth, if you have braces on, you probably should spend four minutes double the time because it's hard to brush around those brackets.

And so now we're going to move back to you. So is there anything that inspires you to be more than a dentist, like you wrote several amazing books, and you've your high performance coach, and you have a foundation? So anything that inspired it?

Well, you know, I think I've been very blessed that at an earlier age, I was reading books. And so reading books on very successful people and learning from very successful people. So for example, I read this book a long time ago by Tony Robbins is called Awaken the Giant Within. And it's all about that high performance mindset. But what happened was I finished reading the book, and then I went to the, the references and then I started reading all the books, all the books that I ended the references, right. So then I read thinking Grow Rich, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So I read all of these other books that talk about, you know how to grow, not just yourself, but also your business. And that's where I you know, that's where I got inspired. I well, you can do your own business as a dentist, but that also also other things that you can do. And then beyond that, when you're in a good place. And you can also give back, you know, doing philanthropy. And so I think I was just really, really lucky that I was able to read those books and and follow those, those mentors. And so over the years, I got great mentors. I got I got Sharon Lechter I got Brendan Bouchard. Right. I'm working with a with a marketing guru. His name is Dan Kennedy. Right? Yeah, so he writes material for Disney. Right. He so it's been very awesome. And to me, it's, I feel very blessed that I've been able I have that opportunity.

Amazing. So for our last question. You could be a dental superhero with super special powers. What would your superpowers be and how would you use them to help kids?

Well, if I could be the superhero, I would help the kids just have an automatic reminder, right? to brush and floss it It just like they automatically would go and take a shower at night, right? Whatever you do as a routine, to take care of yourself, I would love to be able to help the kids remember to do that. Because I'll be very honest with you, in some of the offices that I have. Let's say I'm in a more economic Lee challenge area. And sometimes I see the parent coming in and you know, the kids have cavities, right? And I know that it hurts. And maybe the parent, though, didn't have the means to fix the teeth. However, if the kid would remember to brush the teeth, right, then they may not come in with five cavities. Maybe they only come in with one cavity. Right. So I think I think it's that sense that you know, this is something that we should do, we should take care of our teeth, because our teeth look good. And we have beautiful smile. That kind of understanding. I think. I think it would be cool.

Amazing. So that's all I have prepared today. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Now, thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm super proud of super proud of you guys for doing this. And

thank you so much. I very appreciate you for joining us today.

Okay, well, you're welcome sad your mom for me. I got you. Thank

you have a nice day.

Okay.