Moderator: Welcome to today’s episode of True to Form with your host, President and Co-founder of Crystal Clear, highly regarded speaker and two-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur, Tim Sawyer. True to Form is a podcast that highlights leaders making headway in the aesthetic, anti-aging and elective medical industries. Learn from the experts to discover the secrets to success, and the pitfalls to avoid when it comes to growing your aesthetic revenue with the authentic, the transparent, Tim Sawyer.
Tim Sawyer: Hello and welcome to True to Form, the podcast that connects you to the people, technology and hot topics that shape the elective medical community. Brought to you by Crystal Clear Digital Marketing. I’m your host, Tim Sawyer. To our returning guests, we say welcome back and for our first-time listeners, we appreciate you joining us and encourage you to become a subscriber. I am totally siked out of my mind to introduce our guest today. Last week, we spoke with Christima Imes, who is a successful businesswoman and owner of Rejuvenate Med Spa. We talked about the power of leveraging relationships to build a multi-million-dollar aesthetic practice. If you missed it, we encourage you to check it out.
And with all that said, and after the last 20 episodes, if you thought we couldn’t find a better guest in the world, we have. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you today, to our listeners, Dr. Laurence Rifkin, who is a world-renowned cosmetic dentist, author and international lecturer. He is an iconic figure in the cosmetic dental field and highly respected by his colleagues for his unique approach in creating custom, picture-perfect, natural smiles. His beautiful practice is nestled in the heart of Beverly Hills, just steps away from Rodeo Drive. It is the dental home of choice to the elite, to industry titans, professional athletes, actors, models and global jetsetters. Total health, function and aesthetics are the cornerstones of Dr. Laurence Rifkin’s philosophy and sculpting background utilization of a dental microscope, artistic vision and relentless precision are all a part of what we call the Rifkin method that ensures the most dazzling results time after time.
And on a personal note, Dr. Rifkin, before we bring you on, one of our guys saw you out in Beverly Hills last weekend and said to me, “I don’t know how old he is, but that guy is jacked.” So, there you go. Without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Dr. Rifkin.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: [Laughter] Well, golly geez, Timothy, thank you so much for uh that incredible introduction and uh, I hope I can live up to it, it was such a great introduction, I can hardly hear myself [laughter], so I want to thank you for those wonderful compliments, uh I’m just a hardworking guy like anybody else and I just try to do my best and I’ve been doing it for many, many years. So thanks for that great introduction, it’s nice to be on your show.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah, thank you, I’ve seen some of the work and, for starters, how did you end up in Beverly Hills? Born and raised or?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: No, not at all. As a matter of fact uh, my family moved down from Chicago when I was a baby and uh my uncle was actually a dentist in the Navy during World War II and he said the West Coast is a much finer, more comfortable, beautiful place to live than Chicago, so as a dentist, he had a great influence on me and my family, although I never really wanted to be a dentist, I was always attracted to the arts of drawing and painting and sculpting and I also was a musician playing drums in a band, so I never thought that dentistry was really my chosen profession.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: But later on in life, uh, when I needed a job during the summer, I could earn some extra money, I actually worked at my, my uncle’s dental lab.
Tim Sawyer: [Laughter].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And low and behold, I found out that I could yeah, I could express my artistic uh, uh needs and building and playing with the, you know, different media and wax and teeth, and I thought, “Well, you know, this actually is quite artistic, and actually it is beneficial, and I can, I can have a great, respectable profession being in the medical dental profession. And I can also express my uh my artistic side.” So, that’s where I went into dentistry. Yeah, that’s how it started.
Tim Sawyer: I can see why um, some of the Beverly Hills elite, particularly on the artist side, why they would be attracted to you.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well, uh, I appreciate that, but I come from pretty humble beginnings, you know, I we grew up uh in the San Pedro House birdies area, I went to school at Long Beach, uh where I was an art major, physical education minor and then I got my uh my biology degree and uh I decided later on throughout my uh college education that dentistry was what I wanted to do so I applied to dental school and fortunately I got accepted to a, a great school, uh, USC dental school, and that’s where I got my professional training.
Tim Sawyer: Now, did you, when you got started, did you, was the concept of aesthetic or uh cosmetic dentistry a big part of your practice out of the gate or were you kind of a, you know, a nuts and bolts dentistry doing anything you can to get the practice going, how did that go for you?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah, that, that’s a really great question because I, I graduated dental school in 1976, I’ve been in practice for if the math is 42, 43 years, uh, still going strong, peaking, learning, continuing to grow, uh, as I always have, as a student and as a teacher, but in those days, uh, there wasn’t much related to cosmetics per se. The only thing that was cosmetic about dentistry in those days was maybe a tooth-colored filling was new instead of silver fillings.
Tim Sawyer: [Laughter].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: There was basically gold, silver or extract a tooth and put in something removeable. Uh, the only thing that was cosmetic was like doing dentures, how to set the teeth to follow a smile line and look at the face, and so that was actually a very important uh foundational training as far as cosmetics. The only thing else that was cosmetic in dentistry then was maybe some orthodontics, straightening out crooked teeth, having straight teeth instead of crooked teeth. And uh that’s really it.
Tim Sawyer: Not a lot of gold grills getting done?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah, actually, gold was actually considered uh quite uh, what’s the word, an expression of affluence and it was, you know, it was an honor to have a gold tooth somewhere. We actually put gold teeth on dentured teeth, one or two teeth, to look like you were really, you know-.
Tim Sawyer: [Laughter].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: You had made it. This was well before rappers and tattooing and piercings and all of that, so that was your claim to fame was a gold tooth in the front or the back on a denture.
Tim Sawyer: Wow. Ha! And now look at them right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah, things have changed a lot.
Tim Sawyer: A lot.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah, now we’re going-.
Tim Sawyer: What do you think-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah.
Tim Sawyer: As you look back, what do you think, two things. One, what was the inflection point for you when you really discovered hey, you know, I got this artistic desire and I’ve got capability and capacity, when did it change so that you can commercialize that and actually start bringing it to the market?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well, um, when you say commercialize it, I think that’s appropriate to some degree. I think patients eventually would prefer to look natural and like they never had any dentistry done, just like if you were a cosmetic surgeon, your patients don’t want anybody to know you had a rhinoplasty or anything else done. They want it to look totally natural, so we went from the gold metallic era, uh, the golden age I suppose, uh, to now the cosmetics, which now we’re enabled by some of the dental science and basic materials of ceramics looking better and better and better and more realistic. You know, uh, a lot of the early training in cosmetics were for Hollywood stars that had unattractive teeth, and there was a doctor in Hollywood, a Dr. Pincus, who actually made these little acrylic overlays such as we do on veneers today, but that was just a very temporary thing for a movie. But it wasn’t a really good permanent material.
It wasn’t until later when ceramics got much better in the dental material science that we could actually make crowns or veneers or fillings or inlays look like a real tooth structure. And so, in my early uh days, we started with uh those types of materials and eventually started doing veneers. So patients that had really dark teeth or chipped teeth or broken teeth didn’t have to commit to a more invasive type of restoration like a crown a full crown, and so we can cover the surfaces of the teeth with porcelain materials that look very tooth-like, almost undetectable, and now certainly undetectable when it’s done well in those days so that you could have a beautiful smile and look natural, not have to look like you’ve had any dentistry done, so that was that was a huge point, I was very, very excited and one of the first people uh to do porcelain veneers, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.
I had a dental assistant of mine that had extremely dark [indiscernible] [00:08:53] stained teeth and she was so unhappy, so self-conscious about it, she said, “Please put crowns on my teeth, please cover them up.” And I told her, I said, “You know what, I get it, I understand that really uh bothers you and you know, why don’t we try something more conservative? We can always go to a crown if this doesn’t work.” So I started off with her, and she was totally in agreement, she understood that uh she was committed to crowns.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: If the veneers didn’t work and we tried them, and my gosh, it was a miracle. This was the, the first experience that was so exciting for me to see a patient transform… a beautiful young lady, just with the blemish of dark teeth, all of a sudden be able to smile. Her whole personality changed.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: It was, it was another reinforcement for what we do in dentistry. It’s not just health-related physically, but also mental and self-esteem-related. So I was very excited about that. So I kept uh pushing the edge of the envelope with porcelain veneers along with other uh really fine, talented dental ceramists to create beautiful smiles. And that was, that was the first inflection point if you want to say so-.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: To really get involved deeper and more deeply into cosmetic dentistry when I thought it was predictable, when I truly learned it was predictable, and it was uh duplicatable, so that was a great point, that was probably uh late 70s, early 80s, Tim.
Tim Sawyer: Wow. I, I would say there’s probably not much more gratifying in in what you do than when you get that, just that perfect look and feel, and like you said, it’s not just that their teeth look better, but their whole countenance changes. You know, when someone, it’s life changing. Right? When you think about it.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: It, yeah it really is. I don’t want to oversell it, but I think that um, I treat patients, I treat human beings, I don’t just treat teeth or mouths. You know? I, patients come in here with different needs, different concerns, different emotional reactions to how their smile is, and we all know that you feel better when you’re happy, you feel better when you’re smiling. If you’re ashamed to smile, you’re covering up your mouth, you know, neurologically, you don’t get that feedback that when you smile, it’s hard to be unhappy. I mean, actors know this, method acting. If you want to be sad, just lower your breathing, shallow your breathing, you know, drop your head down and-.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Take a posture, you will definitely start to feel depressed. If you stand up straight, you get your posture, you take a deep breath, you smile and you look at somebody that’s smiling, you can’t help but be happy.
Tim Sawyer: [Laughter] [indiscernible] [00:11:18].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So, you know, doing cosmetic dentistry for somebody that, yeah [laughter].
Tim Sawyer: You’re getting in my head, I’m literally sitting here touching my teeth and all the little chips on them going, “Ah, man” [laughter] maybe there’s [indiscernible] [00:11:29] I come and see you [laughter].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: [Laughter] Well, probably not, but I also am a believer in a natural-looking smile. Not everybody has to have wall to wall or ear to ear veneers and have super white teeth. I think as a matter of fact that could be a mistake. I love beautiful, natural-looking teeth. You know, they don’t have to be overly symmetrical. We can do them mathematically, but uh, but it doesn’t look as natural as, as it could be, so I like making, doing the most conservative treatments and going in steps, stage by, you know, step by step, uh, that means that I would like to, yeah, do some teeth whitening, make sure the gum tissue is very healthy and it’s gotta have a foundation of health. That’s one of my next really important uh aspects, to train my patients, educate my patients on the systemic benefits of improving your-.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Oral health because bacteria in your mouth enter the entire body, so we have to deal both with a healthy foundation.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: We have to deal with an emotional reaction to your teeth and also make sure that the function is there and it’s long-lasting. I try to be as conservative as possible, but when it is necessary to do more reconstructions, I’ve done incredibly complex reconstructions with a team of oral surgeons and implantologists, and it’s, it’s quite joyful. As a matter of fact, I’ve got uh, a patient coming up, uh, if people watch the show The Doctors, I’ve done a few shows on The Doctors for smile makeovers.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Health-related things, and a young lady who had some disease of her mouth, I don’t want to give away the show, so stay tuned for The Doctors show, we’re doing an amazing transformation on this young lady as we’ve done for many other, many other groups, uh, I work with uh a group called RAW, which is Rebuilding America’s Warriors. It used to be called Iraq Star. These are military personnel that have been injured during the war, and from IEDs and different problems, and you know, the military can only do so much-.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: To reconstruct them. And then they, then they go out to the world of plastic surgeons to get rid of scars and burns and missing parts of their face-.
Tim Sawyer: Wow.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And jaws and, it’s also quite rewarding, so the complexities of dentistry can be uh-.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Quite amazing when you work with a team, so I really, really, really enjoy doing that and also, another group called Face Forward, which is victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: These are people that are just so inspirational to me that they have suffered so much, they’re survivors, but we want to give them back as close assemblence to a normal life and normal anatomy as we can, so that’s also very rewarding for me and many of the other doctors that volunteer their times and apparatus for these patients.
Tim Sawyer: That’s, that’s pretty cool and I can tell just by listening to you that uh you know, your, I don’t want to say you’re starting, you’re not 21, but you’re, I can hear some self-actualization coming through, right? You start out as a dentist, you’re trying to get your practice going, you do an amazing job, you’ve built an incredible practice, you’ve got a reputation, and you’re actually now taking the time to give back a lot, right? And that’s one of the cool things, as you know, I work with over 500 doctors-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Mhmm.
Tim Sawyer: And the ones who are the happiest are the ones who are doing those types of things. Right? And so they’re taking their expertise and giving it back. But I want to shift gears a little bit because-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Sure.
Tim Sawyer: I’m interested, so, if you look at the landscape of dentistry in general, one of the questions I would have would be, you know, what, what percentage of dentists, you know, not an act, a ballpark, do you think do cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry, and how has the process whereby their being trained, has that changed much to adapt, to developing those skills that you’ve now worked 45 years to hone? And is there more of that going on during school or?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well, there certainly are, yeah, there’s courses in dental schools today that are obviously utilizing restorations like porcelain veneers and doing some smile designs. As a matter of fact, I work with and respect one of my dear colleagues at USC, Dr. Magne, Pascal Magne, I hope he doesn’t mind that I mention his name, but he has embraced the skill test of drawing teeth to such high detail that they’re actual beautiful works of art. Uh, I was president of an academy a couple of years ago called Academy of Microscope Enhanced Dentistry and basically what we’re about it precision in every aspect. Precision in fit, bacterial reduction, also in precision of aesthetics, the microanatomy, the micro-beauty of individual tooth is much too strong to be visualized.
And so, utilizing, you know, in today’s world of high-technology and scanning, uh, 3D printers, all these things that are now being taken over by mechanical uh still have to be directed by the human eye and the human heart, and in order to do that, you have to have the skills, the visual and the artistic skills, to be able to draw something, just like you da Vinci, okay?
Tim Sawyer: Yeah. Wow.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: da Vinci was an amazing scientist and artist, but most people think of him as an artist. But he was an amazing scientist that drew anatomical structures of the muscle and the human body. So, but we have to have those skills, you know. Anybody can draw as long as they can visualize, and I help teach my nephew, and teach other people how to draw teeth and draw smiles and draw faces. You know, one of my early training was in art, and that was so fortunate for me in cosmetic dentistry that it enabled me to be able to look at an individual’s face, and every one of us is different, and we have unique smiles, it’s our signature. And everyone’s slightly different, and how do I make your smile or my smile look like they belong to us not out of a cookie cutter?
So we don’t want to have an overly duplicated, we want to be able to have that micro, that perfect imperfection, that perfect variation. You know, the petals of an orchid, they’re sisters, not twins. They don’t they’re so similar, but they’re slightly different. And the same thing with the body, the teeth, the smile, and my early art training helped me develop those visual skills. So I was able to incorporate that into my dentistry and my smile design and my fabrication.
Tim Sawyer: That’s amazing.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So in order to do that, I had to also learn how to utilize the highest technology of visual queues or visual tools, which would be a microscope, so a dental operating microscope is most people don’t use unfortunately, and I’ll get back to answering your question [laughter].
Tim Sawyer: [Indiscernible] [00:18:09].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Uh the microscope helps you diagnose, helps you treat with less morbidity, less discomfort, more, uh, least invasive ways ’cause it’s so gentle and so precise and that there are many advantages to putting all of these technologies together, but you still have to have the vision. And in dental school they’re teaching the basics of this, but you know, I started learning when I got out of middle school and I’m continuing to learn ever since I’ve been out of dental school, so we’ve learned to utilize new technologies for the same purposes, and we just learn how to do it better, faster, uh, more precise, maybe less expensive hopefully, some of the technologies are very beneficial.
But it’s growing, and there’s still many academies that are focusing on the cosmetic part. I still want them. I still want these academies, and I teach international and I teach locally, and I still want them to never forget the basics of foundation of health. There’s too much going on on social media where they’re just showing before and afters of smiles. Show me gum tissue, show me healthy gum tissue, show me good function. We have to put it all together, you know. We’re an architect, so it’s got to look good, and it’s got to function well.
Tim Sawyer: Right. Well, it’s, clearly it’s evolved. And so, what, now that you’ve got a little experience underneath you or behind you-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: A little bit.
Tim Sawyer: What-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Mhmm.
Tim Sawyer: What would you recommend, you know, what are some of the, hey guys, I know you’re getting ready to get out of dental school, you want to start your own practice, is there a little play, I know you do a lot of teaching, is there like a 2- or 3- bullet point suggestions that you would give to these folks?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Um, of course, I mean, look at me, 43 years later I still take courses when I can, I just uh did some laser uh advanced uh training uh in utilizing new technology of the laser, uh, 20 years ago I started after what 22 years of practice I incorporated a microscope because I know the microscope is better. You can work more precisely, and when we deal with the fit of any filling or crown or restoration, we want to eliminate bacteria around those edges, we have to have precision fit. And in order to do that, we need to have the visual tools, and a microscope is one of them, so I would say always continue to learn.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Always utilize the best technology. Keep your mind open and learn from the best teachers. I don’t care whether you’re, you want to learn tennis, you learn from the best teacher.
Tim Sawyer: Right. So-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So go to the best courses.
Tim Sawyer: You’re a forever student. Forever student.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Right. Forever student. Yep.
Tim Sawyer: That’s the name of this podcast.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So being a teacher means I have to know [laughter] what I’m talking about and there’s times I don’t know uh the answer to all the questions because sometimes there is no exact answer, and sometimes, certainly I don’t know everything. So we need to work together as a team. We need to work together as uh partners in helping the patient. The patient benefits when we work together with good communication and good intentions, and so the skills that new dentists coming out, and I’ve had I’ve mentored them in my office coming in to take a look at what I do, how I do it, in the laboratories there are more courses that are utilizing some of the new technologies of 3 dimensional cone beam CT scans, optical scanners, uh, 3D printing and robotic milling of restorations for precision fit, there’s a lot to learn in dentistry. It has changed tremendously since I got out of dental school. And it will continue to change.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah, well that’s what I was going to say, what do you see, you know, 2, 3 years, is there anything real big that you see uh as technology maybe or technique that’s gonna come out that you’re looking forward to?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well, I am looking forward to uh prevention of diseases because I’ve I’ve as much as I’m involved with cosmetics, I still want the foundation of health. I want patients to maintain their whole body health, and elimination of bacteria by oral hygiene, proper oral hygiene, which is really seldom taught-.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well enough to patients. They they think they know how to floss. They don’t. They don’t know why we measure pockets. We explain it why. Why follow up on them to be their best coach and their best trainer because that bacteria in the mouth goes into the body, and many diseases that medical science is now relating to dentistry and oral diseases you know are from the bacteria that are in our mouth. If we eliminate so much of that bacteria that accumulates there by just brushing, flossing and going and seeing your dentistry properly and frequently enough, you will be able to eliminate or postpone a lot of the diseases that we succumb to later in life. And it’s, it’s really, really, really important, and you know, and the most important thing right now, I know this sounds crazy, I do a lot of restorative work, I do a lot of cosmetic work, I feel my best benefit to my patients is when they come in and I do a head and neck and oral cancer screening.
Tim Sawyer: Wow.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: You know, people want beautiful smiles, but they also don’t want to uh be treated or be a victim of cancer and other different diseases. And with HPV virus being uh prevalent now, uh the relationship of many other bacteria and inflammation starting in the mouth can also work on our immune system to make us less resistant to these diseases, so I really am emphasizing in addition to the cosmetics and the function in my practice the preventative aspects of oral hygiene as part of their systemic health, that’s so huge.
So that’s what I’m hoping that in the future, maybe there will be a vaccine for some of this, uh, better ways of educating our patients, and of course there’s all the high-technology of scanners and robotics. This is all fine, just remember the basics. You’ve got a human being sitting in your chair. They come to you and trust your body for their health, they want you to have the integrity to not over-treat them, and they don’t want you to not treat them well enough and just skip over things. So that’s why I’m hoping that the integrity of the dental schools will match the future treatment and care by the new dentists coming out and that they’ll be forever students, like I have been-.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And they’ll have mentors like I have had that have taught me the right way, and one of my teachers says, “Always choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong.”
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And I believe in that. And I can sleep at night and I’m happy, and I’m not perfect, but I try my best.
Tim Sawyer: Well, like I said, I, I know when I’m talking to a human that’s that’s headed toward self-actualization, and that comes through with your integrity and your commitments, it’s amazing. I have a question for you. I was speaking with-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Sure.
Tim Sawyer: A friend of yours today, uh Dr. [indiscernible] [00:24:48].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Mhmm.
Tim Sawyer: Where do you come down on, and it was an interesting conversation because of course the notion is we should be incorporating uh aesthetics, injectables and that type of thing into a dental practice. And I, you know, mmm, I think sometimes it can be confusing if not done correctly. Have you attempted to do that yet? In other words, are you doing uh injecting fillers?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yes, I have done them, but I am careful not to violate now the current law in my state of California. This is uh the utilization of injectables, let’s start from the basics, the utilization of injectables such as neuromodulators, which we commonly known as BOTOX, there are things called Newtox and a lot of other dice boards, these are all botulinum toxin derivatives, which it’s not a disease, it’s not a poison, it just basically deactivates muscle contraction, okay?
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Temporarily. It’s reversible. It’s been used by ophthalmologists, uh, it’s been used by other cosmetic surgeons, it is basically so little in risk, but everything has to be done properly, and it has to be done uh uh I would obviously say ethically and legally. Every state is different now, so there’s no continuity in the agreement on the states of the United States, which states dentist can utilize uh the injectables such as BOTOX or a filler, which there are different types of fillers, and you have to know each and every one of them, you have to know how to use it properly, safely, uh, you have to make sure we always take care of the patient, that’s the most important thing and so-.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Every dentist should be trained no matter what you’re doing.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And I think you can be trained very well, uh, I have been trained very well, I know how to use it use it safely and deal with any potential complications, but I have to stay in line with my state, okay? So those doctors that want to have superior training, just know like anything else, doc dentists give more injections probably per day than any nurse or any physician.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So we certainly know the head and neck anatomy very well, but the utilization of a different medication uh or material must be done safely and correctly, and you have to have the ability to deal with the potential minor complications uh properly, you shouldn’t not work outside of your scope of excellent training. So I believe we should be doing this. I believe that the dentists know more about the smile than any other physician, although there are physicians that I have lectured with, lectured to and have learned from about how to create the proper harmony of the teeth, gum tissue, lips and surrounding what we call perioral tissues. That means the nasolabial folds, the chin, all these areas. So when I create a smile, I want the lips, the frame around teeth and the gum tissue, to maximize the aesthetics of the patient’s face.
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And I have worked with patients that have had asymmetrical lip and just do a little bit and all of a sudden, low and behold, you’ve got a beautiful, much more uh pleasing smile and symmetrical face. So I think it-.
Tim Sawyer: [Indiscernible] [00:27:59] When you think about it-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Should be the future, I think it should be incorpor-… What’s that?
Tim Sawyer: When you think about it, a dentist probably spends more time looking, ’cause you’re only looking at the face, right? It’s not like you’re trying to treat neck and below like most people.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Right.
Tim Sawyer: You know, like my plastic surgery friends.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Mhmm.
Tim Sawyer: You would think there’s a level of expertise there just because you’re spending so much time concentrating on like you know that symmetrical look of the entire face, not just a [indiscernible] [00:28:24] look or something.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah, exactly, and so you know fortunately for me, and this is I don’t know serendipitous that I learned to sculpt 30 years ago. So I have built my sculptures, when I do a face or a torso, I will build the skeleton first. I actually build a skull, and then I put on the muscles, and then I put on the skin. So when I lecture to dentists or physicians, I call it layered aesthetics, so we look at a face, the outside total final look of the face is a combination of the skeleton beneath, like say the cheek bones and the nose, the chin, the jawline, etc., those all support the skin that overly it.
And then there’s of course the muscles. Building a muscle you can have a bigger bicep, you can have a bigger cheek muscle, and that will change the shape of your face. If you don’t respect all of those and don’t be and you’re not able to diagnose from the inside out, you’re really not doing the patient a service. I just last weekend gave a lecture at the Aesthetic Everything expo, and at a couple years before that at the LAMCA, which is a cosmetic surgery group of combined physicians and dermatologists, how to diagnose the face and how we build it. Do we just put injectables? Do we do facial implants? Do we do jaw surgeries? Do we do nothing?
Tim Sawyer: Right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: You know, what is, what does it take to properly and minimally treat this patient to get the best results? And so going back to your first question, should dentists be, how do I feel about dentists doing injectables, I think dentists certainly understand the jaw and the face and the skull because we deal with orthodontics.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: We deal with positions of teeth, positions of jaws, uh, orthognathic surgery, uh, when rarely done but sometimes necessary how we reconstruct oral maximal faces that have either been broken by trauma or need to be rebuilt because of genetics. And we can do that, and plastic surgeons need to know what we know as dentists, and dentists need to know what they know as plastic surgeons. I say, in my lecture I said, we have to become an expert in each other’s profession but not be them. I can only perform what I can perform, but I need to know what I need to know. And I need to know the other options of what’s potential, what’s possible by the other therapists that can also help my patients. So they need to have um uh a lip lift to show more teeth versus doing longer teeth, is that the right decision? It could be.
So I talk about the surgery in plastic surgery. And I’ve been a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and California Academy of Cosmetic Surgery for about 15 years, and I’ve learned so much about cosmetic surgery that although I don’t do it, I know when to and who to refer my patients to when they could benefit from it when they want to have some facial improvement. It’s a great, great future. That’s the horizon where I am also at, Tim, on how can I help my patients from the inside out both from a health standpoint as well as a anatomical standpoint? And I work with plastic surgeons, cosmetic dermatologists all the time to benefit my patients.
Tim Sawyer: One quick question, it’s kind of a side note-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah.
Tim Sawyer: But not, it’s personal for me. Can you use BOTOX to slow down teeth grinding? You think that works?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yes. Yes. Uh, clenching mostly and grinding because the muscles that are mostly responsible for clenching are on the side of our cheeks, called the masseter muscles.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: They’re usually right in front of the ears, and when you clench your teeth together, you feel these muscles pop out.
Tim Sawyer: Yep.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: If the muscles are being overused, like you’re constantly clench happens to any muscle when you use it it gets bigger, right, you hypertrophy it.
Tim Sawyer: Mine are huge. That’s right.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yeah. And the problem with that, even if it’s not aesthetic, the problem with that, ’cause the face that you are now overusing your teeth and the teeth don’t grow back, okay? You’re wearing down enamel that’s supposed to last you a lifetime. If you accelerate that process by grinding your teeth, now you have to restore your teeth periodically back to the anatomy that it’s lost. So you want to prevent that, so if you’re having problems with pain in the jaws or clenching or grinding your teeth and your teeth are starting to take a toll, not only the teeth but the bone that supports the teeth can also be destroyed as well as the joints, you need to slow that down.
So see an expert, see a specialist that will look at your teeth and see if there’s a problem, see if the teeth, the gums, the bone is a problem, uh if you’re not having symptoms. If you’re having symptoms, of course you want to get rid of muscle spasms, so BOTOX being a neuromodulator basically is slowing down that clenching process, weakening the muscle to a degree. Doesn’t stop you from chewing, if it’s done properly, it’s totally safe and it’s very, very effective at reducing the clenching and the grinding that can destroy teeth.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So it’s a good, good solution in those sorts of situations as well as a night guard, the plastic devices that we put between the teeth.
Tim Sawyer: Right. Well I tell you what, this, if you had asked me, could I learn this much about the state of cosmetic dentistry uh in 30 minutes, I would probably have told you not, so uh, as always, and I always love talking to you, you’re a great guy. And I always love I always enjoy talking to you.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Wow is the 30 minutes up already? [Laughter].
Tim Sawyer: Ha! I enjoy seeing you at the all the shows, and I know your colleagues think the world of you, and uh [indiscernible] [00:33:48].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: I appreciate that very much.
Tim Sawyer: Where can folks find you next? Do you have anything cool going on? Anything coming up in the fall?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Well, uh, yeah, we’ve got, I got a few meetings coming up, one is called uh the Academy of uh Microscope Enhanced Dentistry that I was president of and now program chair, this is going to be in Hollywood, this is really not it’s uh, if you’re a dentist, you certainly should come and see this meeting, it’s a landmark meeting, you’ll always learn something. Uh, if you’re not a dentist, uh look up the Microscope Enhanced Dentistry, you can find dentists in your area that will be uh that what I would say a cut above in their precision vision. And they can help you that way, I’ve also, I’ve got another one down in Newport Beach for dentists called SCAD meeting, society for color and advanced aesthetic dentistry. And a facial design one, I got lots of meetings, I got a couple another Aesthetic Everything meeting coming next year. We just missed it last week, which I was in-.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: So next year it will be here in LA, and uh, oh my gosh-.
Tim Sawyer: Good for you.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: And you can see me in my office.
Tim Sawyer: I, I tell you what, now if anyone listens to the program, a young dentist listens to this and says, hey, can I shoot this guy an email?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Sure.
Tim Sawyer: Would you be okay with that?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Absolutely. Uh, I would love it. I’ve got, I like I love communicating with new dentists and people from around the world. You know, the multiple academies, we communicate all the time, so um, I could shoot you my email address if you wish.
Tim Sawyer: Yeah. Send it off and we’ll put it under and-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Sure.
Tim Sawyer: Listen-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Okay, it’s uh, well I’ll just-.
Tim Sawyer: What is it? Yeah, let everybody know.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Oh, okay, fine. It’s uh lrrifkin@me.com. If they want to look up my uh, my website, it’s drlaurencerifkin.com. And my Instagram is DrLaurenceRifkinDDS, you can look me up on Instagram or Facebook and can see a lot of the before and afters and sometimes I give announcements where I might be speaking so that they can come see me and or just shoot me an email. We’ll give you all the information.
Tim Sawyer: Well, listen, I real, I only have one last question. Will you-.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Yes sir.
Tim Sawyer: Will you promise me 6 months from now, can we catch up with you and bring you back on the program?
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Uh, it’d be my honor and my pleasure. I love being able to have these questions asked so that the public can hear what’s new and exciting in dentistry because it is quite an exciting profession, so many changes are happening that uh it’s hard for all of us to keep up with it, but the knowledge that patients and the public will gain from just listening that not just me but many dentists that are out there teaching, uh, they want to get some good information, and hearing it from the voice, not just maybe seeing social media, uh, there’s much more than can be explained to them.
Tim Sawyer: I think the next time you come on we’re gonna, we’re gonna spend a whole 30, 40 minutes talking about the impact of social media on uh folks’ impression of dentistry.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: Mhmm.
Tim Sawyer: And some of you know the unrealistic expectations I think that are created at times [indiscernible] [00:37:03].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: I think that’s a great topic. I think that’s a great topic because I know there’s a lot of great dentists out there, and I know there’s not a lot of dentists that should be great and they are not, and sometimes they’re misleading to the public, patients come in and ask me questions or saw something on Instagram and I said, “That’s… disingenuous.”
Tim Sawyer: Not happening [laughter].
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: [Laughter] How else can I put it?
Tim Sawyer: [Laughter] Well.
Dr. Laurence Rifkin: But yeah, let’s talk about that, that’s a good one, that’s a good topic.
Tim Sawyer: We’ll make sure we’ll follow up. Well, thank, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Rifkin, and for our listeners, um, as always, we appreciate you taking the time. This podcast was brought to you by Crystal Clear Digital Marketing.
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