We were fortunate to have POS instructor Dr. Vasanth Sivaraman visit POS headquarters from Chennai, India recently. Learn the fascinating story of how Dr. Vasanth brought high level orthodontics to his community in this interview.
MILES MCGANN: Today I'm so pleased to have Dr. Vasanth from Chennai, India who's here in our California office. We're going to have a nice conversation about dentistry in India and in the developing world. Dr. Vasanth has been a POS student since the early 90s. He actually flew from Chennai to Singapore to take our whole series and made a huge commitment way back when to learn ortho and bring ortho at the international level back to Chennai. He's also been the coordinator of our courses in India for a very long time as well as our instructor in India and has taught many, many dentists throughout India how to do the highest quality ortho. He also teaches multidisciplinary dentistry as well as occlusion and has a lot of wonderful perspectives from a very long dental career in Chennai, India. So welcome Dr. Vasanth. We're so pleased to have you here and to learn from you. So first of all, how did you decide to make the decision to fly to Singapore and start learning ortho way back in 1991 if I remember right?
DR. VASANTH SIVARAMAN: It's a big story. I wanted to do orthodontics. Frankly speaking, after almost 15 years of dental practice, I got burnt out. Then I saw a magazine and decided on this course, but the expense was very high and with no internet at that period, there was not much of way to know what things are. It's really surprising for me now how I even decided to do the course. Imagine 12 visits, 4 days each, almost 60 days I loose and then 15,000 US dollars was the cost at that time. If you ask me how I did it, I don't know. I just took the plunge. Two months later I realized I had so much cases to do. I was in 50 cases in six months so that made up my financial situation. And again, believe me, if you know ortho, it's different. For example, if I know endodontics, I do root canals. Doesn't change anything for me. But if you know orthodontics, it's a different...I don't know how to explain it. It makes you think differently. My whole practice changed.
MILES: I've known you for a very long time and that's been one of your big passions is the fact that ortho and multidisciplinary dentistry, where ortho has a role in every one of your cases and is evaluated and is a big part where you see how to best treat your patients and how to give them the best care.
DR. VASANTH: Exactly. See in the last 10 years I've done a lot of work on TMD. TMD, the topic which is, if you want to make a dentist uncomfortable start TMD. You understand? Occlusion and TMD are sort of things which are kept aside. I realize now when I have a TMD patient, migraine, vertigo, neck and shoulder pain, tinnitus, I diagnose them with a splint and then the difficult part how to treat them. Right? I have three tools. I need to grind some teeth, do full mouth rehabs, put crowns inside, or do orthodontics. Unfortunately, if I don't know orthodontics, that huge tool is not used so most patients get more crowns they don't need.
MILES: Right, and so you've always made the opinion of you run other courses, other topics in India trying to teach Indian dentists how to see cases from a multidisciplinary perspective, understanding all the different areas so that they can see all their options and present all their options to the patient and get the best result.
DR. VASANTH: Exactly. When you talk of dentistry, we either fill teeth, or drill teeth, extract teeth, and move teeth. Unfortunately, the moving component is unknown to most dentists. It's kept that way.
MILES: It's a very big hole in their education.
DR. VASANTH: A very big hole in their education. So how can I have a real diagnosis when a huge tool is taken away from me?
MILES: They end up with compromised results.
DR. VASANTH: Exactly. So when I learned orthodontics I think that is what changes the whole perspective. You become a different dentist.
MILES: Absolutely. And even in a place, you know, one of the things that's always fascinated me is when you are in a place like Chennai or in the developing world where the fees are much lower and for a lot of Western dentists they go, well how can you do multidisciplinary dentistry and all these different specialties in a place where the dental structure, while there's tons and tons of money in India, dentistry is at a place where the fees are still relatively speaking low, but you are able to find a way, right?
DR. VASANTH: Exactly. The problem in countries like India, there's money around, but the dentists are scared to charge. So patients don't know about the quality of the treatment. They think ortho doctor, x person ortho, y person ortho, both are the same. They don't understand there are so many things behind it. Unfortunately, everyone wants to do good treatment, nobody wants to do shabby work, but we are scared to charge. They can't charge enough. They can't give good service so it makes me understand the quality is different. It works.
MILES: For sure. I think anywhere, one of the things that I've learned in all my travels around the world is that anywhere where you're offering a superior service, you can find someone that's willing to pay for it. So a big part of doing dentistry in the developing world is having the confidence to learn the skills because that's a big leap. That's making the leap to go someplace and learn these skills and bring it back to your country. That can be very intimidating but when someone does, like yourself, and then shares it with his community, dentistry worldwide can really improve. And so I've always tried to support you in every way I can because I really think it's amazing the work that you do in improving the dental community around you and showing it's possible to bring world-class standards even in places where you know fees are low so a big thank you for all of your hard work in that way.
DR. VASANTH: The way I look at it is my dental career is two parts, one before POS and after POS. It is absolute and the difference is so dramatic, when I even speak about POS to anybody I get passionate. I get emotional. McGann is my best mentor. I have so many mentors. One of my best mentors is your dad.
MILES: Yep. You've told me this many times.
DR. VASANTH: POS has always been something special to me.
MILES: But let's get into the reason why. Because that's a very, obviously that's a humbling statement to me. I've poured my career into training people like yourself and to have you say my father and this company has meant that much to you, but why is it that ortho and that what you've learned through POS has become such a milestone in splitting your career into two parts.
DR. VASANTH: Two things. In the eastern side, education is different. We learn a lot of stuff. It's more cramming stuff into [your head]. The western education is a little different. I was exposed to western education through POS. And then the passion people have. The instructors who came to my [seminars], who I met, they loved dentistry, they loved orthodontics, that passion was there. I found that missing in most teachers.
MILES: So when you say the difference between eastern and western education styles, what do you mean by that? I think I have a good idea but I'd love to hear in your words.
DR. VASANTH: See we know a lot of information. We sort of cram everything inside and we don't really know how to use it practically. That's the reason you find when somebody from the east comes into the western side and then attends continuing education. They shine a lot. Now they get the direction how to use it. They're more theory people.
MILES: So it's the theory versus the practical, because you know one of the things that POS has always prided ourselves on is that our education is extremely practical and the concept being that when you learn from POS you're going to go back and it's going to change your practice from day one because you'll be able to see every patient differently and understanding ortho opens up your mind to understanding TMJ better, understanding occlusion, better understanding…
DR. VASANTH: See dental school does not teach multidisciplinary diagnosis. I have done one month in one department extracting teeth. Then you move to the next department and start doing something else. You never see a whole patient. I think that's what happens everywhere.
MILES: That's not how your practice works? [laughter]
DR. VASANTH: When a patient walks in, you have seen everything a little different and ortho gives you that mindset. Ortho makes you look at that way. Right from the face, you come walking in and Iook at the face then, then so many things happen right? I don't go into dental caries or root canals straight away.
MILES: And in a place like India where implants is so popular, every dentist does implants, ortho is still in the developmental stages at the best where it hasn't really taken off yet but we're of the opinion it's going to. Why do you think ortho is attractive, or is possible in the developing world, whereas implants has already been there, but why do you think ortho may work out better for them?
DR. VASANTH: You know the cosmetic side is exploding. Parents want their children to look nice. When I was a kid, nobody worried about crooked teeth. They'd say it was lucky. When you have a protruding canine here, they call it a lucky tooth. It makes sense because it wasn't bad, right? But now they make sure they get it corrected, right?
MILES: In your opinion, throughout the developing world and especially in Chennai, the demand is there.
DR. VASANTH: Always there, increasing.
MILES: It's just a matter of figuring out the economics and gaining the skills.
DR. VASANTH: Exactly.
MILES: The economics is possible especially with ortho because ortho compared to implants is a much cheaper material cost and so I think it's much more flexible for the developing world so now it just comes down to the doctors learning and educating their patients.
DR. VASANTH: Exactly.
MILES: Alright thank you so much for joining us today.