Episode 149: Dr. Klein’s Journey of Biological and Airway Dentistry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xht1ztyldHc Dr. Klein Discusses the Importance of Airway Treatment in Your Dental Practice Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 149. To enjoy the full episode you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. Carrie: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Weber. Thank you so much for being a part of our Jameson Files community, and for watching or listening wherever you connect to us, right here on our pod podcast. We are recording live once again at the ADA annual meeting, Smile Con 2022 in Houston, Texas. And I am over-the-moon thrilled to have a special guest with us for this episode, Jameson client and friend, Dr. Cassie Klein. Dr. Klein, thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Kassi Klein: Of course. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Carrie: I'm excited to talk to you. Dr. Klein is from the Houston area, Spring, Texas, not too far from where we're sitting right now. You are native to the great state of Texas, went to undergrad at Texas Tech, and then got your DDS from the University of Texas School of Dentistry in Houston. Correct?  Dr. Kassi Klein: That's right.  Dr. Klein’s Early Days in Dentistry Carrie: Since graduating, you have an amazing practice where you are starting to really expand your services and clarify a vision for the treatment you want to provide and the practice that you have. And that's been a journey for you, so I want to talk about that journey a little bit and share that story, but then also talk specifically about your passion for airway treatment for your patient family. So we'll definitely want to get into that later, but to start, Dr. Kline, I'd love for you to share a little bit about what led you to dentistry and to where you are today. Dr. Kassi Klein: It's so funny. People always ask me that and I never feel like I have the perfect answer for that.  Maybe dentistry found me; maybe I found it. Somewhere along the line, I realized I loved looking at people's teeth; I love people's smiles. That's kind of my focal point when I talk to somebody, and literally one day I was sitting there and decided that I should be a dentist. And so I did. That's what I decided to set my focus on. Maybe it was fate because I absolutely love what I do. Carrie: Love that. We've known you for a while. You work with our dear teammate, Drew Halverson, and have worked with her over the years. But I know that you started as an associate, and then you started into building your own practice. So tell me a little bit about that. Think back to that time. When did that vision for your own practice start to take root? How did that transpire for you? Dr. Kassi Klein: So right out of school, I went into a clinic practice. I saw lots of patients every day, all age groups, all kinds of dental issues, and became very good at working on teeth through that experience. I wanted something a little more slower paced where I could connect with my patients a little bit better, so I sought out a private practice that I could work at. I started a couple days a week. Then I felt like I really liked that atmosphere better and then found a more permanent position in a private practice.  I think I was with two different private practices and then kind of the same thing–maybe it found me, maybe it was fate–but I decided I need to do this. I need to do this my way. I mean, not that anybody else's way was bad, but as a practice owner and building something for yourself, you get to practice how you want to do things, and you develop your own relationship with the patients. And I wanted to open up something close to my home, close to my community, and really have my patients as my family. So that's what we did. Carrie: Yes. When we work with doctors in strategic planning and creating vision, and if they're going into a next chapter in their career or whatever the case may be, a big message that we try to press and have them start to evaluate is, what's right look like for you? If we're continuously trying to create a practice based upon what other people do or other people want, your joy and fulfillment in that work is going to be significantly limited because it's not your vision. So it's important to get really clear on what your vision is, so that you can start to pursue, and make the decisions, and implement the things, and do the training to do the work and take care of the patients in the way that you want to. And it sounds like that's the path that you've taken.  Dr. Kassi Klein: Exactly. How a Family Health Crisis Launched Dr. Klein’s Interest in Airway Treatment Carrie: How long have you owned your practice at this point? Dr. Kassi Klein: We just had our sixth birthday. Carrie: Happy anniversary. So my understanding is that you have really taken a step in your practice into airway treatment. Tell me what led you to discover this and become so passionate about this particular treatment for your practice and your patients. Dr. Kassi Klein: Like you said, when you start out your vision focuses slowly on what's important to you and what you like. Right out of school, you like everything; everything's fun as long as you're doing dentistry. Well, I decided I wanted to do implants. So I signed up for this course, and through that I ended up getting a CBCT machine, a 3D x-ray machine. I started looking at those a little differently. And then, there's always talk with colleagues about new and upcoming things in dentistry. I had heard several people mention airway and I thought, that's kind of intriguing. I always have an open mind and love to learn new things.  And right around the time I started hearing the buzz about airway, my mom suffered a heart attack. She's okay, she's doing great, but there were so many things that seemed to parallel what I was learning about airway with what I saw happen to my mom. She didn't have any kind of blockages. She didn't have to have stents or any kind of surgery. They said that it was broken heart syndrome, which I didn't buy because there was really nothing for her to be brokenhearted about.  So I started reading and doing more research and I said, “Hey mom, have you ever had a sleep study?” And she's like, “No.” And I said, “Maybe that's something you should bring up to your cardiologist.” So she did and he's like, “Yeah, great idea. Let's do that.” So it turns out she was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. And looking back over my childhood and knowing what we know now about the signs, the signs were there. If somebody had looked at her the way I look at my patients now, maybe somebody could have saved her from having a heart attack.  And so that's on my heart every day as I’m working with my patients. Maybe I can save them from having a health crisis later in life. Carrie: Wow! That gives me chills. Wow. What a purpose-rooted service to study. I can't imagine.  Early Training in Airway Treatment So, where did you start? How did you start that? Did you connect to some particular types of training that were the most beneficial for you? How did you start to integrate that? Dr. Kassi Klein: My gateway into it was a book by Dr. Felix Liao called Six-Foot Tiger, Three-Foot Cage. Four years ago, I read that book, and I promise you when I was reading through that book, I would turn the page and my jaw was on the floor. I thought, “Oh my gosh. That's my mom, that's my sister, that's my dad.” I kept seeing the parallels to my family, and then I’d go to the clinic and see my patients and I had a reason and I could tell them why. So I read, and took his courses, and just kept growing from there.  Carrie: This “aha” discovery that we’ve had seems like such a key piece of the whole–the oral systemic link, and airway, and the connections from the mouth to the body. With the proper training and awareness, we in dentistry are really on the front lines in more ways than we even realize. What does this look like now? How long have you been providing this treatment in your practice at this point? Dr. Kassi Klein: So once I started learning about it, I hit the ground running. I started talking to all of my patients about it. So I've probably been doing it for about three and a half years. What Patients are Candidates for Airway Treatment Carrie: And who are the patients that are benefiting from this? What is that looking like for you? Dr. Kassi Klein: It's really everybody, from people that have been diagnosed with sleep apnea and know that there's a dental connection and get referred to me, all the way to kids that are just mouth breathing. They maybe don't have any outward signs, but there's something going on in their mouth, and now that I know what to look for, we're able to screen for this, and educate parents, and get these kids help. My team laughs at me, but I always say kids are where the magic happens. We can prevent so many things down the road if we can get a kid's oral health, mouth, and development on track. Carrie: So when you start to integrate a very specific type of evaluation and treatment, what role does your team play in supporting you and supporting this for the patients? Dr. Kassi Klein: So it turns out that my team is just as passionate about it as I am. Each team member that comes on board goes through the same evolution that I experienced. They start to see that their husband or their kid has those signs, and maybe they need to get their family members in here. So they learn about it, and they become passionate about it, and so they start educating the patients as well. They share their experiences. I've had team members have their kids or family members go through treatment with me. And so they get to share their experiences as well. Carrie: ...