Ep. 22: Done In One Boca - Meet Dr. Blake Hauer

Part 10:00

This is Podpopuli, podcast for the people. Welcome to another podcast of Beyond the Arches. I'm your host, Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. And with me today, we are blessed with the presence of Lilia. Hello. ▶Lilia is our treatment coordinator who we've talked to before. And we have a special guest announcement, introduction, Blake Hauer. What's going on, everybody? Soon to be the new surgeon on the street at the Boca location. And so we're very excited to announce and bring him on and have sort of a meet and greet conversation in an episode where we discuss sort of who you are, where you come from, your background, that kind of thing.

And so, yeah, welcome. Welcome to the room, if you will. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, happy to be here. You know, I'm really happy, me and Dan, you know, we cross paths and we're going to be together working in Boca. And a little bit about me, if we can go into that to start. Yeah, let's talk about where you went to school. And then we'll talk about why you went to school and how excited you are about being done.

And how long I've been in school. Yeah, how long? I think I'm in like a 23rd grade. Anyways, yeah, I grew up in South Florida, just outside of Coral Springs. And I went to college and dental school. I went to dental school at University of Florida. So go Gators, double Gator, triple Gator. Triple. I'm triple. You're double. Double. And right now I'm finishing up my perio residency at Nova Southeastern. So happy to be in Florida all this time.

▶I met really great people along the way and going right from residency to working in private practice. So I'm really excited for that. So for those that don't know, Nova Southeastern is in Fort Lauderdale, so right down the street. We met you through a guy that used to run my, more or less, through the guy that would help run my program, the assistant director, right? Yeah, Dr. K. And so tell us about what motivated you to go into dentistry.

Why did you become a periodontist? Sort of what's your background? Where did you grow up? Yeah, so I was lucky to have a household that showed me what dentistry was early on. So my father, he's a periodontist working in Hollywood, Florida. Towards the tail end of his career. And what I saw was that as someone that's a periodontist quarterback in the discipline, you're so fundamental in setting strategic treatment plans for patients and kind of being along the whole entire road for these patients.

You're not just a prescription provider. ▶You're here to maintain people's health, get them out of periodontal disease, and really help either replace teeth or keep teeth in people's mouths for a long time. So I got to see the relationships that, you know, my dad had with his patients and, you know, being a kid going to the office and just kind of feeling that good vibe of being in the dental chair. And I went to college. I was interested in the sciences.

A little funny fact about me. I was a organic chemistry TA for a while, and that was like my favorite class. So just kind of fell in love with that angle of science. And I wanted to be in a profession where I can always be with people, work with my hands, and just be able to, you know, talk and just understand people and always have that platform. And I'm always, you know, outside doing things really into basketball and tennis and just wanted to be, you know, kind of in a job where I can be social and just get to know people and build those relationships.

And that's probably one of the most exciting things, I think, as we've had him come through the office is the interaction has been pretty comfortable and positive, wouldn't you say? Yeah, definitely. ▶I would say we always, and I was just telling Dr. Hauer this five minutes before we started the podcast, but as soon as he leaves, Dr. Dan is always talking about, you know, he's great. I love him. And I mean, it's, we have a really cool, fun team and, you know, it's a good, great fit.

So it's hard to find the right vibe. And I would tout that one of our best skills, in addition to doing full arch is probably building a team and forming the team around whatever nucleus is there, right? So we have the different offices. We have the Tampa, we have the Boca periodontist office, and then we have our own baby, if you will. And then the lab, et cetera. But we have a lot of different, different microcosms and they all require sort of a different vibe and energy and, and Blake fits in really well with, with ours, I think.

So that's been really fun. And something that I've really liked is coming from residency to starting to shadow within Dun & One, just seeing, you know, how they've evolved to the technology they have and what they're using. You know, I'm used to doing, you know, the most basic to the most sophisticated protocols because in residency, you learn it all. And to see kind of the pinnacle of what, you know, we have to offer the patients with all, all the technology is really, really exciting and I can't wait to use it.

Yeah.

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So, so going back, tell us, so I didn't grow up in a dental household. You didn't grow up in a no awesome. What is it like growing up with a dad? That's a periodontist. So everyone thinks that you grow up and the expectation is to be a dentist. You know, that's, that's what you're going to do. That's the destiny. It was probably the opposite. I'm kind of circling back to college and university of Florida. ▶You know, I started off as a general business major and I eventually shifted that to be a minor, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.

And there wasn't any pressure. I think that anyone goes into dentistry, you know, you can't just do it because you want to have a good living. You know, it's a lot of hard work, time and commitment to your patients. But, um, you know, I think it's a privilege to see, you know, what dentistry is from the background and you know, what happens in the office and out of the office. And that's what motivated me really. Yeah. When you, uh, let's say on steak night, did you guys have like really sharp utensils and really?

Like perfect knives and if they, if they were dull, did your dad throw a temper tantrum? Yeah. A couple of things there. So unfortunately my mom is not a dentist. Well, it's okay. And my brother's also a periodontist. So we're at dinner tables. And as I evolved to be, you know, I guess later in my dental career, um, finishing school, there was a lot of dental conversations and my poor mom has to listen to them all, but Hey, maybe she's getting a little better education now.

And she could work in an office if she wanted to. Yeah. And adding to. The steak knives. Um, I don't think any of our dogs at home are, uh, using a scaler at least a couple of times a month, so we make sure to sharpen them as much as we can. Yeah, definitely. No. Um, so yeah, so as we've gone through this, you know, you're, you're coming into the end of your, um, education portion, but it's really not ending because now, you know, as we've talked about part of your whole journey has been kind of figuring out what you want to do.

And this is true. You know, for myself and everybody, so you've, you figure out what you want to do and then you kind of head in that direction, which would be dental school. And then you really tailor it in, in the, in the, in the residency, right. And so like I was, like I'm telling you, uh, or I've been telling you, uh, what's kind of exciting for me is I get to be the last one that sort of polishes everything off.

And so kind of get to be sort of the last one that sort of finishes creating. And of course, you know, we talk about your practicing dentistry. Yeah. ▶And it's a lifelong thing and you're never perfect at it. And that's totally true. You're always polishing your skills, but more or less, you're kind of coming into that last little phase. And so being the person that gets to be responsible for that, or kind of push you in that like little finishing touches kind of section is going to be really fun and exciting.

And we've already kind of started with getting things going. Um, you know, of course there's going to be the next year or two or five, it will be constantly pushed. Uh, uh, pushing the limits and polishing things up, but, um, I'm really excited about having sort of that sort of relationship kind of tag teaming, tag teaming things back and forth, but also getting you trained and sort of established in sort of the way we do things. Yeah.

I think the goal, you know, we, we hold the same goal and, uh, I totally agree that anyone

Part 38:14

that's in the field, you have to continue learning all the time. Everything changes with technology, with new techniques and something that I'm doing now, is, uh, you know, becoming a diplomat for the American board of perio like you are and studying for those exams, continuing to learn, uh, it's so important. And I think joining the practice is going to be great synergy is, you know, I'm at the height of my career of where I want to learn.

Dan wants to do a lot of teaching. So we're kind of entering at amazing time points to be mutually beneficial. It took, it took a long time, you know? Yeah. I think patients really trust Dr. Dan and I know that they know anybody that you bring in, especially, you know, now as a surgeon, you know. I, I know that they'll trust Dr. Howard, obviously when they meet him, they'll love him, but just by you teaching him and bringing them in, it'll be a good fit.

So they know. I think the number one thing I'm looking forward to, not that I'm, um, not that I'm, uh, ungrateful for it, but I am looking forward to when the reviews don't mention my name at all, because what happens is that parlays into getting into the way of when you start to have, let's say an assistant. And their name constantly pops up, then the, the, the public or the initial, the, the patient will initially look at that and say, oh, well they put me with somebody that's not all over the reviews.

▶They put me with the second rate person and that's not true that they wouldn't be inside the confines of Dun and one, if they weren't top rate, it's just people have a longer established time and the names show up. So I'm excited to see when that starts to pop up. Yeah. That will take less pressure off the, well, you're giving me to the second rate guy and that, that won't be the case, right? When the minute we have Dr. Hauer here, uh, putting in, uh, putting his fingers in the mouth and start doing some, uh, rolling his sleeves, if you will, or is the moment that he's, I trust him and don't worry about it and you know, it's the same as if, if I do it kind of thing.

Yeah. Honestly, I think even the minute that you start to do consults, patients will, you know, I think that's where we always say that's where it all starts usually. So, um, now they see your name in the reviews and you know, but I think moving forward, just you doing consults, meeting patients, it'll be a quick click for them to, to trust in. Interestingly enough. So we randomly ran into a situation where last week I went home to Michigan where I'm originally from and just long story short ended up with a, with a Memorial day weekend.

Today was my first day back in essentially a week. Right. And well, first day doing consults. So I was doing surgery yesterday. ▶We were in the office and last week or yesterday I had to do some consults today. I had to do some surgeries and I, interestingly, I'm just thinking of this now, this, I don't know if there's a period of time where I would feel rusty doing this surgery. Like it did feel a little bit foreign cause it wasn't, you know, the day and has been a little while and, but I don't think I can really get too much rust there where you constantly have to be.

And practice and doing something is the consults yesterday absolutely felt like a total fish out of the water. Yeah. And it was funny cause I was like stumbling over cause I kind of have a pattern and the pattern comes from dialing in the message that we want to send to the patients, not

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necessarily from a salesy way, but it's sort of just the important key points. I have to hit every single one of those points so that we know that our patient is educated and ready for what they're about to come down. Yeah. I was just thinking, Dr. Hauer, how did you always want to do full large or like how did that come about? Yeah. ▶I think that with Perio you have a deep appreciation of a course for maintaining teeth and doing anything to build a foundation, whether it's a GDR.

This is a safe space. You don't have to say that. No, no. I'm just playing. I'm just playing. I'm just playing. You get that background of like all these techniques. Sorry. And then you have patients that come in where maybe they don't qualify for those techniques. Maybe they want something that's faster or maybe they're not good candidates for that type of treatment. And I think that my angle is that I want to be able to provide all that expertise.

And I think that full arch really was interesting to me because there's just a big need for it with aging populations, patients that wear dentures and people that want to just change their lives and be able to function in a fixed manner. And so that's a big part of why I got into it. And again, just because I have the company, I can't just say, hey, I'm going to change my life all the time. ▶I can't just change my career all the time.

I guess I'm just going to go into it and change my life all the time. I think that's a great way for me to really see what I'm doing in terms of my treatment and how I'm doing my work. This is how I'm managing my teeth. And so that's kind of what I do. But I'm also going to make sure that I treat my teeth regularly, I'm going to treat my I'm going to get them checked with a dental bar to see if they're recovering from that I'm going to have to make sure that I'm not having to go to a dentist to get my teeth that you don't find when you're practicing as a normal periodontist you know so typically you may see a patient here and there that had the the teeth done on the bridge for the implants that you did you might see them in passing maybe you see them the next time they need to come in and have a different tooth but you're not intimately involved in sort of that end-to-end situation that's really where a lot of my motivation came from the sad part for you I was thinking about this as well earlier is that the the whole industry or this niche has sort of changed where when it became possible to take a person who had not very good looking teeth or they were embarrassed about their smile and they were all broken and torn apart and they could get that full smile back without it being dentures there was a period of time when I really just first had begun where that was sort of mind-blowing right and the wave of appreciation and gratitude and and emotions that you would get from that patient right away was awesome but that sort of has has faded just like you know Tesla being able to self-drive itself has sort of faded to like well it's just a feature the same thing has sort of happened now with full arch where we don't get that same like wave we don't get that same endorphin rush so that's a little disappointing but I think it's a little disappointing and I think it's a little disappointing as as you come into it you're kind of coming into a time in which yeah they're nice but there's 62 things that I don't want or that I want to change about these you know and probably you've even seen a little bit of that change too I would and I was just thinking like the the good thing is a little off topic but how we do things that done in one it's not like you know you guys do the surgery and the patient has to go to a different office like you were just saying the good thing at least with done in one is that you although you may not be doing the surgery you may be doing the surgery you may be doing the surgery you may be doing the surgery you may be doing the surgery you may be doing the surgery still in the same office still in the same building you can always pop over and I know Dr. Dan does that a lot is checking in the patient and maybe that's when you'll see that gratification you know patients being grateful for for that final but yeah I would say going back to what Dr. Dan said is I do see a shift and like you said I think it's online and forums and YouTube videos I think patients are seeing so much more that they have an exact idea of what's going on and I think that's a big part of it and I think that's a big part of what we what they want right now all I'm saying is that you'll kind of miss that sort of wave where you get that like initial rush of endorphins from getting that feedback from that patient immediately now there's other things that are very beneficial and it's great that we're at a point where it's such an accepted technique and and weight of doing things that it is a little bit more like yeah of course it's going to work that way but yeah so there's a lot of stuff that we're going to talk through and you're going to get through get and there's new things that you get to to be a part of that that were shortcomings in the old way you know there were a lot of frustrations there's a lot of extra gray hairs on my head that probably won't make it to yours which is yeah awesome we could probably do a whole series on the things that you saw that you had to go through that I won't even have to gray hair all the gray hair I think listeners would like I'll just sit here and listen and say you don't have to do this or this or this I went through this absolutely but you know that's a you know as company grows

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team builds we were just talking about that I think all together in the office the other day it's like that's the beauty of it it's like we've gone through it and you know what to do what not to do so yeah when you see every scenario you know who to talk to with this and how to talk to so getting you the reps is going to be fun to see that sort of grow over time and I think going to the office so far has been has been awesome just seeing everyone in their role and how clean the protocol is you know from the front to you guys you know interacting with the patients from the team picking up the patients you know from the airport and helping them out with that to everyone that's facilitating hygiene surgery side prosthetic side I mean everyone has a defined role everyone works together I mean it's a really good operation and I feel like everyone's happy at the office and always in a good mood which is really encouraging yeah getting that predictability is what really was able to shift everything getting a predictable message from the front and from the back and from the back and from the front and from the back and from the front getting a predictable message from the consult getting a predictable message out into the public with the patients sort of reviewing and on their Facebook page all of that being a whole system and an ecosystem has been probably the biggest quantum leap that we've ever kind of made more than any technology help of any sort of thing just having a buttoned up package has been amazing yeah I think it's such a big procedure for patients it's easy for like one thing you know it's big investment big investment you know travel whatever it might be but I think one thing goes wrong in that like chain of links that patients can get upset very easily but that's what we not to brag or brag on us but that's what I think we do best is that we we never let there be anything yeah yeah start to finish it's not always it's humans and you know we're people but I would say for the most part there's very you know little mistakes that happen very few things I think one thing to add when we go back to you know my side with education is what really encouraged me to come here as well is that you know our surgeons are periodontists our specialists and I think maybe you know Dan can add to that as to why it's important but for me that's really important to know that we're on the same page about having a formal education to provide this service for our patients yeah that's it's a it's a difficult thing to just wrap up into a couple sentences but it does make a big difference right there there are plenty of cases that can be done by a general dentist the the and that's not to say that they shouldn't be doing them it's fine if they do it's within their scope the problem is that you're missing a little bit of your education somewhat in the management of complications so when things do go bad they can go real bad and you really need to know how you're going to handle it to prevent them from going really bad right so you can get something that goes bad and can go really bad you want to just keep it at bad right you want to keep it at bad and you want to keep it at bad right and so that can be a big thing sort of a lot of the parameters and things that we're thinking about when you're going through residency it's not necessarily about what you're learning to me it's more about the process of how you think about the problem and how you approach it and what is the background and how does that relate to the the issue at hand and so keeping all of those things into your flow chart being able to manage that case from start to finish is something that is very important to us at Dun & One.

from a surgeon side and then obviously we don't want the surgeon doing the whole thing because there's other things that we don't think about and speaking to teeth that we leave to the to the general dentist so they have their place it's just um not for us in surgery yeah and you know just as an example there there was a uh a clip that i saw the other day on instagram i won't say who's the name was but you know instead of calling it an incision and reflecting on the flat he he i forget what the exact verbiage was but it rated on the ears he called it like scraping and pushing or something like that and that's not what we do and you're taught in there's a a very particular set of verbiage you use because it means when you incise tissue you're you're making an exact cut you don't want ragged edges you don't want to traumatize that tissue and just not knowing that that is something to delineate scares me for the person that's going to get surgery from this person because that's that is a it seems maybe minor and you're splitting hairs but you need to know that that needs to be done with a sharp instrument and have clean margins so that your patient can heal well this isn't just yeah you just flip it off and you pull it off of there and you scrape it off of there no there's a very particular way of doing things that manages the trauma etc so does dr dan lay a flap or raise a flap i lay flaps that's how i that's how i am that was important so um let's get into some personal

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stuff so you mentioned that basketball you mentioned tennis what kind of cars do you like where do you want to live tell us more about you do you are you uh live in a studio apartment and travel all over the world do you have any uh hobbies of of interest like learning japanese or drawing or painting playing the guitar or something like that do you have any hobbies of of interest a car i guess we gotta go like one category at a time we can we can do this for a couple hours right yeah let's go traveling that's a good topic for me right now so i love to travel love to see different cultures try different food uh you know just see it all um i'm actually going to japan in two weeks so to celebrate a little inner residency trip so we'll be going to congratulations thank you well deserved uh tokyo kyoto osaka um then we're gonna take a plane to okinawa which is like hawaii of japan yeah so really pumped for that um before i started uh perio residency i'm gonna interrupt you for a second so you've obviously done research read the guides all of that stuff what's the weirdest thing that you're excited to experience or try because you know they say it's like showing up in a different reality which i can make sense it makes sense so what's the what's the craziest thing you want to see or eat or experience that you've sort of researched that's a tough one i would say i'm open to just trying like random street food like i know that sometimes in like japanese countries or i guess asian countries you know there's just like random stuff like hey eat the scorpion or you know crazy rock fish tuna whatever it is i think it's part of the experience uh probably brings an emodium but yeah as soon as i prepare yourself i think trying all the is going to be awesome one thing i researched that i really want to do is uh japan and i believe it's in outside of tokyo it's like the tuna capital of the world and i love you know sushi and ayu tuna and that's where they fly in a lot of their their products the restaurants and they have this crazy market where apparently they sell tunas that are worth like millions of dollars so i want to check that out and um yeah it's going to be a great trip and then um i guess adding from before before i started the uh the residency i traveled for two weeks to thailand and had an amazing time there and just being immersed in a different culture it's also really cheap there so you live like a king when you when you go to these countries um but just being active every day you know uh waking up every day early getting your steps in you know seeing some of the cool uh nature of course you know experiencing the cuisine going to temples and definitely you know go in the water whether it's boating or any of those things but um yeah so you know i've been to some spots in europe the caribbean you know mexico asia so traveling is fun definitely will be harder once i start you know getting acclimated to working full time but i think it's important to make time for myself when you know when we have time to do that and and really want to be able to travel the rest of my life that's that's important you talked about guitar you know i play guitar up to like middle school and then i kind of i kind of stopped once in a while i'll go back on it and i guess my favorite you know band to play is probably chili peppers okay probably you'll hear me playing california occasion a thousand times it's the only song i'm actually good at um but music is great love going to concerts traveling to see good bands that's always fun enjoying that um let's see we wanted to hit some travel some music what else what else did you want to hit i asked you what uh your favorite car brand is yeah so are you a car guy are you a truck guy do you not care i'm not i'm not a truck guy um i'm actually a scrubs guy when it comes to a tire and dan we've been talking about this you make you try to to push your points not gonna happen pal he's a polo and pants guy so he pushed his point got me five polos so i have to buy some pants it's like a like a topic in like a school that

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you have to know no i just keep bringing it up i don't know why um you go one of two ways but car wise i drive an audi at least that i like it i don't think i'm a huge car guy um at home i have a two-year-old labradoodle she's like i'm not a car guy i'm not a car guy 50 pounds shout out peaches so i think my next car a little bit bigger just you know something to get around with her you know we we take the dog me and my girlfriend beth to the beach and beth and beth yeah interestingly enough both significant others are beth which is crazy my husband's name is not beth okay that was my next question to that but it does start with a b it does start with a b so the the two beth scenario was was a cool find yeah very funny yeah not a huge car guy um you know maybe maybe that will come and um yeah but maybe not you'll probably save yourself a lot of money not being a car guy yeah maybe i'll just uber everywhere yeah that's fine that idea could work we might wonder we might wonder about your criminal past we actually had a guy who came in um and he was late and his his girlfriend had to drop him off which is why he was late and so we legitimately we did a full background check on him just to see if he had like a checkered pass if there's a reason why he wasn't driving his own car there because it seemed a little strange to show up on the first time to come through an office without a driver's license or without hope you're not listening out there to this unnamed individual i wasn't part of the story we're not we're judgment nobody is safe from stories we just won't say names that's true and he also asked where i live so i don't live in a shack or a whatever question you had no i said studio are you in a studio i'm in an apartment uh i live in east fort lauderdale which i love i'm really passionate about fort lauderdale um you know just being able to walk to places going to the beach um like i said before you know just walking to the tennis courts basketball courts all that good stuff i may stop playing basketball soon because i do have to keep my hands healthy i didn't even think about that's a good thing fingers but then we have a woodworker over here so i'm going to maybe we're both bad the old classic full arches without fingers i guess yeah well that's where you come in you'll be taking it over for me so i guess when i'm here uh dan will exponentially increase his amount of woodworking the risks will increase yeah the the risk is okay we have here is we have a tennis and japan travel guy and we got a golf and i'm taking an exotic trip this summer down to key largo i was like where are you going i feel like we would have to yeah yeah all the way down to the keys which is risky very far outside my bubble so the bottom line is that i'll only see dan in the office because he won't be on the tennis court and he won't be in japan yeah exactly so well i appreciate you coming in blake this has uh been good to get to know you you know for patients uh of your future and patients of of the of the present sort of an introduction we you know we um long time ago i i did a podcast with um a good friend of mine craig spodak and and his partner and it was about full arch and to this day i i swear to you to this day they still come in and say i listen to your podcast you know like a new patient so this will be something that you will not i won't say haunt you but this will be something that will go on for a long time to sort of let people know who you are and what you're about and so and we'll this won't be the last time we have them on but um uh it'll be a good of introduction and sort of it's good for people to sort of know more than just that you like teeth you know and so yeah um talking about you know going to japan and such that gives a good a good background makes you human so i think patients get really nervous like the thought of a doctor dentist you know whatever makes a lot of patients very anxious and maybe bad past history um but again maybe i'm being biased but we have like the coolest nicest doctors and every patient knows that but adding you to the team is a perfect fit so

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i know they'll be really really excited yeah i appreciate it i think that as we evolve together there'll be a lot more content to provide to you know our community and also just more episodes maybe we'll talk about you know some of the things we do in the office protocols i mean i know we have a lot of episodes planned so i'm looking forward to it i think which is great to introduce myself to everybody and we'll take it from there yeah real quick i've i've forgotten what is beth so beth is a consultant she works with deloitte like a large company uh lucky enough she works from home um which is really great just for you know her being a little bit about our story i guess we have some time right yeah yeah so we met at university of florida and then she was living in uh dc in new york city so she was able to take her job to fort lauderdale work remote so it's been awesome for us and um she's really enjoying her job and everything's good dc then and how did you guys meet again funny enough we met on hinge at university of florida we both were in relationships uh both ended them went on hinge apparently it was both of our first dates on hinge okay who knows who's being truthful or not i can't say i'm so old i don't even like yeah i guess we can take a whole new angle on dating apps now he's talking about a door he met his girlfriend yeah shout out hinge i guess if you guys want to collaborate this is a real story well now you know that this will be posted to the internet and forever on you have to stay with beth forever yeah yeah beth you don't have to worry about this if you if you listen uh done in one does like best yeah yeah yeah we're our best people um all right well i appreciate you coming in and lilia thanks for um coming in and introducing our new our new talent yeah we're excited out with the old and in with the new goodbye see you later he's not he's not very old he's like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know no but uh we appreciate you and uh we appreciate you everybody out there listening and uh look forward to another episode and another follow like subscribe appreciate it thanks