Giving Back – CORE Values

Dear Doctors,

As I enter my tenth year of StraightSmile Solutions, I feel very blessed. I have enjoyed getting to know all the doctors I have consulted with over the past decade.  This business has given me the freedom to be BOTH the “present” parent I needed to be and also fall in love with orthodontics again. This year, I am launching a new program. Did you know dentistry has the HIGHEST rates of suicide of all professions?  I’ve concluded that quite a few dentists and health care providers have suffered  trauma and abuse in their educational and employment journey to be a productive,  oral-health provider.  Subsequently, many feel TRAPPED in this industry because of  high-interest, predatory, student loans.  Realistically, it is NOT possible anymore to make a living wage as a dentist if you have exorbitant student loans without selling your soul for volume.  I am also a survivor of this. Although I am grateful that there have been reforms and perhaps the next generation will not endure what I did, but I want others out there to know that I am here for anyone who wants to talk openly.  Email me if you want to chat. You can bring  JOY back to dentistry again, one smile at a time!  All doctors or health care professionals are welcome, all we ask is if you’re helped to “pay it forward” to someone else once you’re healed. 

Truth be told, I’ve realized that the orthodontic industry is essentially “unnecessary” to some degree.  If you parent properly from birth, it’s actually quite rare that your child will NEED major orthodontics (eg braces) unless there was a severe genetic problem. Of course “need” is defined by me as having a severe orthodontic oral health problem like: AP, vertical or transverse deficiencies, traumatic occlusion, shifts or impactions of teeth outside 3rd molars.  Proper feeding diet and behavioral training is a full time job for one parent that can’t be outsourced to a school or daycare. Truth be told, the VAST MAJORITY of SEVERE  orthodontic problems can totally ELIMINATED if the right steps are taken from BIRTH. It may take a generation or so to see the effects, but if primary care dentists and pediatricians educated parents , who were interested, it would dramatically change the oral and systemic health of the next generation.  That is my CORE value and that is why I make all my education FREE in my YOUTUBE channel so every single dentist around the world can learn and help their community, one little smile at a time! There’s always a place for cosmetic dentistry but I don’t think this should be in network or a “right” through insurance. If you fail to parent a child properly in terms of their oral health, you SHOULD pay in full for their orthodontics.  Preventative issues should be covered like any other health care but only in the Phase 1 age (under age 10) but most the HEALTHY preventative Phase 1 interceptive orthodontics are removable, not fixed and require good parenting and compliance.  

Also, I want to apologize and humbly ask for forgiveness to the entire community for being the orthodontist “brain” that launched SDC. I was told by my abuser in residency that I was “would never succeed in orthodontics” and that braces were the only way that could move teeth, Phase 1 was “nonsense” and primary care dentists had no business in orthodontics. Another doctor told me to stop coaching primary care dentists because I am single-handedly “destroying” a profession.  I’ve even received more than one death threat over the last twenty years. I feel that this silence is honestly quite sinful and that tens of thousands of orthodontists are collectively guarding this secret away from primary care dentists and the community.  This angers me and I’ll no longer have any part in it.  I feel it is selfish for the secret to good oral health was being not taught to dental students. Ten years ago I was naive and trusting; this is often one of the challenges of an undiagnosed, neurodivergent brain. The team told me at SDC that if I helped to launch this start-up successfully, this tele-health platform would be expanded as quality, affordable health care for all Americans in every community.  I knew nothing about this industry outside being a healer and provider. Once I realized that our core values weren’t aligned, I  left after 20 months in early 2016 and launched StraightSmile Solutions.  I have since vowed to use my orthodontic skills only for the greater good and not support any more  venture capitalists in the industry.  I am also expanding my understanding of neurodivergence and how it affects us in our career in dentistry.

Yes, I still have to charge for my 1:1 orthodontic consulting, my time is valuable and I still have two kids to put through college but the resources are ALL FREE. Here’s how you access them-  click here to access

Love,

Amanda