So how has that impacted you in your area? Do you feel like you're only getting complicated wisdom teeth? You know what I mean? Like what are you getting from general doctors? Are you feeling that it's staying in house or

Yeah, I think this is a big issue for specialists, not just oral surgeons, but across the board.

That in many areas, you're really only getting the difficult cases, the ones that have already... kind of failed initial treatments, et cetera.

I see a lot of complaints about that.

And I think a lot of specialists are having a hard time getting the production that they want or just, or need, and they're feeling really frustrated.

I live in basically the middle of nowhere.

Sorry.

Wouldn't you want that relief, but nobody thinks they need any help?

Are there any sort of like cosmetic trends that concern you?

Yeah, veneers are everywhere these days.

And that itself concerns me, partly because people don't know what they're asking for when they're asking for veneers.

And they're expensive sometimes.

And so patients are sometimes cutting corners or finding people...

Sometimes in other countries, sometimes even not.

There are like veneer techs out there that are illegally doing things like veneers.

In midlife that we should be aware of, fluctuating estrogen, does that affect our bone health and our face, our mouth, our teeth, things like that?

[laughs]

And it's a little hard on like ...

That was kind of a longer video, probably two- or three-minute video.

But it's a little hard to fully discuss the nuance and the research and all of that in a short one.

And then the way you say it, I tend to be a little passionate, et cetera.

So w- I think my initial line was, "Bone grafting is never necessary." And then people probably don't watch the whole video and they run with it.

So is it necessary? What did I mean by that when I said that? So my first point was the reason I made that post, I get messages from patients or community members that are someone else's patients pretty frequently saying, "I am having horrible pain.

Go slow.

What was the moment you knew something had to change other than the day you broke your back?

Well, when I look back to residency, I remember I would come home from work and we would have done incredible things.

Taken someone's face and completely reconstructed it.

Someone with trauma, it could be like a 20-hour surgery and they have like 300 plates and screws in their head, you know, like...

These are big things, saving the day, saving lives, you know, saving faces.

And then I'd come home and I'd look in the mirror and realize that my bangs were like smooshed in a funny way because of my surgery cap or there were dishes in the sink.

And I would feel lousy and I would just feel like terrible.

What made you decide to do the route of oral surgery, which I'm sure was extremely difficult?

being so surprised.

Like, whoa, I knew it was low.

And now we're sitting at probably 8 to 10%.

So that's a pretty big jump in a 10-year period.

But it's very male-dominated.

And luckily, I feel like I always got along well with guys.

I didn't have any trouble with that.

going to meet some other women oral

I think it's entitlement.

I don't have any competition really.

That's the benefit of being in a rural community.

So for me, that's not necessarily it, but I think some of it, I think some of it's financial, like it's so much harder to make a buck.

Your buck doesn't go as far inflation.

All of those things.

And I think that's part of it.

I

[laughs]

So anyway, that's, like, the context.

I, like, worked up until basically the day I delivered.

I delivered, like, the next day.

I had, um, preeclampsia, or not, um, they had to deliver me early.

And so when I was gonna come back, or they were gonna get a locums person and they couldn't, and so they were mad at me for taking maternity leave.

And so when I came back it was a very hostile environment, and they were trying to bully me to come back early even though, like, I had preemie twins that were having some health issues, and I was still recovering from this traumatic delivery where, like, I almost died too.

Like were you working a certain number of days in the beginning versus now? Um, you also mentioned, did you mention sometimes you work with your husband because he's ENT or no? Not really?