Dr. Guzman closes out our series with us by offering some advice to our listeners!
Dr. Emma Guzman is a General and Cosmetic Dentist, practicing in New York City. She completed her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine and was a general practice resident at Bronx Care in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Guzman currently practices in Brooklyn and her main focus is changing her clients’ lives by improving their smiles and ultimately their health.
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo is a member of the American Dental Association, National Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, and Delta Sigma Delta Dental Fraternity. She is a member of the Second District Dental Society New Dentist Committee. She is dedicated to mentoring, volunteerism, and service.
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo is originally from Brooklyn, New York, and her parents immigrated from Livingston, Guatemala. She has five siblings and several nieces and nephews. She enjoys dancing, cooking, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.
🎙️ Listen to Dental Fuel Episode 8 on Apple Podcasts
Dental Fuel Episode 8: Expert Advice Transcript
In Dental Fuel episode 8, Dr. Guzman gives expert advice to our listeners.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
If you could provide advice to our listeners who are dentists, what would be the greatest piece of advice you have to offer?
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo
What’s the greatest piece of advice I have to offer? Absolutely, know your worth. That’s my biggest thing.
- Know your worth
- Take CE early
- Take a lot of CE, you know, and keep learning
But I would say my biggest thing is to get a great mentor.
Get a great mentor who practices the way you want to practice or who could lead you in the right direction and who has the resources for you because I will say I see a lot of dentists who are unhappy. Just because they’re not in the right space.
I see some of my colleagues on the verge of saying they’re going to quit dentistry and then they get the right mentor and now they love it because they just weren’t practicing the way you know they want to.
And a lot of the time especially as new dentists, you know early in our careers, we don’t have the opportunity to practice exactly the way that we envision, right? So it is daunting, it is hard.
We have you know, these numbers behind us with our student loan burden.
We’re trying to figure out how do we navigate this world as someone with esteem now right? I’m a doctor, but I have to manage myself, my family, my patients, and the team, there’s so many things going on.
And it can get daunting, especially if you’re not practicing the way you want to practice, especially if you’re not making the money you think you should be making for all the hard work you are doing.
So I would say get you the right mentor that could lead you in the right direction and let you know, we can only go up from here, right?
I feel like a lot of times, especially now with social media, where you see all these super successful dentists doing all these things, I have friends who had to disconnect their IG because they are like it’s too much right in their faces, right?
But a lot of the time these dentists are 10, 15, 20 years in, and they are very much well established.
And we are like why does she only work three days a week? I’m like, yeah, she graduated when I was in middle school she’s allowed to work 3 days a week.
So we have to give ourselves grace and, get a great mentor to see us through.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Very well said, yes. I couldn’t have said it better. And are there any CE courses that you have taken that you recommend?
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo
During the pandemic, I did the aesthetic course that was managed by NYU which did Zoom courses. They also have in-person courses, now I didn’t end up doing that because the pandemic hit.
But one of the courses I do plan on taking is the aesthetic advantage course, which is also an NYU course.
I’ve taken implant courses. Hands-on is key, hands-on is key. Because we take in so much information, but any hands-on course.
Specifically, I can’t point out one right now just because it depends on what interests you and what you’d like to do.
I’ve taken hands-on endo courses implant courses, all these different things.
But it really depends on what interests you. But I would say take hands-on courses right? A lot of the didactic material, you take all these different courses, essentially they say the same things.
It’s getting these hands moving and giving you the confidence to do it. A lot of the things that they’re saying in these courses are nothing that you don’t know, right? So that’s why I think it’s very essential to take hands-on courses to really get you going to do certain things and give you the confidence.
Like I took an implant course in North Carolina with Dr. Shelf, and literally in the next two weeks I had implants on my schedule, right?
And this was probably the fifth implant course I took, except this one was hands-on, right? So now like I did it in someone’s head right I did it on a real-life person.
There are only so many typodont jaws that you can do it on right and it was like no like I did it, on a human and they didn’t explode!
That gives me the confidence to be like okay, I can offer this service to my patients. Now case selection is key, so certain cases I’m like that’s going to the surgeon, but you know doing it on a human there, with guidance, definitely helped.
Especially because when you get out into private practice, and I would say this was something I noticed as well. it’s like the group setting unless you specifically go to a group practice is not really what’s happening in private practice, right?
There’s one or two doctors and if you’re a good enough associate, the owner kind of disappears. And I know that has been my experience where they’re like, okay, you’re producing enough and they like slowly are not in the office anymore.
Or it’s their schedule is fully booked your schedule is fully booked, mentorship is not really happening, right? Or it’s happening during lunch or it is just, you know, small little conversations.
But if you don’t know how to do an implant, okay, they’re doing right? If you don’t know how to do something, someone else is doing it versus it’s like, okay, we’re gonna sit down and we’re going to do this case together.
Unfortunately, that’s not productive, right? So you go see your patient, I’m gonna go see my member and then maybe we’ll talk about it later, right? And that’s what ends up happening a lot, you’re in the offices by yourself so you’re not doing the things you don’t know how to do.
And there’s so much that someone can lecture at you about when you’re not actually doing it with your hands and you’re like, yeah, that was a great lecture, and I’m gonna go still have my regular schedule that I have.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Hands-on is great, because like you said, you’re kind of going through the motions, but you also get the feedback. And you can ask questions in person, you likely are going to create some kind of mentorship with whoever, you know, held that course where you can still ask questions, which I think is key. Yeah, so great, great advice, I love it.
Any last thoughts that you’d like to share with our listeners?
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo
I would say to all the new dentists, you know, just keep listening to all these different podcasts.
Even if you don’t know these people in person, these are your virtual mentors. So keep hearing the stories you are not alone.
Dentistry is a very very difficult field but it’s rewarding, right? Practice how you want to practice and make the best out of it.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Love it, Emma, thank you so much for your time. If our listeners would like to connect with you, where can they find you?
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo
So my Instagram is underscore Dr. Emma so you could definitely DM me and hit me up there.
Via my website, there’s a link there where you can contact me interested in mentorship. And then my email is my first name last name, so Emma Guzman 226 at gmail.com.
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
Go check out the website, it is awesome, I love it.
Emma, thank you for bringing your energy to our episode today and we’ll catch you all next time.
Dr. Guzman-Vizcarrondo
All righty, thank you!
Dr. Tanya Sue Maestas
We hope you enjoyed this series with Dr. Guzman and that you will join us with our future episodes here at Dental Fuel.
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