Latest / Straumann® ProTalk / Art never dies, it just becomes digital: The evolution of aesthetic dentistry with Dr. Florin Cofar & Dr. Eric Van Dooren
Transcript
- 0:00But it's like you said, we are probably the only profession that
- 0:03the first sells and then executes, and then in the end starts to plan.
- 0:07Why was and is 3DNA so important for SmileCloud to be a next step?
- 0:13It gives you clarity and a supervision and a way to align this vision with all the
- 0:19others and the fluid way to interact with other technologies and other softwares.
- 0:24We talked about your lab, that you had such a big lab in your practice.
- 0:28How did your lab technician look at this?
- 0:30The best of the best technicians, of course, they were not happy to see a
- 0:33machine mill tooth form that was like always different and many times better.
- 0:52Welcome to ProTalk.
- 0:53Welcome to The Pulse of Dentistry.
- 0:55Welcome to this episode that you know we are welcoming you from Portugal,
- 1:00from the International Aesthetic Days in Villa Moura, which for us is a very
- 1:03special event centering around actually excellence in aesthetic industry and for
- 1:09this topic today, I'm very happy that I can welcome two very special guests, Dr.
- 1:14Eric Van Dooren, and Dr. Florin Cofar.
- 1:17Welcome, Eric . Thank you.
- 1:20Welcome, Florin.
- 1:20It's a great pleasure to have you today.
- 1:23Very much looking forward to our conversation and today what you will
- 1:28learn and what you will, what we'll dive into is all about aesthetic
- 1:33dentistry, mastering aesthetic dentistry, the philosophy it takes.
- 1:37It will be a lot about collaboration, probably about vision, about art, and
- 1:41about precision and how to approach.
- 1:46Aesthetic industry with a master's mind and really creating
- 1:49excellence for the patients.
- 1:50So thanks for being with us today.
- 1:52It's my pleasure, Eric and Florin.
- 1:54And the first question we always start with is, Eric, maybe we start with you.
- 1:58Who is Eric Vandorn in one minute.
- 2:00I know this is very difficult in one minute, but that's, who is Eric
- 2:03Vandorn?
- 2:04Eric Van Dorin is a dentist from Belgium, Antwerp, semi-retired.
- 2:09Although Florin says, I'm not, this is not true.
- 2:11Semi-retired since I know him.
- 2:13Enjoying still the job like I did before that case is crucial and important
- 2:20and traveling a lot, lecturing still a lot, and enjoying the new technologies
- 2:26and new ways of looking at dentistry.
- 2:28Besides enjoying my family and my friends.
- 2:32Okay.
- 2:32That's it.
- 2:32Good?
- 2:33Yeah.
- 2:33Thank you Eric.
- 2:34Florin?
- 2:36To make a parallel with Eric, I am Florin dentist from Timișoara Romania.
- 2:42Also involved in technology, as some of you might know, and trying to balance
- 2:48life also with, family and all the activities that we currently have trying
- 2:54to make, ends meet and enjoying a lot.
- 2:57I have to say that yeah, I'm, I am, I think we are very fortunate
- 3:01to be doing the kind of things and to be privileged to, to travel,
- 3:07to have this type of experience.
- 3:10It's a good life.
- 3:11Yes.
- 3:12And passion is a big part of it.
- 3:14I realize for both of you, the passion for what you do and enjoying it.
- 3:18Now we speak here, aesthetic day is 2025.
- 3:21But let's dive a little bit into your journey quickly.
- 3:24Eric, what is your background and what was, let's say, the most,
- 3:28three important steps or moments or people that have influenced the
- 3:32Eric Van Dooren and we see today?
- 3:35I think my journey started, I graduated in 1982, as in Catholic University at Leuven.
- 3:42As a general dentist, basically not at all interested in dentistry, I have to say.
- 3:47Okay.
- 3:48So I was playing more football and tennis than being a dentist, but
- 3:53the last year, one of my professors sent me, because I was teaching, I
- 3:57was giving tennis lessons basically.
- 4:00I was playing in university team in Leuven of Tennis.
- 4:03So he saw it and he, he told me, why don't you give me some tennis lessons?
- 4:07So I did.
- 4:08And he said you know what, for your last six months, I'm gonna send you
- 4:10to a guy in Brussels who is in a very shabby office, but he's unbelievable
- 4:15because he's doing both soft tissue implants and prosthetics, but I didn't
- 4:21understand exactly what it meant.
- 4:23So I had my training for my last six months in his office, and
- 4:26that opened my eyes for sure.
- 4:28Then we started an office, or I started an office in in Brussels, where I got
- 4:34interested in mainly soft tissue surgery.
- 4:36Combining pros and soft tissue surgery because I was thinking that
- 4:41in many of the cases it's very nice to be able to use or to change things
- 4:46that you cannot just change with the white part, with the teeth part.
- 4:50And then I basically went to a lot of courses and I met one guy in Dallas,
- 4:55Texas, pat Allen, and basically he was my teacher since, or still is my god.
- 5:03And since 30 years already, so there I learned a lot.
- 5:07And then 12 years ago I met the second God Florin Cofar.
- 5:12No, it's true because you just, I, I didn't enjoy, it's always cyclic you.
- 5:18You learn about new things, then you are getting used to it, and
- 5:22then you need something else to be motivated and to get involved
- 5:26again in the things that you like.
- 5:28And then I met Florin.
- 5:29I don't know, I met you in my house in Brazil.
- 5:31No, the first time.
- 5:32You were full of red dots because you slept on the beach.
- 5:35We were with a lot of mosquitoes around.
- 5:37We've met Indian reservation in Brussel.
- 5:40Yeah.
- 5:40You went to an Indian Reserve?
- 5:42Yeah,
- 5:42next to close to my house.
- 5:44So that's where I met him.
- 5:45And then already then I thought, he's it's sometimes you meet people and
- 5:48you feel the energy is different.
- 5:49So I felt just after a few hours, I felt it was a little bit different than
- 5:54all the others already was talking then about digital and I didn't understand.
- 5:58And and that's when I got,
- 6:00or was it in a dentistry context, like in a course or was just like pure incidents?
- 6:04Pure luck, let's say.
- 6:05Okay.
- 6:06Wow.
- 6:06Okay.
- 6:08So Pat Allen made a big impact on you and very big impact, like on many others.
- 6:12And I think Eric, today, I can say it you would never say it about yourself.
- 6:16I know it you made a you made a big impact on many other people as well.
- 6:19So I think that's a a beautiful
- 6:22development.
- 6:22I think it's just a question of being able to give not only take
- 6:27or in anything you want to do.
- 6:29No,
- 6:29yeah, absolutely.
- 6:30And to share.
- 6:31So that's.
- 6:32How was it for you l your journey?
- 6:34What was have been the major?
- 6:36Similar milestones, similar to Papa.
- 6:40I called Eric Papa for long time, but similar.
- 6:44When I finished school, I basically got the license, the diploma.
- 6:49Okay.
- 6:49It's just inertia.
- 6:50At that time I had not a real direction.
- 6:54It's just I think we, especially, I think if I look at my kids also boys
- 6:59have a delay I think a little bit.
- 7:00Sometimes when the time comes, you're not ready to take a decision.
- 7:04Then both parents, dentists, so I go to dental school and it was after I finished
- 7:09dental school that I really found calling.
- 7:12Okay.
- 7:13But then I worked just explorative genetic for maybe a year and something
- 7:20then I wanted to integrate in the team.
- 7:24And then, my, my father was a surgeon, all of that, and everybody
- 7:27was advising me, Hey, you have to.
- 7:30Go for this and do that.
- 7:31And I remember I asked myself, okay, what is this team weakest point?
- 7:35What nobody wants to do, and it was Endo at that time.
- 7:38This is why I started with Endo.
- 7:40'cause, it was the fastest way for me to get, a foothold there
- 7:44and to help all the others.
- 7:45So make myself, let's say useful.
- 7:49But then Endo didn't really fit my character because I get, I get bored.
- 7:55Easy.
- 7:56So there's few things that can be more boring than Endo at a
- 7:59certain point, once you have the.
- 8:01Protocol in check.
- 8:04So then I went on a path again to meet people and I was lucky that I
- 8:08had some consecutive, people that I learned from each a little bit.
- 8:13I remember the first day saw Mauro.
- 8:15Yeah.
- 8:16Then.
- 8:16Galip and Itan.
- 8:19Then Christian Coachman, and then I was lucky to meet Papa over here, which
- 8:25again, I think it's always different when there's people that you learn from and
- 8:29there's people that you wanna become.
- 8:31This is a very big difference and I think it's that's at the end of the day
- 8:36if you talk about relevant moments, this is one of those relevant moments because
- 8:40then you get a different kind of drive.
- 8:42Yeah.
- 8:43There's the normal things and then there's, okay.
- 8:47I have a goal, which is much further away.
- 8:50And then also important for me was and still is today, and I
- 8:54still credit a lot to him, Paulo.
- 8:57Who is for me, one of the most amazing people we have in this profession.
- 9:04And yeah.
- 9:05And at a certain point, okay, at a certain point I gave myself the freedom
- 9:10to, to start to create and to innovate.
- 9:14Because at a certain, you learn.
- 9:15At a certain point, it's just a click when you can say, okay, I can.
- 9:21Maybe have the confidence enough to just use what I learned and
- 9:26to try to improve certain things and that's how things evolve.
- 9:31It was a good journey.
- 9:32Yeah.
- 9:32And I think interesting that, you moved out of indoor because if I look what you
- 9:37do today, it's it's, I think we can be very fortunate that you unlocked your
- 9:41food potential in the very complex cases that you guys are doing, which I believe
- 9:45are difficult, but also very rewarding.
- 9:47Speaking about balance a bit, so both of you, you are clinicians, run your own
- 9:52practice, collaborate a lot on cases.
- 9:55You educate, you teach a lot.
- 9:57Spend time mentoring people.
- 9:59Florin also you are an entrepreneur with SmileCloud.
- 10:03Both of you have a family.
- 10:04How do you keep balance?
- 10:05I imagine that's not always easy.
- 10:07No, it's,
- 10:08Very difficult balance.
- 10:09Probably it's the most difficult balance to keep and your family
- 10:13happy and your office happy.
- 10:15And yourself happy, basically.
- 10:17I was very fortunate to have in the office, which I closed now colleagues
- 10:21that stayed for 20, 25 years.
- 10:22That took over when I was traveling, they took over.
- 10:25So that's exactly what you need.
- 10:27You need stability both in your professional environment
- 10:31and your family environment.
- 10:32And I am.
- 10:33Very fortunate, again, to have a wife that understood that I was ambitious
- 10:38probably, and that I wanted to travel.
- 10:40And it probably goes together with a little bit of let me turn it differently.
- 10:45Today, I have more time for my grandchildren than I had for my children.
- 10:49And that's maybe the only thing that I regret.
- 10:51That I didn't take the time because in the weekend traveling then back
- 10:55home, start to work come home late is Yeah it's really a difficult balance.
- 11:01Really, even already as a dentist, simply working in the office is difficult.
- 11:05So then if you travel and you work and you have the family,
- 11:08it's different level of balance.
- 11:11Yeah.
- 11:12How about you Florine?
- 11:14I think my balance is my wife.
- 11:17Yes, exactly.
- 11:18Yes.
- 11:18Most of the time it's it's I think it's important that, she was always
- 11:22like supportive, but at the same time when, when I go too much into, Hey,
- 11:26I did this and did that, and da at a certain point after two minutes,
- 11:30she cuts it like this and say, Hey.
- 11:33Enough.
- 11:34Now here you, it's only dentistry.
- 11:37Father, the husband, I don't care about all your stuff, and this is healthy.
- 11:42Okay?
- 11:42Because otherwise we go too much in one direction.
- 11:45And I think again Eric, I wasn't, I'm fortunate to, yeah, to have a
- 11:52partner like this.
- 11:53I think our two wives, they know each other.
- 11:56Yeah.
- 11:56And they're very similar from a completely different age,
- 11:59but they're just both the same.
- 12:01And I think if they're not supportive, you forget about
- 12:04No.
- 12:04It's impossible to yes.
- 12:06To work if you don't have this,
- 12:08rock, there's always a strong person.
- 12:10The background, this.
- 12:11Yeah, that makes sense.
- 12:13I believe.
- 12:14What's what's connecting you to bit my observation is the philosophy and the
- 12:18way you look at dentistry would you agree, when you met the first time in
- 12:22Brazil in, in the house, or what is what connected you in the first instance?
- 12:29Me
- 12:29What?
- 12:29Yeah, you can
- 12:30You go first.
- 12:31No, you do.
- 12:31No problem.
- 12:32I'm gonna steal my answer.
- 12:34I think what connected does is the drive for perfection, basically.
- 12:38Yeah.
- 12:38The OCD, huh?
- 12:40I Florin always says to me that I have OCD in a very high degree.
- 12:45No.
- 12:45Obsessive compulsive.
- 12:47No.
- 12:47It's obsessive
- 12:48care for details.
- 12:49Yes.
- 12:50It's, that was what, yeah, probably we both are perfectionists and we we always
- 12:57take everything very constructive.
- 12:59And we both like to learn.
- 13:02Yes this, and here you get much more credit because yeah, you have
- 13:06done it for much longer than I did.
- 13:09And then it's also a matter of shared vision.
- 13:11The fact that we, again, we believe that simple things like.
- 13:16Hey, before you start doing something, you're, you need to
- 13:19be able to visualize the final outcome before you do the first cut.
- 13:23And here we are very much aligned and even before we had all of this
- 13:27technology and all of that, and I went to his office in Belgium, like
- 13:33half of the building, there was a lab.
- 13:35Okay.
- 13:35And that's when you don't expect, you knowing Eric, like from the outside
- 13:39famous surgeon and all of that.
- 13:41And then the emphasis on the lab was so strong back then.
- 13:45And I remember, asking the technicians to simulate the with wax, the graphs
- 13:50and all of these things, which are the same things that we eventually
- 13:53are doing today with, different
- 13:55tech.
- 13:56Yeah.
- 13:56When we were lecturing today together.
- 13:59I was thinking about this 25 years ago, 30 years ago.
- 14:02Yeah.
- 14:02We had these famous technicians, they came and we were asking
- 14:04them, like you say, yeah.
- 14:06To simulate things in wax, which is craftmanship.
- 14:09But what Florin did than in, he brought it to next level, which
- 14:13is digitalize all of these things.
- 14:15Which makes everything much more easy for any dentist now, because
- 14:19you what I had the setup that we had in Anter was today would be
- 14:23realistic because we were flying him.
- 14:25Brazilian technicians for two weeks, working day and night, Saturday, Sunday,
- 14:30having very beautiful cases ready.
- 14:32But there was like an analog philosophy that is translated now into digital, which
- 14:38makes me very happy because I see many things that we did already long time ago.
- 14:42In a different way.
- 14:43They appear now.
- 14:44And in a very efficient and productive way they appear now.
- 14:49So it's this ob obsession for perfection and detail and position
- 14:53that, that you share and the mindset of starting with the end in mind.
- 14:56Yes.
- 14:57I think where do you compliment each other
- 15:02in many ways?
- 15:04So first I think I first of all,
- 15:08Eric always has the experience, the wisdom.
- 15:11These are the things where it is always gonna be, the better half.
- 15:15And I guess I but I wouldn't say that only, I have a little bit of creativity.
- 15:21He has a lot also, so I'm not sure what I'm really adding,
- 15:25but I know what I get from him.
- 15:27I'm not sure if I'm adding too much, but maybe ask, I know what I get.
- 15:31No, I think
- 15:31you just the, your vision on things and your.
- 15:36Strength to analyze things in a different way, but especially your vision.
- 15:41And the way you push your vision through.
- 15:44Yeah.
- 15:44Okay.
- 15:44No matter what happens next to you.
- 15:47And that's a huge strength.
- 15:49It's a huge plus, I would say,
- 15:51From knowing you now a couple of years, I would underline this.
- 15:56Things happening long time before they happen.
- 15:58Yes.
- 15:59Visionary.
- 15:59Exactly.
- 16:00I think this is simple.
- 16:01So your philosophy, if you approach.
- 16:04A case, what are the core principles for you or the non-negotiables
- 16:08where say, look, this is really, if we approach a case, this is
- 16:11non-negotiable and this is a core of
- 16:13our philosophy to get all the initial information, no, all the
- 16:17data, and then from the data try.
- 16:21To plan something without even touching the patient.
- 16:23So to visualize anything you want to do with the patient.
- 16:27And basically what we see is that 80, 90% will be decided upon at the start already.
- 16:33So we take a lot of time to document, a lot of time to analyze,
- 16:37a lot of time to treatment plan.
- 16:40And in the end of the day, 80% will be like this.
- 16:42And then you have a variable variables that you don't always know from the start.
- 16:47But then the execution is
- 16:49yes.
- 16:51Swiss is a big word, but you understand what I mean.
- 16:54Precise?
- 16:54No.
- 16:54That's flawless and precise.
- 16:55And because you're propel 'cause you are prepared.
- 16:58Yeah.
- 16:58That's the thing.
- 16:58But it's like you said, we are probably the only profession that
- 17:02the first cells and then executes and then in the end starts to plan.
- 17:06And that's why there's so many failures.
- 17:08And that's why all the technicians are getting, like in Belgium,
- 17:11we don't have anymore because they're like They're firemen.
- 17:14Yeah, they're firemen for anything.
- 17:17I remember, Florin you once compared it when we talked.
- 17:20You compared it to architecture.
- 17:22It's a bit the same.
- 17:23The way you approach it, you first build the house or you create a vision
- 17:27of the house and then you know, you.
- 17:30Then you start building it and not the other way around.
- 17:33Yeah.
- 17:33And let me make a simple comparison.
- 17:35We advocate a lot this idea of having one design Yeah.
- 17:39Which is the same like for a house, but this is not just something
- 17:42that needs to stay abstract.
- 17:44Imagine okay.
- 17:46That the architect creates this design but then keeps it on the computer at
- 17:51his house and nobody can reach him.
- 17:53And construction happens in that time.
- 17:55How will that work?
- 17:56So what we want is first of all, that the plan exists and that the plan is
- 18:02layered, disconnected, because not, we don't want like one plan for this,
- 18:06one, plan for that one, plan for that.
- 18:08And at the end we play firemen to put it together.
- 18:10We want one plan.
- 18:12And a framework that this is accessible and it's a parallel reference to the
- 18:17actual patient because you see, this is the lane where you see the patient.
- 18:21Imagine a long treatment.
- 18:22Two years.
- 18:23Every time you see the patient, what we will see a changing
- 18:25situation all the time.
- 18:27So how can I manage a changing situation without improvising if
- 18:32I don't have a go-to reference?
- 18:34So what is important for us is to always spend time on that
- 18:38reference on, what is the design?
- 18:41Okay.
- 18:41We create a common definition of success.
- 18:45And then, as we go, whenever we have any doubt or any iteration
- 18:50or fine tuning, because there will be, you have always the go-to.
- 18:55Because if you just keep the patient's mouth as the reference,
- 18:58you are just looking at the waves.
- 19:00They're going like this.
- 19:01That's the problem.
- 19:02One observation that I also have is that what is very unique about your approach
- 19:06is the collaboration that you have with, let's say all the specialists,
- 19:10dental technicians around you.
- 19:12I feel this is.
- 19:13Somewhat much more intense than what I usually observe.
- 19:17How do you approach collaboration and how many people do we do
- 19:20you involve in cases like this?
- 19:21Because as an architect, you could build the vision of the future house
- 19:25just yourself, but you don't, right?
- 19:27Yeah.
- 19:28Conceptually, it's just, I think the more you involve the
- 19:32better potentially you can get.
- 19:35But the thing is very important to understand what we.
- 19:40Due to change a little bit.
- 19:42The way the game works is we never just discuss, okay, what We always
- 19:48start from a draft, which is usually, it was in the past two.
- 19:51Even now it's three dimensional and you have a conversation
- 19:56over something which is, palp.
- 19:58It's visual, it's facial, everybody can see.
- 20:02And we make sure everybody understands the same thing.
- 20:04Because if we're doing it without that, what happens is
- 20:08we are gonna create parallel different images within our minds.
- 20:11Okay.
- 20:12And then we will collaborate by expectation, not by reality.
- 20:20Because in my mind, there's an expectation of what he does, and he
- 20:23has an expectation of what I will do.
- 20:25And it's really important to align this before everything starts.
- 20:29So I think at the end of the day, we just make sure that we always work on a draft.
- 20:34Okay.
- 20:35Very simple.
- 20:35We have technicians for this.
- 20:37A technician will create a design in the beginning, which is agnostic of specialty.
- 20:42'cause that's another thing.
- 20:42We are biased.
- 20:44We are biased in how we plan.
- 20:46I will push towards pro.
- 20:48The ortho will push towards ortho.
- 20:50So just, okay.
- 20:51What is ideal here?
- 20:52It start there and then basically, it's almost like making a gap analysis
- 20:57between what is ideal and what you have.
- 21:00And based on that, then you realize, okay, that gap analysis tells
- 21:04you we, you need this skillset.
- 21:06And then you ask yourself, do I have the skillset?
- 21:08Yes.
- 21:09Fine.
- 21:09I do.
- 21:10No.
- 21:10Then, okay, I know what skillset I need.
- 21:13And then
- 21:14you ask.
- 21:14It's, but besides that, it's also nice to see that there's a group of people,
- 21:20and this grew really organically, that enjoyed to go to Tim as a reference
- 21:25place to go, not only because of the quality of the work, but also because
- 21:29of documentation, many other things.
- 21:30So from all over the world.
- 21:32Many people go and just spend time there.
- 21:35Like I could see here in your on your Congress while at Gustavo Jordan, there's
- 21:40Victor Kla, or there's Benjamin Kota.
- 21:42There's I can, there's maybe 15 names and all.
- 21:45Very but what is important is that we all have the same,
- 21:49let's say, professional values.
- 21:51We, we value also the quality of the work.
- 21:53But also the friendship and that I think is essential to respect each other and
- 21:58value the friendship between the group.
- 22:01And they're all high level all.
- 22:02Yeah.
- 22:03They just go and they, after I will tell you, they pay, own their own ticket and
- 22:08they don't, we don't get paid there.
- 22:09So now you do it for progress, for as a team to see new things.
- 22:13And there's always, let's say if I go every four months or six
- 22:18months, always something changed.
- 22:20And if nothing changed changes anymore, I will stop.
- 22:24That's not the problem.
- 22:26This not happen so soon and everything is the same for me.
- 22:29If I get bored, then it's game over.
- 22:31So I It's possible.
- 22:32Exactly.
- 22:34So I like the way you also described this Florin that you start actually
- 22:38with a prototype because I think it's also, in our world, it's the same.
- 22:41It's a very efficient way to work and you make progress fast
- 22:44and everybody sees the same.
- 22:46And then you discuss in this discussions, how important is
- 22:50disagreement and creative tension?
- 22:53Or how often does it happen and how do you solve it?
- 22:57Often it, of course it will happen, but the thing is usually again,
- 23:03you have to make it palpable.
- 23:05Okay.
- 23:05It's, I'll give you an example.
- 23:07Okay.
- 23:08If I imagine I, I will, I talk to the orthodontist.
- 23:12And we have a disagreement on an ortho topic who will be right by default, the
- 23:19specialist, the orthodontist, right?
- 23:21There's no way my opinion can outweigh his opinion.
- 23:25But then the way to ask the question is, normally you go to the orthodontist
- 23:30only with a problem, and I think you should go with the problem and
- 23:36with the draft of the solution.
- 23:39And only ask the question, not what you would you do here, but
- 23:42ask the question, is this possible or Can you do this or not?
- 23:46Propose an alternative?
- 23:47And we again, everything has to be practical.
- 23:51If you say no, okay, fine.
- 23:53But then you give me an option and then we check your option.
- 23:58The only thing that I don't really, I cannot work with is lack of commitment
- 24:04to a certain solution I cannot live with.
- 24:07Okay.
- 24:08We'll see what happens.
- 24:09This for me is anxiety.
- 24:10I don't know for you.
- 24:11But I cannot just start something not knowing of,
- 24:15And sometimes people also think that, if we discuss cases, for example,
- 24:18that it should take half an hour of teams or one hour discussing.
- 24:22No, it's sometimes five minutes, but just to, to determine the way to go.
- 24:26Keeping the final goal in, in, in your mind doesn't need to be very
- 24:31long discussions, just pragmatically.
- 24:34In time you align more and what happens is you gain a common
- 24:38denominator in the critical eye.
- 24:39So in the beginning, you look at the same thing different dots.
- 24:42And as you go and as you do this exercise often you put the same picture and
- 24:47instantly both can see the same problem.
- 24:49And then discussion is okay directly.
- 24:51Okay.
- 24:52Let's, there we have a problem.
- 24:54So imagine I'm a young clinician, okay?
- 24:57And want to build maybe a prosthodontic practice moving forward.
- 25:02What would be your recommendation to me?
- 25:04How to build a strong team?
- 25:05What do I need to watch out for?
- 25:06To build
- 25:07a strong team?
- 25:07Around me.
- 25:09No, you de a team you deserve in the end, first of all.
- 25:14So it's nothing.
- 25:14It's not, that's good.
- 25:15It's not a thing that will come by itself.
- 25:17So if you want to deserve, probably you, your, the quality of what
- 25:21you're doing should be high.
- 25:24And you should be ready to learn a lot, travel to learn, go to different offices.
- 25:30And I think the most important thing is you and you said
- 25:34it this morning, I remember.
- 25:35You said that you should be ready to fail also, because from the failures,
- 25:39that's where you will learn most.
- 25:42You will fail and you will have a problem and you will not make the
- 25:45same mistake probably the second time.
- 25:48And but the team you will just deserve the people around you.
- 25:52According to what you deliver and according to your philosophy, and
- 25:56probably also according to your character or your charisma or whatever.
- 26:01Yeah.
- 26:01Mostly you meet like-minded people then.
- 26:03It's a, it's what happened also in your case.
- 26:05That's a bit my observation.
- 26:06I think again you probably said it the most important things and very nice.
- 26:15I will try to add something pragmatic to it.
- 26:17Okay.
- 26:18Just pragmatic in the sense that if I think about the young
- 26:20ones, what is healthy to start?
- 26:24Imagine you want to get.
- 26:26Young people, but the, there will be a gap of level.
- 26:29That's what you need to manage.
- 26:30Okay.
- 26:30They're young and their level is probably a bit higher.
- 26:33And how do you bridge the gap and how do you keep it working
- 26:37and how do you scale that?
- 26:39So I think one of the things that we, again, enforce is documentation.
- 26:45For example, if this is one of the things that is non-negotiable
- 26:48because with documentation, you, it's, you instill a culture that has.
- 26:55Discipline documentation requires discipline.
- 26:59Very important quality.
- 27:01Then it's also openness and vulnerability because you need to document everything
- 27:06regardless if it's good or bad.
- 27:09And then it also transparency.
- 27:11So everybody has to put everything on the table.
- 27:14And this is like a healthy ground for, moving, moving forward.
- 27:18So I believe this is one of the keys and then only after, basically in, in our
- 27:26universe, only after this is checked.
- 27:30Then you get to touch a patient.
- 27:31And even if you can be whoever, doesn't matter, but it is just the young ones
- 27:35have to master this, and at the beginning they probably will just assist somebody.
- 27:40That's doing things.
- 27:41When this is done, then you can start to do things because then the framework
- 27:44is built in a way that we can control.
- 27:48See Papa told me one time he said, Hey.
- 27:51We were discussing about the case and he called me like five times about something.
- 27:56And then, I got irritated and said, why Papa?
- 27:59Trust me.
- 28:00I, you told me I will do it.
- 28:02And then Eric said, yeah, I trust, but I want to see.
- 28:05So it's the same with me.
- 28:08Yeah, I trust you, but I want to see
- 28:10it's well.
- 28:12I feel it's also a good moment to speak about SmileCloud because I
- 28:15think SmileCloud is facilitating a lot of what you just discussed.
- 28:19What I would be interested in, Florin, you're very visionary person.
- 28:23The day that you decided to do SmileCloud was what was actually,
- 28:27what was it that you wanted to bring to the world in the first place?
- 28:31What was your first idea about Smart Cloud?
- 28:35Yeah, that will be a philosophical answer.
- 28:38I can tell you.
- 28:39It's I have to word no, it's jokes aside.
- 28:41So I realized I, I had many angles from which I saw it.
- 28:46Not many, but a couple.
- 28:48So a couple was I looked, I saw an opportunity.
- 28:54An opportunity in the sense that I could see the lack of basic
- 28:58tools that we were needing.
- 29:00The ability to just put your data in a nice way didn't exist back then.
- 29:04We're talking 2016 and it was like I was just starting with digital and I
- 29:11realize, I always think in scale for me.
- 29:14Want to validate something is something you are able to scale.
- 29:17If it just works for one person, it's not really, it's okay,
- 29:21but it's not what I focus on.
- 29:23And I realized the first thing that you have all these
- 29:26broken pieces and we need to.
- 29:28Connect them somehow.
- 29:29So that was the opportunity part.
- 29:31And that started, let's say, the base layer of smart cloud with
- 29:34the workspace that it is today.
- 29:37But the other layer the other part of the name, the biometrics, is
- 29:41where I really believe that the legacy part I really think there's
- 29:46a business and there's a legacy.
- 29:48Okay.
- 29:48Which is more than the business.
- 29:50And the legacy is, we've been always doing restorative dentistry for.
- 29:54A hundred years, or I don't know how long doesn't matter in what
- 29:59sense that we always restore smiles based on genetic information.
- 30:05There's, imagine there's a tooth missing.
- 30:07We go to school, we learn how a tooth should look like, and we replicate
- 30:12out of imagination most of the time, and which tends to be repetitive,
- 30:17limited and many, and difficult.
- 30:19Because we know that only a fraction of the people can do it in properly.
- 30:24So then I realized, hey, design is everywhere.
- 30:30The first thing that a sc that a scanner can do is actually capture something.
- 30:34But we are using all our scanners to capture only the problems.
- 30:37If you take the same scanner and capture, the beautiful part that is there, like
- 30:41design we potentially, and this is again, a work in progress, we can really
- 30:47shift restorative to its true meaning.
- 30:50Think about architecture.
- 30:51What is restorative?
- 30:52Restorative is not to take an old building and to put a glass windows like nuances
- 30:57to restore what was so what I really the legacy, which I start with, and
- 31:02then of course that how we, it went in very different ways because the strategy
- 31:07and tactics, which you know very well.
- 31:09But this the idea was to really enable.
- 31:14That the next generation, the one that will come after us, will
- 31:18be able to do restorative in a completely different way to restore
- 31:23What was, imagine Your Child is 18.
- 31:27Perfect.
- 31:29Everything.
- 31:30Imagine how valuable that information is if you just take the data sets
- 31:34that we have today when we talk about virtual patient, all of that,
- 31:36imagine how specific, how unique, how individual for me that's worth more
- 31:41than all the restorative materials you would use in that treatment.
- 31:44So this is a process way beyond SmileCloud and because the change in culture.
- 31:49We are only in stage one of the process right now.
- 31:52We enable people to really play with the tools.
- 31:55Okay.
- 31:56That's stage one.
- 31:57Stage one is, hey, we show it's possible to copy anything, but in
- 32:01stage one we take, we like Robin Hood design, we take from the
- 32:05lucky ones and we, yeah, shift it.
- 32:08Where is, where we don't have nice anatomy?
- 32:12But stage two is that this becomes a culture.
- 32:15And if we talk about prevention, for example, which is a big topic like
- 32:19for example in Switzerland, all of that, for me, this is as important as
- 32:23all the other things in prevention.
- 32:24Just, hey, you have a unique opportunity to.
- 32:28Take this data.
- 32:30And to really harness it,
- 32:33exactly.
- 32:33Yeah.
- 32:34So there's the business and there's the legacy.
- 32:37The legacy is always more important than the business for me.
- 32:40And that was the vision initially, which is still a long way to
- 32:46go, but it's never changed.
- 32:48The vision has always been the same.
- 32:50It's a long way to go because you still have a lot of ideas and visions, but
- 32:53I think what is in place already is, it changed the game significantly.
- 32:58Eric, I wonder, we talked about your lab, that you had such
- 33:01a big lab in your practice.
- 33:03How.
- 33:04How did your lab technician look at this?
- 33:06Because he used to do this all, by craftsmanship.
- 33:09Yes.
- 33:09Apart it work, it was much more cumbersome.
- 33:11But, was he happy about this?
- 33:13How did he adopt?
- 33:14And
- 33:14I think they, everything for everything.
- 33:16You have an adaptation period.
- 33:18No, the best of the best technicians, of course, they were not happy to see a
- 33:21machine mill, a tooth form that was like always different and many times better.
- 33:27But it's always the same thing.
- 33:29They probably are able to layer.
- 33:32Porcelain in a way that is unbelievable and which is always optically still
- 33:37better than, but it's just that.
- 33:39Time, it's just a question of time before all these digital technologies
- 33:44catch up with the reality of the best technicians in the world.
- 33:48And there was friction of course in the beginning, and it took, and many
- 33:52of these, it took, it takes them like one, two years to adapt to it.
- 33:56But ultimately that's the way where it's going.
- 33:58Because there is no way around.
- 34:00I cannot, for example, if you place four beautiful veneers and one of the veneers
- 34:04as chipping or bricks, are you gonna fly in the same technician for this?
- 34:08So we need to have something that is let's say reproducible
- 34:13in, in a very acceptable way.
- 34:15Let's say we can give up on some optical properties or.
- 34:19Getting just a little bit less of optical nice feeling of the material.
- 34:24But we on the other side, we are much better in, like Florine said, to fitting
- 34:29something into the, in, into the.
- 34:31Let's say that the gingiva and the smile and the face of the patient.
- 34:35Yeah.
- 34:35And
- 34:35in a different way it like,
- 34:37it's again, a matter of scalability.
- 34:39Yes.
- 34:39Because in terms of potential, again, the artist hand is still the artist hand.
- 34:43The artist hand is, it's unbeatable as a potential, but you have to be pragmatic.
- 34:48Yes.
- 34:49And understand what is the scale factor in your reality.
- 34:53Because if there is no scale factor, then it's
- 34:56the artist hand is niche.
- 34:57Yes.
- 34:58Very.
- 34:58That niche for me is 5% of all the patients.
- 35:01Yeah.
- 35:02What comes a bit to my mind is the quote from Jensen Wg the CEO from
- 35:06Nvidia that says, look, it's not about AI or the human, but it's,
- 35:09what the human can do with the ai.
- 35:10If you empower and I think it's here the same, if you have a strong technician,
- 35:14it's not about the technician or the digital, it's about what a strong
- 35:17technician can do with the digital and that what it enables him to do.
- 35:21Yeah.
- 35:22I think I think the best technicians they have the feeling in deep
- 35:25inside of them that we evaluate.
- 35:28Their work that there's, that artistic part is gonna go that's what's happening.
- 35:33No, you agree, Robin?
- 35:34Yeah I think I find the parallel.
- 35:37Okay.
- 35:37Always between analog photography and digital photography, because
- 35:41the same process happened when we switch from film to digital camera.
- 35:46And again if you just glimpse back to those time, it was the same thing
- 35:50that the art will die and da, and, but the thing is, art never dies.
- 35:55Art will just reincarnate in different forms in different ways.
- 35:59Yes.
- 35:59It's at the end.
- 36:00Art is just shuffling the tools by which art becomes art, and the
- 36:05artist is always gonna be the artist.
- 36:07It's just I guess the normal cycle of fear.
- 36:11And, yes.
- 36:12Fear, courage in, in a in transitions, which are normal.
- 36:16That's the one constant we have in our life and in reality that
- 36:20there's always gonna be change, even when it's comfortable.
- 36:23That is
- 36:23just difficult sometimes to digest it.
- 36:25Yeah.
- 36:25Yeah.
- 36:26And some characters, they will digest and adapt very fast, and others
- 36:30will never and always complain.
- 36:31That's,
- 36:32that's a effect of life.
- 36:34That's what the looks like.
- 36:35And everybody can go with its own speed, I think.
- 36:38It's a good comparison with the digital photography.
- 36:40Today you can take tons of pictures very easily fast, but
- 36:43that doesn't mean it's really no.
- 36:45An art, it's still an artist.
- 36:47Do a lot.
- 36:47To be an artist today, you do a lot of mediocre.
- 36:49Yeah.
- 36:50Pictures right?
- 36:50That, that you see around 3DNA, that was a big launch this year.
- 36:55Or is we're in the middle of it.
- 36:57Yeah.
- 36:57I would say, and it made a huge fuss.
- 36:59I remember the day that this went viral.
- 37:02I, I haven't seen something like this from, for many
- 37:04years, so it made a big impact.
- 37:06Why was, and is 3DNA so important for.
- 37:10SmileCloud to be a next step?
- 37:12It is just, I think it's just a normal.
- 37:16Evolution of of smile design, so to speak.
- 37:20But it's just what 3DNA brings is a supervision for the people working.
- 37:27Because what is really important I think, and lemme try to
- 37:31simplify it and not go technical because the concept is important.
- 37:36Nothing is difficult when you have clarity.
- 37:39Okay.
- 37:40And the clarity is something that you need to have before you execute anything.
- 37:45And 3DNA with all the bells and whistles and all the things that
- 37:50you know, you could potentially do, what it really gives you, it
- 37:53gives you clarity and a supervision.
- 37:56And a way to align this vision with all the others and the
- 38:01fluid way to interact with other technologies and other softwares.
- 38:06And I think this is almost like it's.
- 38:11Mandatory.
- 38:12I would say for a next big step in, in enabling I would say the next
- 38:17generation of workflows, what it, what 3DNA does in one sentence.
- 38:22It allows you to have that one design, like of the house.
- 38:24It gives you that canvas.
- 38:27Which is the umbrella of many other things and keeps it all in one.
- 38:33And not only that, but people can interact in that, can review, iterate,
- 38:37can review, can visualize, it has a patient facing side where you can
- 38:42at any point render to the patient in a meaningful way for the patient.
- 38:46Imagine with a smile moving and all of that.
- 38:49So I think it, it does add.
- 38:54It is.
- 38:55It's funny because CDNAs, somehow, once you start using it.
- 38:59It's a need you never knew you had, but after you try it, it's almost
- 39:04impossible to go back to live without it.
- 39:06Yeah.
- 39:07It's this is what I heard many times, this couple of days.
- 39:10I don't remember how I did before.
- 39:12It's true, and I think that's true for SMILE Club in general.
- 39:16I hear this comment very often because it's, it has so many layers of
- 39:19benefit, like the common data sharing.
- 39:21You can talk to each other, you can collaborate, the Yeah.
- 39:23It starts with simple design.
- 39:24Creates,
- 39:25starts with simple things, and then you can get
- 39:27more sophisticated by
- 39:29time.
- 39:30No, exactly.
- 39:30I have to say what you did.
- 39:32I'm first and foremost probably a patient, and I think what you really did also is.
- 39:36To change the way patients are engaged.
- 39:38Because for a patient it's very hard to envision what, a clinician will do.
- 39:43With my oral situation it's almost impossible.
- 39:46So I'm actually, it needs a lot of trust for a patient to trust that,
- 39:51a clinician, that there will be a good final outcome because you
- 39:54have no idea what this looks like.
- 39:56And I think this is where you really.
- 39:58Manage to take the patient with you on the journey from day one?
- 40:02I think that's for the patient.
- 40:03It's super powerful.
- 40:04Yeah.
- 40:04I think that's a very strong part.
- 40:06Yeah.
- 40:07I would like to talk a bit about mentoring.
- 40:10Okay.
- 40:11Because, I can tell you, I get a lot of feedbacks that, that you've been a
- 40:14very important mentor to many people that, that are now, just yesterday
- 40:17I spoke to Vincent and many others.
- 40:21In your view, what makes a great mentor?
- 40:26S
- 40:26probably to be able to explain difficult things in a simple way.
- 40:33Yeah.
- 40:33And make things look simple without being ridiculous.
- 40:37That's also probably the way you can handle people and the showing besides.
- 40:44Interest in dentistry also interest in the human being or
- 40:48the, yeah, let's let, I don't know.
- 40:51How I have to explain is just something that grows organically.
- 40:54I think it's some, not something you can enforce.
- 40:57Mentorship is.
- 40:59It's going both ways.
- 41:00I,
- 41:01No, and it's altruism.
- 41:03This, I can tell you from my angle, it's, in order to be a mentor of somebody it's
- 41:09always a product of being altruistic.
- 41:11'Cause as a mentor, it's something you give.
- 41:13Without asking anything in return.
- 41:16That's what he did with me and with all the others.
- 41:19And I think I never felt basically like
- 41:21a mentor.
- 41:22It's just people that I like, I'm starting to work with.
- 41:25It's not about mentorship or like clinical education or, so
- 41:30sometimes you meet people, you think they're nice people, first of all.
- 41:34And then you are, if there are still good clinicians and you can give and take what?
- 41:38No, that's, there's nothing, some, nothing that I can say that I, on purpose.
- 41:44I did some It came like it is, yeah.
- 41:47No, what I often is, that they describe you as someone that gives all this
- 41:51knowledge, without any limitations.
- 41:53And I think that's the altruism that you Yeah.
- 41:56Described that you have the willingness also to to share all your expertise,
- 42:00all the mistakes, all your experience you accumulated over the years.
- 42:04And I think that's a very powerful, we also to share the friendship.
- 42:07The friendship, I cannot stress it enough.
- 42:09Yeah, and I agree.
- 42:10I know what you mean.
- 42:11Eric, it's as in a mentoring role, the mentor learns often as much as the
- 42:15mentee because it makes you reflect on what you do, which you probably didn't
- 42:19reflect before someone asked you, right?
- 42:21I think for the moment I learned more from them than they learn from me.
- 42:24Yeah, that's good.
- 42:25Because he's it's different.
- 42:26It's the same thing.
- 42:27It's sick, psychic.
- 42:27No.
- 42:28Yeah,
- 42:29I'm 66 now, so I'm, yeah, I have the experience, but they have much more
- 42:34knowledge about technologies, about these kind of things, so I try to adapt.
- 42:37That's it.
- 42:38Yeah.
- 42:38Cool.
- 42:39We spoke a lot about also vision and the future, so I have to ask you guys as well,
- 42:44if you look into the future of dentistry what's the next front that is ahead of us?
- 42:51I think personally robotics.
- 42:53Robotics, okay.
- 42:54Yes.
- 42:55In which field?
- 42:56Surgical, restorative.
- 42:57All of it.
- 42:58Restorative, surgical.
- 42:59I maybe florine won't agree, but I think when I was looking at your
- 43:04lecture where you showed the two lines.
- 43:07I
- 43:07think we need to try to define a study like the robot doing it, or
- 43:11on the model or the dentist doing it according to a design to make the prep.
- 43:16The robot will always do it better than the hand of the dentist,
- 43:19especially after seven hours or 24 hours, he will not be tired.
- 43:23That's for sure, and he has no bad Monday, and precision is
- 43:26just a question of time again.
- 43:27It's like the milling machines 20 years ago or 10 years ago were
- 43:31not as performant as they are now.
- 43:32Not as precise as they are now.
- 43:34But maybe Florin doesn't agree.
- 43:35I don't know.
- 43:35What is your
- 43:36vision?
- 43:36No I do agree.
- 43:38I'm just gonna try to phrase it a bit better.
- 43:42Not better, but different.
- 43:44It's so if you look.
- 43:46If you look at, let's say, CAD cam, okay, then you have the cad, which is
- 43:50the design where obviously there will just be layers and layers of automation
- 43:55with, more and more AI infused into it.
- 43:58And that I think it's a good thing because it'll.
- 44:01Again, give back the time investment of all these years, of all the people
- 44:06that went into digital, because we have to understand that there was a
- 44:09certain point where the investment of time for a dentist was ridiculous
- 44:14for digital to do everything.
- 44:16It's, you're not a dentist anymore, you're just, so I think that is gonna happen.
- 44:23Second, I can see already that there is a significant shift in
- 44:27the lab side on the printing.
- 44:30So I see that basically the only thing that's gating printing
- 44:34to take over is materials.
- 44:35Once the materials are enabled, I see that the lab will shift
- 44:39from reductive to additive.
- 44:42And the other thing is the logical thing.
- 44:44What will happen to cadcam and to reductive, it'll shift to robotics
- 44:49naturally because that's how I see the, at least a logical evolution of things.
- 44:54AI will be a layer that will infuse everything.
- 44:58A lab will go more to additive and the reductive will the.
- 45:02Will convert to robotics gradually.
- 45:05First assisted probably because there will be, again, a huge cultural barrier.
- 45:09But eventually it'll go further.
- 45:12I think it's inevitable.
- 45:13Yeah, I think I agree robotics will be a big topic and people are scared
- 45:16naturally today by it, but it will not change dentistry in two years from now.
- 45:20It'll be longer, a longer journey, but it starts now and it's a bit like, when
- 45:25we saw the first intra scanner coming to the market in 2007, eight, nine.
- 45:31They're not the same like today.
- 45:32And it took us now almost 20 years to arrive at the point
- 45:35within INO scans where we are.
- 45:36So I think we also need to give this field a bit of time.
- 45:40Yeah.
- 45:40But there's a big difference between what was in 2007 and now, because the
- 45:45speed of the acceleration of things is much, much faster, I think with the ai.
- 45:50I fully agree.
- 45:51This development will probably just take a third of the time not the same time.
- 45:54Yeah.
- 45:54And it'll actually be less r and d and more cultural
- 45:58barrier and regulatory barrier
- 46:00than
- 46:00actual development
- 46:01probably.
- 46:02Yeah.
- 46:02We, you experienced it.
- 46:04Now I think this, the regulatory barrier and the, let's say
- 46:09the how do I the barrier of European community of all these.
- 46:15Check and double check and yeah.
- 46:16And he it's gonna be tough on robotics for sure.
- 46:19Bureaucratics and, yeah.
- 46:21Or it will be the barrier for robotics also.
- 46:24Yeah.
- 46:25So again, me being a young dentist opening his own practice, what would
- 46:31you tell me what to focus on for?
- 46:33Where is the blue ocean?
- 46:35Big future opportunity in the industry because I feel it's actually a super
- 46:38exciting time to be in dentistry.
- 46:41So what would you recommend me to focus on
- 46:45Florin?
- 46:46First, I would repeat myself, but I will tell you first document,
- 46:50whatever you're gonna do.
- 46:51And the second thing is find the one thing that you like.
- 46:57Yes.
- 46:57I think because the one thing that you like, you will naturally be good at.
- 47:02And that will spiral in your favor.
- 47:04Don't go against it's very important early in the career to get a win
- 47:09mentally, psychologically, to start with something that you have like a
- 47:13runway, because then you can shift once.
- 47:17I think the first thing that you need to learn as a young dentist is how to win.
- 47:22Yeah.
- 47:23Know what I mean?
- 47:23Yeah.
- 47:23Just to get a few wins, because once you get a few wins, you get more energy in
- 47:28your tank, and then your dreams become bigger, and then you can grow and grow.
- 47:32But yeah, first document, because if you don't document, you'll have a career.
- 47:38Probably thinking that you're much better than you really are,
- 47:42which is not healthy and second.
- 47:44Just find the easier wins
- 47:47first.
- 47:48That's what I would suggest.
- 47:49I would also suggest to fo not to focus on money only.
- 47:52Yeah.
- 47:53Yeah, that's that's what I see.
- 47:55That's a very nice recommendation.
- 47:57Yeah.
- 47:57And and I agree, do we, passion and not money is the focus and confidence comes
- 48:02from doing and from succeeding, right?
- 48:04Yeah.
- 48:05I think this is where you build confidence and documentation is probably the key
- 48:08for progress and for learning because it will also show you your mistakes.
- 48:12Yeah.
- 48:13Mistakes.
- 48:13But if you don't document, you don't see mistakes.
- 48:15It's
- 48:16sometimes a very humbling experience to see own cases that you did take ago.
- 48:20Speaking about humbling experiences what.
- 48:23What makes you guys still nervous today?
- 48:25If you have a patient, you're so experienced.
- 48:26Is there still any situation that makes you nervous?
- 48:30Yes.
- 48:31The patient that should rather go to the psychiatrist than to the dentist.
- 48:36Okay.
- 48:36Yes.
- 48:36That's the typical patient I really don't want to treat.
- 48:39Ah, okay.
- 48:39Otherwise, technically I think we are so evolved that we can basic, we can solve
- 48:46many things, but the psych patients, that's the ones you need to avoid.
- 48:51Because it's out of your control.
- 48:52For completely out of control.
- 48:54Yes.
- 48:54I agree.
- 48:55And the patients probably, if you're talk, because we're talking about
- 48:58aesthetic dentistry the ones with the huge lip fillers and the Botox,
- 49:02that's also for me, a no go sometimes.
- 49:05No.
- 49:05Yeah.
- 49:06Yeah.
- 49:08Now, I ask you guys a lot of questions and I, I could continue asking.
- 49:12But we always want to give also the guests the opportunity to ask a
- 49:15question to us, Strauman n. Question that you always wanted to ask.
- 49:20Papa, you go first.
- 49:21I think my question is simple because I was just talking about it.
- 49:25Where are, where is from and when it comes to robotics now what?
- 49:29That's a very good question.
- 49:30That we are invested in, or we launched a dynamic navigation.
- 49:34Yes.
- 49:34System, which presents not robotics, but it's it's a step between
- 49:39static navigation and robotics.
- 49:41Yes, I would say it's probably fair to say, and yes, we are
- 49:44very interested in this field.
- 49:45We we observed this from a.
- 49:47Technology perspective.
- 49:49We look into a lot of companies, startups have a lot of conversation with experts.
- 49:54So it's a field that we are very interested in.
- 49:56Okay.
- 49:57And we have the motivation also to help develop this field and also help
- 50:01develop it in the right direction.
- 50:02That, what we always are mindful about is that we are not making,
- 50:06clinicians that are not experienced and that are maybe not reflected.
- 50:10Make them with, make them great clinicians just by technology, but, have technology
- 50:14that makes great clinicians more efficient and helps great clinicians to, to be, I
- 50:19think that's clinicians point of view.
- 50:21Yeah.
- 50:23Florine,
- 50:26what do you see right now as, as a challenge in the current reality.
- 50:31In the current landscape of economical turmoil that is happening and all of that.
- 50:37But is
- 50:40Oh, that doubt.
- 50:41That's a very good question actually.
- 50:42That does a lot of uncertainty at the
- 50:44moment.
- 50:44Yeah, that's the problem.
- 50:46How do you, man, how do you navigate uncertainty basically?
- 50:49Even more difficult question,
- 50:51how we navigate uncertainty.
- 50:53The first thing, it's like similar what you said.
- 50:55So first, by transparency and understanding, where is
- 50:59the uncertainty coming from?
- 51:00Because at the end you also need to bring it down to the root causes
- 51:02and it helps you to understand probably how long this will be.
- 51:06Yeah.
- 51:06A topic like we see uncertainty at the moment in China, we see uncertainty.
- 51:10In the US, Ukraine and so on.
- 51:13So to really understand based on data and then, also have some
- 51:18scenarios, how this will play out and take a cautious approach.
- 51:21And what we do a lot today, we have to say a bit, globalization is a bit over.
- 51:27We, we also have to hedge our risks as an example by having
- 51:31different manufacturing sites.
- 51:33It's the easiest example, different manufacturing sites in place in case some
- 51:36things happens in the us, Brazil, China.
- 51:41Switzerland, you will always have a let's say backup.
- 51:43A backup.
- 51:45And I think that makes you less, less, much less vulnerable if you
- 51:48have all your bags in one basket.
- 51:50Now you see it with the tariffs.
- 51:52We are very happy to have, as an example, a production manufacturing
- 51:55site in the US that makes us not at all vulnerable to, to, to the
- 51:58terrorists, and I think that's, yes.
- 52:01And we need to keep agile.
- 52:02I think the key thing that I see is that we need to also make sure we are agile
- 52:06and we talk a lot to our people 'cause they feel this uncertainty as well.
- 52:10And we need to also give them the feeling that, it's going in a good direction.
- 52:13We have under control and it is just problems that we have to solve.
- 52:17In a way it's a very good question.
- 52:20Very good answer also.
- 52:21Yes.
- 52:22Thank you guys.
- 52:22So thank you.
- 52:23Thanks a lot.
- 52:24Thank I've learned a lot today.
- 52:26I've learned that, great clinicians are often also, great and grounded
- 52:30people that, that have a high aspiration and a sense for perfection
- 52:34and, they go the extra mile.
- 52:35That's what I see with you.
- 52:36I think this sense for precision that there's no shortcut to it.
- 52:40And I learned, that.
- 52:42Mentation is important based on data and starting with the end in mind.
- 52:46And surrounding yourself with a good team that can deliver to this.
- 52:49So thanks a lot for sharing all your thoughts, the backgrounds
- 52:52the visions and the future.
- 52:54That's going to be a very interesting topic robotics.
- 52:57So thanks Eric for being here and.
- 52:59Thanks, Florin also for- Thank you.
- 53:00Thank you for having us
- 53:01thank you.
- 53:02And to the listeners, thanks for listening in into this episode.
- 53:06I hope you found it as inspirational as I found it.
- 53:09Look out for new episodes and as usual, happy to interact with you.
- 53:13Best done on our Instagram account, strong and global.
- 53:16Please drop us the direct message on questions, ideas, critique ideas that
- 53:21you have, and always happy to answer those and look out for the next episode.
- 53:25So thanks a lot for listening in.