MY JOURNEY TO OPENING A WELLNESS AND AIRWAY GENERAL PRACTICE STARTUP AFTER 10 YEARS AS AN ASSOCIATE DENTIST

By Dr. Shannon Thorsteinson

As many other entrepreneurs can attest, my journey to owning my practice isn’t what I expected it to be. Associateships that did not manifest into ownership and a shift in my focus led me to the start-up path, which I never expected. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by amazing people throughout my career, and I’m so grateful for the path I’ve taken. I wanted to share a little about my story in case it helps someone else thinking about making a change themselves.

I have wanted to be a dentist since my freshman year of high school. I loved that I could apply geometry to moving teeth, art in sculpting restorations, engineering in bites, and owning a business. After dental school, I was so fortunate to work in an amazing office as an associate for 6 years. I had full autonomy of what I did, mentors, a great team, and strong ties to the community–it was the kind of office where you stay and retire. During that time I was also starting my family, and I became particularly focused on healthy pregnancies, breastfeeding, and balancing my “mommy dentist” life.

There were a few events that happened around the same time that led to a shift in my focus. The first was that a patient brought me an article about forever chemicals in dental floss. I had no idea about this, and wanted to educate myself more. This led me to find the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, the IAOMT. The second defining experience was that my mom had a dental infection when I was on maternity leave.

Since I had begun learning more about the mouth/body connection I wanted my mom to have PRF and ozone in her treatment. Seeking out the care I wanted for her led me to see I should provide the same standard of care that I wanted for my mom to all of my patients.

The third was attending a pediatric airway CE course at the same time as my son experiencing speech challenges as a toddler. This led me to learn more about airway health and tongue ties. All during this time, I was in my traditional study clubs, going through the Spear curriculum, and learning about comprehensive care, occlusion, and managing the joints/muscles and teeth. I saw that many offices would focus on occlusion, biologic dentistry, or sleep/airway, but to me, it was hard to separate one from the other and I wanted to combine all of these concepts into how I practice.

When it became clear there was not a path to ownership in that job, I began looking for offices to purchase. It was difficult to even learn about offices for sale, and I had a specific area where I wanted to live due to my children’s language immersion schools. I was concerned if I purchased a traditional practice and implemented biologic and airway dentistry that patients would not be on board, and I’d be purchasing just a space and equipment rather than a patient base. That made the purchase option high risk for me, since I wanted to make philosophical changes to any office I saw, and it was unlikely the patient base would align with my desired style of practice. That may have been a wrong assumption, and I do know dentists who shifted their existing practices as well as purchased in this situation and did fine.

I sent mailers out to dentists in the area saying I was looking to purchase an office, and one of those dentists responded with a job offer. We had similar interests in airway dentistry, so I ended up choosing to work there and develop my skills further rather than purchase at that time.

That ended up being a great decision both because I had a great team and mentor there, and because it was January of 2020 and I’m grateful I wasn’t a new practice owner at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. I was encouraged to develop new skills there and given a safe space to do so. I became SMART certified in safe amalgam removal, earned my fellowship in biologic dentistry, and invested in some equipment myself. I was already an Invisalign provider and took many more orthodontic courses as well. I began treating friends and family for early intervention orthodontics and loved the impact we could see on their health and development. The most significant equipment investment I made was a CO2 laser, and that helped me connect with lactation consultants and speech therapists in the area looking for a provider who treated tongue ties. After some time, I developed a niche within that practice focusing on infants and pediatric airway. When purchasing there didn’t seem like the right option, it became clear start-up was my only path to ownership.

While it was the hardest and longest route, in my situation it made the most sense. I actually told the office where I was working early on that I was planning a start-up, and I was able to continue working there during my buildout. They were kind, understanding, and welcoming, and I am grateful for this very unique situation. I was even able to purchase some equipment from them as they did their own new buildout. I know this particular part of my journey is unusual, and largely because the leaders of the office had a true growth mindset. I also like to think it was because we had a mutual foundation of trust early on, and our culture of transparency helped foster a positive transition where we all wanted the best for each other.

Now that I have my own office I’ve been able to build my vision to focus on the microbiome, breathing, and bite as pillars of health with our patients. I’m learning, growing, and changing all the time, and adapting to what the business needs at different phases is both challenging and fun. I like that I can set up systems to be able to focus on the things I care about and want for my patients, and that in turn attracts the type of people who align with that philosophy. Things go so much smoother when we start with common ground, and this is what I am most grateful for and makes it worth it.

While in my associateships I was able to develop my technical skills in a safe environment, but I wish I would have been more intentional about learning to run a business. Learning a new practice management software and taking on the human resources side of owning a business were probably the two steepest learning curves for me at the beginning. I also recognize there are so many things we can’t control when making these big life decisions, like if there will be a shift in the economy or a pandemic. We can only make educated decisions with the information we have, and take a leap of faith when the time feels right.

There’s a lot about my story that makes me uniquely fortunate, and it’s not the path for everyone. I hope by sharing some of my journey it can help others see examples of what’s possible.

About the author:

Dr. Shannon Thorsteinson is a general dentist practicing in Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and attended Dental School and General Practice Residency at Augusta University. Her office is focused on Wellness and Airway Dentistry for infants, children and adults. She specializes in restorative dentistry, tongue ties, skeletal expansion, safe amalgam removal, saliva testing, and early intervention orthodontics. You can follow her at @ wellspringdentalatl @myogrowairwaycenter and @shannonTdmd