Wellness In Dentistry

Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson
  • 5.0 (9)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Weekly

Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson host “Wellness In Dentistry”, where they delve into the critical intersection of dental practice and personal well-being. Join us as we navigate the often-overlooked aspects of mental health, combating burnout, and crafting a balanced, fulfilling professional life. As experienced dental professionals, we understand the unique challenges faced by our colleagues. Through candid conversations, expert interviews, and actionable advice, we aim to empower our colleagues to prioritize self-care, foster resilience, and ultimately find greater happiness in their dental careers. Whether seeking strategies for managing stress, insights on work-life balance, clinical direction, practice management advice, or simply a supportive community of like-minded professionals, "Wellness in Dentistry" is your go-to resource for holistic wellness in the dental field. Tune in, and let's embark on this journey where the patient, the practice, and the practitioner experience holistic wellness.

  1. 21h ago

    When Wellness Becomes Another Performance Metric

    The hosts of a wellness podcast are here to tell you: you might be doing wellness wrong. In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson turn the lens on themselves and on the overachiever personality type that dentistry selects for to ask a genuinely uncomfortable question: when does healthy become obsessive? Kyle doesn't drink, has never had a sip, tapes his mouth at night, won't bring his phone into the bedroom, and deliberately avoids tracking his sleep because he's watched friends develop anxiety over bad sleep scores that then caused the bad sleep scores. His sister-in-law used to get out of bed at 10pm to walk around the block just to close her Apple Watch ring. That's not wellness. That's a new form of perfectionism wearing wellness clothes. The dentist brain measures success in tenths of millimeters. That same brain, applied to protein intake and step counts, can turn self-care into self-torture. Martin introduces the AimSmart framework to counter it: set a maximum, a middle ground, and a minimum for every wellness habit. Because one will always be greater than zero and giving yourself permission to hit the floor without shame is what keeps the habit alive long-term. Grace isn't the same as making excuses. Know the difference, and give yourself some. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    When Wellness Becomes Another Performance Metric

  2. Sep 2

    The Case That Shook Your Confidence

    Every dentist has one. The case that plays on a loop. The one that made you question everything. In this episode, Dr. Martin Mendelson and Dr. Kyle Stanley get honest about the cases that shook them and what those moments actually reveal about the relationship between clinical identity and self-worth. Martin's was a root tip that snapped during surgery and wouldn't come out. Kyle's was a complex bone grafting case where nine months of healing and significant patient expense yielded barely a millimeter of bone growth and ended with a refund request. Here's what neither of those cases actually means: that they're bad dentists. Complications happen in 2–3% of cases. That's not failure that's dentistry. The problem isn't the complication. It's the global story dentists tell themselves afterward. One hard case becomes I'm not good enough, and that narrative has a way of following you into the next chair. Martin introduces the triangle of blame a framework that includes not just the dentist and the patient, but all the uncontrollable factors: genetics, anatomy, biology. Kyle's bone didn't grow. That's not always operator error. Sometimes it's just a patient who doesn't respond the way the textbook says they should. The fix is reality testing. Look at your actual numbers. If your success rate is 97%, one rough case doesn't rewrite that story. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    The Case That Shook Your Confidence

  3. Aug 26

    Preparing for SUCKtember

    Dentists have a nickname for September. They call it Suctember. And Kyle and Martin think you can do better than just accepting it. In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson get tactical about one of dentistry's most dreaded months not to commiserate, but to actually fix it. The data usually tells the real story: if September is slow, look at June, July, and August hygiene numbers first. Lower hygiene visits mean less diagnosis, which means less treatment in the chair two months later. September didn't fail you. The preceding months did, and nobody was watching. The fix starts before September ever arrives. Kyle breaks down the data points every practice should be tracking: new patient acquisition, hygiene production, unscheduled treatment, and patient churn. The average practice has a quarter million dollars in unscheduled treatment sitting untouched on the books. That's not a September problem that's a follow-up problem. Then there's AI. Kyle's company Jazza can automatically re-engage churning patients, chase unscheduled treatment, and reactivate inactive patients every single week hands-free. Martin's contribution is equally practical: block CEO time separately from clinical time, front-load your goals during busier months, and build virtual snow days into your annual plan so September doesn't blindside you. Stop accepting slow months. Start planning around them. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    Preparing for SUCKtember

  4. Aug 19

    The September Guilt Trip Dentists Need to Stop Taking

    Summer's over. And for most dentists, that means one thing: time to make up for it. That instinct is exactly what Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson are pushing back on in this episode. The idea that you need to "make up" for summer assumes summer was a mistake. It wasn't. If you planned it, lower production in August isn't a problem — it's a data point you already knew about. The hustle spiral that hits every September isn't discipline. It's guilt. Kyle puts it plainly: dentists have been hustling since high school. Grinding to get into college, then dental school, then an associateship, then ownership. At some point you're redlining in first gear — and that's how you blow the motor. The dentists who last longest aren't the ones who push hardest. They're the ones who figured out how to be sustainable. So what does a healthy fall reset actually look like? Start with curiosity, not panic. Look at your patient base and ask who's actually worth keeping. Fall is a great time to quietly dismiss the patients who drain your energy — and if you have a mature practice, your numbers might not even dip. Then make one change at a time. Not everything. One thing. Give yourself some grace. You've been conditioned since childhood to feel the weight of September. That feeling is normal. Just don't let it make your decisions for you. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    The September Guilt Trip Dentists Need to Stop Taking

  5. Aug 12

    An Unspoken Expectation Is a Premeditated Disappointment

    An unspoken expectation is a premeditated disappointment. In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson dig into one of the most quietly destructive forces in dental practice — and in life: uncommunicated expectations. The burned-out light bulb nobody changed. The treatment plan the patient rejected. The procedure that didn't go smoothly. Most of the frustration dentists carry daily traces back to expectations they never said out loud. Kyle's framework is simple: expectations, communication, and boundaries. Master all three and most of the friction in your practice — with your team, your patients, your family — starts to dissolve. Miss any one of them and you're setting yourself up to be perpetually let down by people who never knew what you needed in the first place. Martin flips the script on how to handle it when things don't go as planned: come at it with curiosity, not judgment. Not "why is this so hard?" but "what's actually happening here and what can I learn from it?" That single shift — from reaction to inquiry — changes the emotional cost of a hard day in the chair dramatically. The real takeaway: people don't change until the cost of staying the same is higher than the cost of the conversation. Have the conversation. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/ Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    An Unspoken Expectation Is a Premeditated Disappointment

  6. Aug 5

    The DSO Collapse Nobody's Talking About Honestly

    DSOs are collapsing. DSOs are taking over. Which is it? In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson cut through the noise around the DSO landscape and bring some actual data to a conversation that's been running almost entirely on emotion. Yes, some large DSOs are facing real financial pressure. Kyle breaks down why: a decade of overpaying for practices at inflated valuations, cheap debt that isn't cheap anymore, and private equity math that only works until it doesn't. But the "DSOs are taking over dentistry" panic? The numbers don't support it. According to the ADA Health Policy Institute, 73% of dentists still own their practices. DSOs aren't taking over frequency bias is just making it feel that way. Then there's the quality of care debate. Kyle and Martin have both worked on the lab side. They've seen substandard work coming out of private practices and DSOs alike. Bad dentistry isn't a DSO problem it's a human problem. The real concern with investor-backed models isn't necessarily the quality of the crown. It's whether the crown needed to be done at all. The bottom line: make decisions based on data, not headlines. Control your emotions, build your business skills, and become a great leader or hire one. And if you're ready to do the work in person, join Kyle and Martin at Light Side Live, November 6th and 7th in Phoenix, Arizona. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    The DSO Collapse Nobody's Talking About Honestly

  7. Jul 29

    Why Dentists Freeze on Big Projects — And How to Fix It

    You've been staring at that project for weeks. You know exactly what needs to be done. You just can't start. In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson dig into why big projects feel paralyzing and the surprisingly simple fix. Kyle's been slowly dismantling a massive bougainvillea in his backyard, 30 minutes at a time, one trash can per week. Martin organized over 600 recipes into binders by committing to just 10 a night. Neither of them ate the whole frog at once. The same principle applies directly to one of the most avoided tasks in dental practice management: SOPs. Most dentists know they need them. Almost none of them have a complete set. Martin walks through exactly how to start not by writing all of them, but by listing what's most frustrating right now, building the first one, and using AI to scale the template from there. One move. Then the next. Kyle makes a sharp observation: dentists are actually excellent at stepwise thinking clinically. They do it in every treatment plan. The problem isn't the skill. It's applying it to the business side of the practice. The takeaway is simple: make the steps small enough to fit into 20 minutes. Because done in pieces beats never started every time. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    Why Dentists Freeze on Big Projects — And How to Fix It

  8. Jul 22

    Substance Abuse in Dentistry Let's Finally Talk About It

    Last week was Martin's 11th sobriety anniversary. This episode is his way of celebrating it. In this episode, Dr. Martin Mendelson and Dr. Kyle Stanley tackles one of dentistry's most underspoken problems: substance abuse. Between 10 and 19% of dentists and physicians suffer from a substance use disorder. That's not a fringe statistic. That's one in six of your colleagues. Martin shares his own story how imposter syndrome, social pressure, and the slow creep of one martini becoming three became something he could no longer manage on his own. Kyle comes at it from a different angle: a lifelong non-drinker who has watched alcohol take apart people he loves, including his father-in-law, who stayed sober for 20 years until his dog died and then didn't. They talk about what actually defines a disorder when drinking stops being a habit and starts getting in the way. They get honest about the culture at dental conventions. And they share what recovery actually looks like: the 90% success rate for inpatient treatment specifically designed for dentists and physicians, the peer support available through state dental associations, and the slow, quiet moment when Martin realized his new life had taken root when alcohol simply stopped occurring to him. Eleven years is a big deal. So is asking for help. For more info or to join their live CE course, go to www.wellnessindentistry.com Join Carabelli Club here and save $600 on your yearly membership: https://hubs.la/Q03QQGmD0 If you'd like to chat with Martin about disability insurance, you can click here to find a time on his calendar. He's a licensed agent and happy to connect with you. Get Kyle's founder's discount for Pearl AI by scheduling a demo here: https://discover.hellopearl.com/referral/kyle-stanley/

    Substance Abuse in Dentistry Let's Finally Talk About It
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5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson host “Wellness In Dentistry”, where they delve into the critical intersection of dental practice and personal well-being. Join us as we navigate the often-overlooked aspects of mental health, combating burnout, and crafting a balanced, fulfilling professional life. As experienced dental professionals, we understand the unique challenges faced by our colleagues. Through candid conversations, expert interviews, and actionable advice, we aim to empower our colleagues to prioritize self-care, foster resilience, and ultimately find greater happiness in their dental careers. Whether seeking strategies for managing stress, insights on work-life balance, clinical direction, practice management advice, or simply a supportive community of like-minded professionals, "Wellness in Dentistry" is your go-to resource for holistic wellness in the dental field. Tune in, and let's embark on this journey where the patient, the practice, and the practitioner experience holistic wellness.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    125
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Metamorphosis Coaching, LLC 2024
  • Show Website
    Wellness In Dentistry

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