Episode 1 Career Path Highlight with Kristen Ranaldo

Kristen, a dental hygienist, shares her passion for her profession and her use of advanced technology in her practice. She discusses her journey to becoming a hygienist and her decision to specialize in periodontal care. Kristen explains how she uses a dental endoscope to provide more accurate and effective treatment for her patients with periodontal disease. She also discusses her role as a trainer for a company that manufactures and sells dental endoscopes. Kristen emphasizes the importance of expanding knowledge and embracing new technologies in the field of dental hygiene. All right. I think we're recording. I think we're live now. So, Danielle and Laura here with LD Coaching. We're here with Kristen today. And we want to start out with a few questions for you, Kristen. Well, first of all, so happy and excited to have you here. If you don't mind telling our audience a little bit about you, who you are, that would be great. So, hi, everyone. Thank you both for having me. So, my name is Kristen, obviously. I was born and raised on Long Island. And I have been a hygienist for almost 10 years. And oddly enough, I have wanted to be a hygienist since I was 5 years old, which a lot of people have a hard time believing. But I've always been fascinated with teeth. And I used to fight my brother and my sister when my mom would take us to the dentist because I always wanted to go first. And as I got older, I shadowed my hygienist that I saw my entire life. And it was an easy decision to apply to college to be a hygienist. So, I pretty much took one year of prereqs and I got into the program right away. And I got my associate degree. And I wanted to continue my education. I actually always thought that I wanted to be a dentist. But then I started working right away. And I played lacrosse in college. So, I had one year left and decided to continue my education to get my bachelor's degree so I can play that extra year of lacrosse. And then I feel like I dove into clinical and I kind of never looked back and became very passionate about being in periodontal offices. And that kind of made me feel satisfied enough to not go to dental school and kind of like go into using dental endoscopy and being certified, Millennium Hygiene Laser Certified, and now using the GVT. So, having all of that technology really makes being a hygienist that much better, you know. And to be able to provide that service for my patients that like even doctors don't use, it's just the greatest, most satisfying feeling. Yeah. We could not agree more with you on that, for sure. It's really amazing to be able to provide that high-level standard of care for our patients. So, it does, you know, for Laura and I, helps to reignite our passion. And, you know, we just really truly love providing that care for our patients. So, I love that for you. What got you or what led you to the GVT? What was your journey with that? Love to hear more on that. Yeah. So, after school, I worked in a general practice for one year. And then I started working at a periodontal office where I learned how to use a dental endoscope. And I became really... Tell us more on that. Yeah, that's amazing. So, I started, I got trained in it. And as I started to use it, I just always thought to myself, why isn't this used in every single practice? You can't treat periodontal disease unless you see what you're scaling. And I always tell my patients what I'm talking about, is you can be the best clinician, you can be the best dentist, the best periodontist, but it's impossible to remove 100% of the calculus unless you can see. So, I treat patients that have advanced periodontitis, and they have 12 millimeter pockets, and I get them completely healthy with no need for surgery. And I think it's a great option for patients that not only don't want surgery, but as I'm sure you both know, Linap is very popular. And some patients can't afford that, unfortunately. So, this gives them like another option. So, in my current periodontal office that I work at, they're a DSO. So, we're owned by Dental Care Alliance, DCA. And they're really big on like really building up their hygiene department. So, they get the GBT units into all of their practices, which is awesome. So, we were so lucky to get that a year ago. And using that with the endoscope is amazing. Because when you go in with the endoscope, you have a patient that hasn't had a cleaning in years, and they just have biofilm and stain all over the place. When you go in there with the camera, you kind of don't know what you're seeing because it's magnified 100 times. So, you're like, is that calculus? Is it stain? And then you have to kind of like get rid of the biofilm to kind of clear your view. So, I'll air polish my patients before I do anything. Like I'll anesthetize them. And then while they're getting numb, I'll airflow. And then after that, I have a clear image on my endoscope. And then I know exactly what I'm looking at. I'm like, okay, that's not stain. There's no biofilm in the way because then you wind up having to clear the camera all the time. And their tips are amazing. They're so long. And the fact that it illuminates the pocket as well. And my endoscope illuminates the pocket. I have the best view. And I give my patients the absolute best care. I love that. That is so wonderful. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Absolutely incredible. I love your journey. I love how you've been able to just really elevate your care. And you can just tell that you're so passionate about what it is that you do. And it's incredible that technology has been able to provide that for you and provide that elevated care. I always find it so interesting. And Danielle and I talk about this all the time for hygienists that are just kind of stuck and feel so burned out. And like that there's no growth in hygiene. Like you need to expand your knowledge and expand your view and shift that mindset so that you can learn new innovations and technologies. Because when you do that, you grow tremendously. It's awesome that you've experienced that. And how long did you say you've been a hygienist? When did you graduate? So I've been a hygienist for about 10 years. And I've been using the endoscope for nine. Wow. And I'm so passionate about it. And it's upsetting to say that there is a statistic out there that only 1% of hygienists across the entire United States actually use the endoscope. I became a trainer for PerioView, which is the most updated endoscope out there. It's actually a camera. And the fiber optic can take pictures. So the PerioView is a touchscreen. And I can actually basically take screenshots and screen record. So let's say I see a root fracture or a subjunctival cavity that's like right at the crown margin. You know, sometimes you can't see those on radiographs. So I'll just take a picture and I'll send it right to their dentist with a note saying that I found it. Not only is my patient thrilled, because we could have just seen their tooth, but the dentist is happy as well, because I just found treatment for them that they couldn't necessarily find. And so many times we have patients that come to us as a last resort. And they say, you know, I have something going on with this tooth, I've been to my dentist, they sent me to the endodontist, the endodontist sent me to an oral surgeon, and no one can figure it out, because they can't see that root fracture. And I'll go in there with the camera. And in 10 seconds, I'll see the root fracture. And I'll take a picture of it. And because I had already anesthetized them, they'll have an extraction that same day. Wow, that's incredible. I need to get certified. Danielle, this is going to be our next adventure. That was more than wanting to train you guys, right? We'll have to talk after this. The next level, you know, getting that, this was not even really touched upon in school. I think maybe when I mentioned the dental endoscope, I actually don't remember. But I remember going to Perio. I said, Wow, what did I learn in school? I felt like I could have learned a lot more. When I came out of school, I felt like I couldn't recommend treatment. I wasn't sure when to recommend scaling and root planing versus surgery and when to refer a patient out. And now I know it like the back of my hand, and you can give patients options. And it's a really comfortable procedure. And it's more comfortable than traditional scaling and root planing, because you're not hand scaling and hoping that you're getting all the calculus out. And like the statistic is, if you don't use an endoscope, you're leaving behind 30 to 70% of calculus, which is huge. Even with opiates, they say you leave 50% of calculus behind because it's so bloody. So with endoscope, there's constant irrigation, not just from your piezo, but it's coming from the actual camera. There's a water line, so it flushes the pocket as you work. That is so incredible. I am super excited to learn more about that. How did you kind of get in with the PerioView? What was that journey like for you? So I actually met the periodontist at AAP two years ago. And we just hit it off. He's the owner of the company. And there's not many of us out there. So when you find like another dental endoscope user, we all just get so excited. And we exchanged numbers. And then, you know, his company really took off, and they needed a trainer. So I started training for them. So when an office buys a unit, and it happens to be like in my territory, which is the East Coast, then I'm called to go train. And it's a two day training. Most companies in the past that have trained, it's only been one day. And the two days is really important because it's not just training the hygienist on how to use it, but you're using two hands and two feet at the same time. So you're holding your Explorer in your non-dominant hand, your Cavitron or piezo in your dominant hand, and you're using both of your feet for the irrigation. So that takes time to learn, but you're also training. We kind of consult the office, too, and go over what coating to use and how to talk to patients about it. Where does it fit in their office? Because in my office, we combine it with one app sometimes if the patient's really advanced. You know, how to basically present treatment to patients and the feed, like how you should build this out, because it is, you're getting surgical results, so you can't just charge for scaling and replaning. Wow. I love that you mentioned that you have to, you know, the two day training and how you train the whole team, because Danielle and I, we actually just presented on this recently about how it's so important to have a unified front. And when the whole team understands the communication, the verbiage, and how to explain everything to patients, you increase your patient trust, you increase your patient acceptance. It's really incredible when you can provide that and the whole office is on board. And I think it's important for everyone in the office to recognize that there's that storming, forming, norming, and performing cycle when you're implementing something new. You're going to, you know, brainstorm all the ideas. You're going to form your opinions and you're going to struggle a bit, right? With anything new, there's struggle. And then finally, once you get past that hurdle, then you can start to normalize. It becomes your norm. And then you accelerate and you get to that performing point, which is really cool. Exactly. When new patients come in, they listen to the doctor, but then the second the doctor walks out, they're asking the assistant, do you think I really need this? They're asking the hygienist and they call the front desk and say, I don't really know how I feel about this. So everyone in the office, it's a team effort to get that patient scheduled. Oh, absolutely. I could not agree more. Yeah. All right. So just thank you so much for sharing your experience. To kind of end the session here, we would love for you to share if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be? It would definitely be to not limit myself to just being a tooth cleaner and how patients just see us as, sometimes I get called a tech, you know, or like the nurse or someone. We give ourselves a lot more credit than we're given. Because especially if you're, you know, treating periodontal disease, I always tell my patients, your mouth is the gateway to the rest of your body. And if you are looking at the big picture, we're just not treating your mouth. Patients appreciate you so much more. We need bloopers. Definitely going to have bloopers. Like I've treated from the beginning that I'm still seeing years later and their mouths look so good. They respect me so much. And as I know that I provide such a high level of care, like looking back to when I first came out of school, I truly wish that I had more confidence. But my confidence lacks because of the knowledge. And I think more hygienists should hold themselves to a higher standard of care instead of just considering themselves a tooth cleaner. And I'm not going to probe your mouth every visit because I don't have enough time. We need to stick up for ourselves and demand what we deserve and that's enough time and the technology to provide top notch care. I love that. That's like so elegantly well said and hits all of the points and the pain points and all of the things in the way that we truly feel as well. So I love that response. You're speaking our love language right now. That's so true. So I don't know if you follow Mila RDH, Mila Lewis. We've highlighted her in the past and actually one of her recent posts was what is an RDH? And I love that she made such an emphasis of saying we need to advocate for our profession. And advocate for all the knowledge that we have and what we and what we do because we are more than just tooth scrapers. We are more than just fluff and buff hygienists. And it's so important to elevate that. Yeah, and not settle for bad instruments and all this stuff that the doctors don't want to buy us. We deserve more than that and the time and all of that. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We absolutely loved chatting with you and we cannot wait to share your story. Where can people find you or if they're looking to follow you or learn more on the PerioView? Yeah, so my Instagram is called the Subgingival Queen and I post a lot of my cases on there before and after radiographs, which are amazing because people think that only doctors can make bone grow, but we can do it too. And you'll see that with my cases. And you can kind of follow my journey on me traveling to different offices and training new hygienists and periodontists and I'll be at a lot of conferences coming up, which I'm really excited about. So you guys can absolutely send me a message and we can always chat on the phone if you'd like to. But I am here for any questions you guys have. I love that. Thank you so much again. It was so wonderful to learn more about you and to learn more about the endoscope and about PerioView and what you're doing and we just appreciate you so much. Thank you guys so much. Thank you.