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/

There's a person out there who gets it who was there when you failed your first test, cried in the hallway, and had no idea what you were doing. Thirty years later, you can pick up the phone and be right back.

In this episode, Dr. Kyle Stanley and Dr. Martin Mendelson talks about the friendships forged through the shared adversity of dental school and why those bonds are worth protecting. Martin just returned from his 30-year reunion at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the first dental school in the world, where classmates have gone on to everything from cosmetic practices in Manhattan to retirement to coaching other burned-out dentists.

What makes these friendships different isn't history, it's understanding. Your spouse might not get why a difficult crown prep ruined your whole day. Your dental school friend will. That's what the Grant Study, Harvard's 70-year research on human development, keeps coming back to: relationships are stress buffers. And in a profession this isolating, that's not a soft concept, it's clinical.

Kyle and Martin also get honest about the pull to let these relationships slide. Practice ownership has a way of eating everything. But the dentists who go through hard times alone go to darker places.

Send this episode to your favorite dental school classmate. Tell them you were thinking about 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/

Every summer, dentists slow down. Not always because they planned to because they always have.

In this episode, Dr. Martin Mendelson and Dr. Kyle Stanley challenge the mindset patterns most dental professionals don't even realize they're running on. The kids are out of school, study clubs take a break, and somehow the whole profession just… coasts. But nobody sat down and decided that. It just happened again.

Kyle and Martin push back on the autopilot. If your practice is slower in the summer, great but is that intentional, or is it just history repeating itself? Because there's a big difference between choosing to take Fridays off in July and just watching your production tank while you sulk about it.

The conversation covers both sides: if you want to use summer to recharge, build the schedule that lets you do it. If you want to use it to grow, that's when you do the training, the equipment checks, the SOPs your team has needed all year. Either way, it takes a plan not a pattern.

Martin's pre-mortem approach and Kyle's 4-Day Dentist framework both point to the same thing: data-driven intentionality beats seasonal drift every time. Know what your slow months look like historically. Plan your buffer. And stop waiting for September to fix what July broke.

Summer is a choice. Make it on purpose.

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/