Straight Up With Steph

What if your dental career could be so much bigger than what happens chairside? Bethany Montoya is back on Straight Up With Steph®, and this time we’re talking about building a career outside of the operatory. After 14 years as a dental hygienist, Bethany has built experience in education, speaking, writing, consulting, key opinion leader work, and now works as a clinical education manager for HuFriedyGroup. Bethany also spent years believing that clinical hygiene was essentially all she coul...

What if dental professionals started treating their bodies like athletes do? Dental work requires hours of precise movements, static postures, repetitive gripping, awkward positions, and intense concentration—yet most clinicians receive very little education on how to physically prepare their bodies for those demands. In this episode, I’m joined by exercise physiologist and strength and conditioning specialist Gil Spitz, who works with surgeons, medical professionals, and dental clinicians to...

Your mouth may be telling you far more about your health than you realize. In this episode of Straight Up With Steph®, I’m joined by Dr. James Goolnik, a London-based dentist, nutritionist, author, and holistic health advocate who believes dentistry should look beyond simply treating teeth and gums. We start with sugar—including why James wrote a cookbook to help people kick their sugar habit and why eating less sugar can actually be much easier and tastier than you might think. And yes, we t...

Dental Coding, Fraud & the OPA: What Every Dental Professional Should Know Dental codes might not sound exciting—but using the wrong one could have much bigger consequences than you realize. In this episode of Straight Up With Steph®, I’m joined by dental hygienist and coding expert Kathy Forbes, RDH, BS, FADHA, for an eye-opening conversation about CDT codes, insurance, fraud, and why dental professionals need to understand exactly what they’re documenting and billing. Kathy explai...

Have you ever walked into a room and completely forgotten why you were there, struggled to find a word you KNOW you know, or suddenly felt more anxious, irritable, or overwhelmed than ever before? If you're in perimenopause or menopause, there may be a very real reason your brain feels different. In this episode of Straight Up With Steph®, I’m joined again by Jules from Brain Body by Jules to break down what fluctuating hormones are actually doing to our brains during the menopause transition...