Top 5 Topics:

- Career Pivot: From Almost Lawyer, to Long Island Dentist

- Trauma Stories at the VA! Broken Jaws & Emergency Room Consults

- Cutthroat Law vs. Collaborative Dentistry, Or Is Dentistry Cutthroat Too?

- Digital Dentistry Boom: “Why Scanners, AI & 3D Printing Are Taking Over”

- The Money Talk - Insurance Nightmares & How Do Dentists Survive?

Quotes & Wisdom:

“As you go on in your career and you encounter unusual situations, each time you deal with something like that, you have a new tool to put in your toolbox.”

15:35 –15:44 - Brendan: “Yeah, it’s all about acquiring more tools — sometimes literally instruments, but sometimes a new toolbox, keeping the ideas fresh in the back of your mind.” Dr. Handelman: “And that reduces the stress level, because when you’ve been doing it for a while, you know what you need to do.”

04:35 –05:06 - “I left law school, went back to college for all the science I’d never taken, and once I started on the dental school path I realized I loved it. It was challenging, but I really liked it.”

17:39 –17:48 - “Learning the business of dentistry is important because you don’t really get exposure to that in dental school.”

18:52 –19:25 - “Sometimes you’re not directly contracted with a company, but you can see their patients through a third company with a better fee schedule. They call that optimizing your participation.”

21:52 –22:17 - “A lot of technologies come and go in dentistry, but I recognized that the digital world is here to stay. That’s why I invested in a scanner in 2017 and never looked back.”

30:28 –30:38 - “One of the great things about dentistry is there are a lot of toys. If you like gadgets, dentistry is a great profession.”

Questions:

02:08 - “You’ve been changing your hours along the way — what days did you start when you first started out, and what were those hours like back then?”

03:17 - “If your father-in-law was a dentist, did you meet your wife before or during dental school, and how did that connection influence your path?”

07:07 - “At the VA, was it the same as now where finances don’t limit treatment as much, and sometimes the better option isn’t the most affordable option?”

12:09 - “What’s your take on the difference in temperament between becoming a lawyer and becoming a dentist?”

13:10 - “Do you think that cutthroat, competitive mentality in school changes over time or depends on where you are in the United States?”

17:00 - “Did you always know you were going to end up on Long Island being from Rockland County, or did that just happen because of residency and family?”

17:32 - “I’m just starting out — what advice would you give any dentist in their first couple of years, looking back in hindsight?”

21:21 - “Besides insurance being a nightmare, what other things have been real hardships in dentistry for you?”

21:52 - “What are some of the bright directions you’re seeing in dentistry right now, especially here on Long Island?”

Now available on:

- Dr. Gallagher’s Podcast & YouTube Channel

- Long Island Dentists Podcast #5

- Dose of Dental Podcast #196

My watch in this episode = Tag Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 16 Chrono

- 11.2025