Join Dr. Kim Kutsch, the brilliant mind behind CariFree, as he explores the extraordinary lives of thought leaders in the dental industry, and beyond. Contrary to Ordinary explores further than dentistry - here we unravel the minds of change-makers, paradigm shifters, and world shakers.
Every two weeks, we dive into the stories of our remarkable guests—ordinary people who continually defy limits. Discover their tales of success, resilience, and self-awareness, and explore how they leverage these experiences not only to elevate dental practice and patient care but also to champion personal growth and entrepreneurship. Listen for captivating conversations with innovators who seamlessly blend art and technology, pursue curiosity, and create the truly extraordinary.
Contrary to Ordinary isn't your typical dentistry podcast—it's a vibrant community that's hit #1 in ‘Entrepreneurship,’ #3 in ‘Business,’ and #21 in ‘All Podcasts’ for a reason. We've had the pleasure of hosting inspiring guests like innovators, dental leaders, pioneering inventors, and artists, including Angus Walls, Machell Hudson, Dr. Simon McDonald, Dr. Bobby Birdi, Rella Christensen, Professor Phillip D. Marsh, Carmen Ohling, John Kois, Dr. Susan Maples, Doug Young, Colt Idol, Stephanie Staples, and many more who've graced our mic.
Each episode isn't just a listen; it's a lesson in living an extraordinary life authentically, embracing rebellion, and nurturing leadership. We dive into diverse topics, from mentoring, coaching, personal development, and work-life balance to self-awareness, emotional intelligence, leadership, storytelling, altruism, and motivation. And yes, we also cover dentistry—exploring natural dentists, dental health, dental laboratories, oral care, oral surgery, dental hygiene, caries disease, brushing teeth, and overall tooth care.
Tune in to Contrary to Ordinary for a unique blend of wisdom that goes beyond the ordinary and resonates with all aspects of life! This podcast aims to empower you to be extraordinary in your dental practice and improve not just your dental care but your overall life!
Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share with us? Or perhaps a question for Dr. Kutsch. Contact us on our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter today.
About Our Host:
Meet Dr. Kim Kutsch: a retired dentist with 40 years of experience, prolific writer, thought leader, inventor, and researcher in dental caries and minimally invasive dentistry, brings his insatiable curiosity to the forefront. Eager to learn from those breaking boundaries in dentistry, particularly in preventative and non-invasive dentistry approaches, Dr. Kutsch launched the Contrary to Ordinary podcast. As a keen creative and curious mind, Dr. Kutsch extends his podcast guest list to artists, entrepreneurs, and fascinating minds who have piqued his interest. He wants to learn from them and see how he can be inspired by their extraordinary ways of living and adapt his learnings into his own life and his business, CariFree.
About CariFree:
CariFree is the new model for oral health and cavity prevention. Dr. Kutsch is the CEO and founder of this business. They create cutting-edge technology and science-based solutions to common dental health concerns for the whole family, making it easy to banish cavities for good with preventive strategies over restorative procedures. Find out how dentists are using CariFree products to revolutionize their dental practices here: https://carifree.com/success-stories/.
Recording:
Extraordinary, innovative, integrity, courageous, curious, thoughtful, brave, unafraid.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
There is a place where technology and art meet, where work and play are one and the same. When the threads of curiosity are pulled in this place, the spark of innovation ripples across industries. Those who make this place their home are giants, titans, who pursue creative passion while leaving their mark.
Recording:
Creative, flexible, brilliant, clever, confident.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
They are courageous thought leaders set on changing the practice of dentistry and their corner of the world. More than the sum of their parts, we deconstruct the traits that bind these uncommon innovators.
Recording:
Humble, daring, disciplined, playful, principled, spontaneous, open.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
To discover what makes them... Contrary to Ordinary, where we explore the extraordinary. Hi there. I'm Dr. Kim Kutsch, host and founder at CariFree. I'm fascinated by what makes the paradigm shifters, world shakers, and art makers tick. Let's embark on a journey. Extraordinary is a place where ordinary people choose to exist. Together, we will trek the peaks of possibility, illuminate the depths of resilience, and navigate the boundless landscape of innovation, to discover how some of the most innovative dentists and thought leaders unlock their potential and became extraordinary. In this episode, we're going to be talking about something that I think is very cool, lasers. We're also going to be following the journey of how one man has watched them transform the way we do and could do dentistry. The first working laser was operated by Ted Maiman on May 16th, 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California. Maiman may have been the first person to operate a laser, but the theory behind them dates back to Einstein in the early 20th century.
He was already thinking about ways to amplify light and its source before we had means to do it. After their pioneering use in the sixties, it didn't take long for medicine to take note and start testing lasers. Today's guest is Bill Brown, who became interested in lasers and their use in dentistry during that pioneering period of engineering history. Bill is one of the last men standing from the early period of lasers and their use in dentistry, and he's seen a lot of change over the years. But let's go back to Bill's idyllic childhood in Alabama.
Bill Brown:
I was born in a small town in west central Alabama, York, Alabama. Nice neighborhood. Everybody walked to kindergarten holding hands, and it was just a perfect place to grow up. Wonderful summers there playing kick the can and all of the night games that you hear about on television or you read in a book. It was a wonderful southern childhood.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
York is a pretty small town.
Bill Brown:
Yeah, 2000.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
2000 people?
Bill Brown:
And shrinking. It was a boom town. It was at the intersection of two, a north south and an east west railroad back in the twenties and thirties, and they had a repair shop there. And it was a big railroad town. And the intersection of two highways, Highway 11 going between Atlanta and New Orleans, and the North-South, going from Mobile, north up into Memphis, Tennessee and on. So crossroads by railroad and by car, which made it very successful in the thirties and forties.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
What were you like as a kid, Bill? What was your favorite thing to do as a child?
Bill Brown:
I was actually thinking about that with our grandchildren a few days ago, and I've had a love of science from day one and biology electronics. I was building rockets and flying model airplanes and going out to the lakes and collecting frogs and salamanders and all different kinds of fish, when I was six or seven years old.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So would you describe yourself as a curious person then, Bill?
Bill Brown:
I think curiosity is a really good word for me. I've been very curious about how things work, how animals develop, where they live. Had lots of pets, birds. I even had a pet sparrowhawk.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh wow.
Bill Brown:
In my childhood. Sort of semi-rural. It was a lot of time out in the woods, collecting animals and bringing them home.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Now, I know you're a guitar player. When did you start playing guitar?
Bill Brown:
Well, my best friend had left York and gone to Thomasville, Georgia for a few years. And when he came back, his cousin had taught him how to play the guitar, and he had a guitar. And a neighbor, whose father played guitar, got a guitar, and they asked me if I wanted to play with them, and I had a go-kart. So I sold my go-kart and bought a guitar and an amplifier and became the third player of the little group. We would listen to songs by the Beatles or The Rolling Stones on the AM radio. I was the worst of the three players, so they cut off the bottom two strings of my guitar, tuned it down to the key of D, and I played bass until we could afford a bass guitar. Then I played bass guitar for the rest of my career. We won the 1967 Battle of the Bands for the state of Alabama, and we went on an airplane, a jet plane, Eastern Airlines, to Philadelphia, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and competed against all the other states.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So that's quite an accomplishment. So do you still play guitar then, Bill? Are you still in a band?
Bill Brown:
I played with a band about a week and a half ago. I showed up with a seventies Twin Reverb amplifier and a 71 Stratocaster, and they were like, "Can I play this thing?" He was like, "This guy's got all this vintage analog stuff." They had all the computers and all the fancy setups, and I just had the most basic setup that was used in the fifties and sixties and seventies. And they enjoyed playing it and they enjoyed playing with me. Some of my family had never heard me play live with a band.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Wow.
Bill Brown:
So they were entertained, especially the 16, 17 year old.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
But you also have an extensive guitar collection?
Bill Brown:
I do. I've ended up getting a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama and off and on, worked as an engineer. And so, I normally had funds when my starving musician friends were a little bit low. So over time, I picked up a collection of very early Fender guitars, a few old Martins, and a few old Gibsons. But I have, virtually, every guitar I ever bought or collected, I still have.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Tell me about, who were the most significant mentors to you when you were growing up?
Bill Brown:
The most significant mentors growing in my early childhood was my grandmother. My grandmother was very educated. She ran the study club in our town and a bridge club and everything. She had a love of books, and she started reading to me when I was three or four, taught me a love of books and travel. She and my grandfather were fortunate enough to make several trips to Europe in the fifties, and she brought me back examples from all the countries and would sit there and share the trip on the SS United States luxury liner to Europe and all the countries. And she just let me know how wonderful the rest of the world was.
So she was very strong in my growing up. And then, I had a childhood friend, Wayne Cosey, and Wayne was a year older than me. And he and I, we designed equipment to make our own hydrogen balloons to release balloons. I remember this is a very small town. We designed and flew rockets. We did all sorts of scientific experiments. We created a system using an old amplifier at the school and sealed beam light bulbs to transmit light, talking in the microphone and reading it across the room with light.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So when you think about your mentors, like your grandmother, say, what were a couple of traits that you think about when you think about her?
Bill Brown:
I think we would call it now a researcher. Extensive reading, extensive collections of books and encyclopedias, and a curiosity to answer any kind of question.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So she was a curious person as well?
Bill Brown:
Very curious. And a great cook and a great bridge player. One of my friend's mothers was telling us, she was in her late nineties, she said, "Your grandmother taught the kids how to play poker." And she thought that was the worst thing you could have possibly done to some 10 year old kids, but she taught us to play cards and a lot of games. She was very good into...
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So she spent a lot of time with you, it sounds like.
Bill Brown:
A lot of time. From the time I was four years old, we would go to Panama City, Florida, stay at the Sea Breeze Hotel, and she'd spend six weeks down there. And I would be, just me and her, in this hotel, something she did every year. And so, we did that up until I turned 16 and she died of lung cancer. And that sort of terminated it. She was a very, very strong factor in my early life.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Bill's grandma sounds like a real character and someone who could encourage and nurture a curious mind like Bill's. You can chart an obvious path from Bill's childhood love of inventing to his eventual career in engineering. But there was one major historical event that inspired Bill more than anything else.
Bill Brown:
It was called Sputnik.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Sputnik?
Bill Brown:
So the Boy Scouts, we were camping out, and you could look up in the sky and see Sputnik come across there in the space race. And the Russians were ahead of us, and we were already building radios and like I said, hydrogen balloons and other rockets as kids. And so, to me, getting involved in technology and rockets and space was going to be my future.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Yeah, I remember also growing up during the sixties and Sputnik and then, the whole space race and NASA, and that was such a big important part of our childhood.
Bill Brown:
No, you're exactly right. And when I went to engineering school, there was a lot of people in engineering, just like me, that were totally fixated on technology and the space race and wanting to contribute for America anyway we possibly could.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about that, but that played an important role probably for, like you said, for a lot of people, to encourage them and led them into a path in engineering. Would you describe yourself as a lifelong student?
Bill Brown:
Yes. As of today, I'm still studying. Right now, I'm studying laser physics, at a level that my professors would be very surprised to know that I'm, at 75 years old, studying laser physics, but I've always studied and read. I read two to three books a week.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So you left Alabama then, a degree in electrical engineering. So where'd your path go next then?
Bill Brown:
It was interesting. My mother was really on me. I had a degree in electrical engineering, and I was playing in a band and sleeping all day and staying up all night. And she wanted me to get a real job. And so, I finally got a job as an engineer on the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway project during the Carter administration. I went from there as my first real engineering job to Johnson Controls and worked my way from being a basic engineer, electrical engineer, at Johnson Controls, to the engineering manager for building automation. And we did things like the Birmingham Civic Center, the School of Optometry, and the School of Dentistry in Birmingham, all the building automation under Johnson Controls.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So what happened? Where'd you go from there then?
Bill Brown:
It's an interesting fork in my life. I was making like $28,000 a year, and I asked my boss, "How do you make more money?" And he said, "Well, those guys." And he pointed over to a sales engineer, and I said, "Those guys, they have a corporate credit card and a company car and they make more money than me as the engineering manager for the whole south area." And he said, "Yeah." I said, "I want to be a sales engineer." And so, I did a pivot from electrical engineering to sales engineering and started. And I was being very successful with Johnson Controls in the southeast. And one day, there was an ad in the paper for our California company, looking for sales engineers.
And my goal had, for a long time, had been to get to California and enjoy some of that lifestyle. And so, I ended up joining this company in California, still living in Birmingham, and it turned out to be founded by Luis Alvarez, the Nobel Prize winner. And it was a company he had founded with a number of his graduate students. So next thing you know, I'm in Berkeley, California, working in a company founded by a Nobel Prize winner, so that was the big transition.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
How do you, as a person, deal with challenges when they come up in your life?
Bill Brown:
I would say I depend on my faith. Growing up in a very strong church family, my father was a very strong leader in the church and a pure southern gentleman, so I trusted a lot in my faith in solving some difficult problems. And I've been through some difficult ones in my life, but I would say faith and then, research, especially medical issues. I consider myself almost a doctor from hanging out with you for all these years and all the medical things, but I'm gifted to be able to read clinical research papers and connect all of that.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Like many people, Bill finds comfort and guidance in his faith. He also takes the time to read and research problem solving and facing challenges head on. Bill has always had an energy that's infectious. He's enthusiastic about so many different things. Is it this drive that makes him extraordinary? Bill still isn't sure.
Bill Brown:
So I didn't consider myself extraordinary, but here I am, a boy from a town of 2000 in rural Alabama, one of the poorest counties in the United States, here I am working for a company founded by a Nobel Prize winner in Berkeley, California in the late seventies. And my boss, who was a mentor later in life, the guy who had took the chance to recruit a person from Alabama, all the way to come to California, he loved the word "extraordinary." And he wanted me to work "extraordinary" into our marketing materials at the company. And that was the first time I became really involved with the word "extraordinary" and started relating that.
It's been a theme in my life and fortunate enough to meet extraordinary people like you and John Kois, but also some of the inventors of lasers over my career. I got to meet some of the known acknowledged geniuses in the laser field and some very, very extraordinary people, but in I guess it was 1978, had to work with the word "extraordinary." And at that point, it expanded my understanding and my appreciation of extraordinary people and the word in trying to apply that to my life.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So then, your career shifted somewhere there in the eighties and you got involved in lasers.
Bill Brown:
Right, so we were at Humphrey Instruments, and the subsequent company that I worked for, we were doing ophthalmic diagnostic instruments. This is where you measure the pressure in the eye, the shape of the eye, the length of the eye for doing interocular lenses, and even the refraction of the eye, and measuring the refraction of eyeglasses for instance. And sort of aligned with that was the very first lasers were coming out for treating diabetic retinopathy. So I transitioned from the company that was doing ophthalmic instruments to ophthalmic lasers. And I was able to do that right in 1980, and I've been in lasers ever since.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's interesting you're talking about those ophthalmic instruments. And today, that's just normal stuff, right? You go to your optometrist or your ophthalmologist and they have all these array of all this technology. And it's just like, well, yeah, that's just standard and everybody has that and it's just normal. But in the eighties, that stuff was cutting edge. It didn't exist.
Bill Brown:
You're exactly right. So in 1978, let's say, everything optically was mechanical. Like if you've got the thing called the phoropter, where you put it in front of your eyes, you go click, click, click. All of that, we automated that. We automated measuring the curvature of the eye. We sat down with a group and said, "What all can you do to an eye from a diagnostic standpoint?" Well, you can measure the curve, you can measure how long it is, you can look at the pressure. It was wonderful. And over about a 10 year period of time, we developed equipment, automated equipment, to do that. The first microprocessor came out at the same time. We were able to basically computerize all of the ophthalmic diagnostic equipment that was in the world, over about a 10 year period of time.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
And then, you got into lasers and then, you got into lasers in dentistry.
Bill Brown:
That's an interesting story. So I was working with Argonne lasers for treating diabetics that are having vision problems called diabetic retinopathy. And a professor from University of Utah calls and says, "Did you know that your laser will cure composite in 10 seconds?" I said, "That's great. What's composite?" It turns out, as you can explain, it's a material that they use to fill the space when you remove a cavity. That got us involved into dentistry with our Argonne lasers. And then, a few months later, I had this dentist call me up, wanting to buy one of our ophthalmic lasers for dentistry, and it happened to be Dr. Kim Kutsch. We met, I guess, 1991, and we've been friends and I've been in dentistry full-time pretty much since then.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
I was going to say, Bill, looking at lasers in dentistry, so that's been like 30... I think it got marketing clearance in 1990 for the first laser in dentistry. And I look at all the people that I know and have known in laser dentistry. It's developed over the last 33 years. And you're like one of the original people, and you're still standing. You're the last man standing, finishing the marathon there in lasers in dentistry.
Bill Brown:
Our goal, my goal, and our mutual goal has always been to make lasers standard of care in dentistry, and we're the closest we've ever been with lasers for treating pain, for treating wounds, accelerating wounds, as well as doing root canals and periodontal treatment. It's come a very long way. It doesn't hurt, most cases. There's no bleeding. It's painless for most children. I would never have a drill touch the tooth of a child, if I could get this word out. It's so wonderful. My daughter is 30 something years old, and she's never had a drill touch a tooth.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
That's such an amazing technology. I just look back early on in my career with lasers, and I remember even saying this to a newspaper who was interviewing me. I was like, "Oh, every dentist will have one of these in 10 years." And I literally couldn't imagine a dentist or a hygienist practicing without laser technology like 33 years ago. I just couldn't imagine going to work and not having that available for all the advantages that you talk about. And here we are, 33 years later, and I don't know what percent of dental practices in the United States have lasers or use them. I know it's grown a lot, but it still has a long ways to go, I think. Right?
Bill Brown:
Well, about 40% of the dentists in the US use soft tissue lasers for controlled bleeding when they were developing a crown.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Or treating gum disease.
Bill Brown:
Gum disease and whitening teeth, some things like that. The all tissue lasers that can do cavities, that can do root canals and do, let's call it, dental surgery, those lasers is only 10% penetrated in the United States, out of 200,000 dentists.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
The widespread use of lasers in dentistry may still be far off, but I'm hopeful that pioneers like Bill will continue to learn and push their use. So what does Bill see as his proudest achievement?
Bill Brown:
I've sort of been on the downhill for the last 30 years, but early in my career in the diagnostic equipment business, a couple of friends and a doctor, we developed a device to detect glaucoma and brain tumors, certain pituitary brain tumors, for four or five years before there would be any physical damage. What I did was I expanded the field of vision, and I created, with LED technology, an area of high pathological significance, which had never been done. And it allowed us to, one, develop a device that could be used by, not only trained ophthalmologists' technicians, but even for optometrists and their staffs. And we detected brain tumors that could have been terminal to patients, and we were able to diagnose glaucoma years before the person would have a vision loss. In glaucoma, once you lose your field of vision, you can never get it back. And so, to coinvent that device and especially designed the field of vision to detect the losses or sensitivity of the retina to light, I think that was probably the most beneficial to mankind of what I did.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Oh, that's awesome, Bill,. What would you consider your greatest challenge?
Bill Brown:
I had an opportunity at 27 to go to medical school, and I made a decision not to do that, under the advice of the local doctor, who was very down on the commercialization of medicine and didn't think it was going to be any fun in 10 years. And he sort of talked me out of going to medical school at 27. That's my biggest regret. The advice I would tell me that would've made things a lot easier is to not be afraid to make a decision and stand by it, not be indecisive and not be afraid to take a new career, not be afraid to move to another city outside of your comfort zone, and don't allow a challenge to limit you in where you want to go with your goals. You hear it from the athletes a lot when they get drafted to the NFL.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. If you focus on it and you prepare for it and you don't let the distractions or other external factors stop you, you can pretty much accomplish anything you want to in your life. I think that a lot of people, for many, many reasons, allow themselves to go to status quo, instead of taking that next step. And I think they ended up, at a later age, regretting that they didn't move. My parents had an opportunity to move to a new city, and my dad felt he had, for family reasons, he needed to stay. My mother never forgot that they had had a chance to move to a bigger city with more opportunities for her children's education or things like that. So I think that making that decision, if you know what's right, you think it out and you just have to say, "Is this the best thing for my future, for my family, where I want to go?"
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Hindsight is 20/20, and sometimes, the decisions we make are the best we can do with the information we have at the time. All we can hope to do is do our best in the future. In his book, The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter comes to the conclusion that we, as modern people, need to go out of our way to push ourselves. We need to do one major thing each year, that really pushes us out of our comfort zone. We should do this to break out of the convenient routines of modern life. I think this is great advice and something that Bill has done a lot in his life. This makes me wonder, what makes Bill tick nowadays? Does he still push himself like he used to?
Bill Brown:
I think that, once I got involved in medical, optical, dental, the underlying goal was to make the world better and knowing that you're working for a company or with a team that is trying to improve, take the pain out of root canals, minimize the failure rates of root canals, to help people keep their teeth for their lifetime. Once I got into the medical area, then that is a career and trying to reinforcement and positive feeling that you know that, every day when you go to work, you're trying to help mankind for the future. I have a vision of a child never having to have a cavity treated with a drill.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
What kind of things keep you up at night now?
Bill Brown:
Not anything really keeps me up at night too much. I have a reputation for being able to sleep anywhere, on a plane, in a storm, or just about any type situation. But as far as my overall concerns, it's just for the success and safety of my family.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So they're first. I hear that. That's a theme. You're 75. What kind of goals do you have for the rest of your life? What are your plans?
Bill Brown:
Well, I want to share a lot of my favorite countries with my wife. Israel, for instance, I really want to take her to Israel, want her to see the pyramids. A number of countries, Hong Kong, so travel there to leave a heritage with my grandchildren, so that they can appreciate my life pattern and anything I can do to help guide them and to stay alive as long as I can, so I can watch these grandchildren grow up.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
What kind of things do you do for fun now?
Bill Brown:
Play music, as we've talked about. I hunt pigs and whitetail deer, and I fish almost every day that's humanly possible, from a weather standpoint. I have a boat about a hundred yards from where we're sitting right now, and the canopy's off of it. And it's ready to go into the water at a moment's notice.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
So those have been kind of consistent hobbies throughout your life?
Bill Brown:
As you're graduating, they make you put a CV together, and I looked under other activities beyond electrical engineering. And it was church activities, reading, Alabama football, fishing, and hunting, and music. [inaudible 00:28:45] was sharing that with my daughter, and "I don't think your dad's changed very much since he was 21 years old in terms of passions."
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
My dad told me, my parents both, "You can accomplish anything, do anything in your life, as long as you're willing to work hard enough to earn it." I'll see a parent tell a child, "You'll never be good at that" or "You're no good at that" or "You'll never amount to anything," "You'll never accomplish anything" or "You won't be able to because of this or because of that." And I always think, "What a horrible thing to say to a child, to limit them in their own mind." When you look at how important it is to mentors that we've had in our lives that have expanded our lives, because they were able to see things that we didn't see in ourselves.
Bill Brown:
We have that right now with the grandson, where he was not as successful in track and field, but distance runner, as his coach thought he would be, and he was not given a lot of positive reinforcement. And internally, he set a new set of goals and started training very, very hard. And when he goes back to college with his coach, he goes to step function and improved. Just the reinforcement with a new coach and a new area and his internal drive, he was able to hit personal records for all of the events he competes in, just over the support of a new coach and a new team.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Having somebody that believes in you.
Bill Brown:
Right.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
What a great kind of reinforcement of the role of mentors and then, also, the power of not backing down from challenges and actually pushing harder, working through that. What a great life experience, because that applies to every aspect of your life going forward, right?
Bill Brown:
It is a true life lesson. I think his friends are all benefiting from him, let's call it, breaking through from being considered, well, at the low end of the team to running in college, where he's a superstar.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
He has to be an inspiration to the people around him as well.
Bill Brown:
Absolutely.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's great to hear that Bill's grandson is getting the encouragement he needs. I think there are a lot of kids out there that just need some positive words to help them reach their potential. As we near the end of our conversation, I wonder, what could Bill share about himself, that other people probably don't know?
Bill Brown:
So I had a mild case of polio back in 1954, '55, '56.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
And that was a big thing. We've just come out of COVID, out of this pandemic, which I think was really a traumatizing experience, even for the people who didn't get COVID. The mental health issues and the PTSD and stuff that we, as a society, kind of went through and maybe are still feeling some pretty strong effects from. We tend to think of that as like, "Well, that was a one-off." That was kind of about the time I was born in the early fifties, and I remember hearing about it. I remember getting the polio vaccine, which is one of the first widespread vaccines in the history of mankind.
Bill Brown:
It started... Really, President Roosevelt hid the fact that he had polio from the public for his four terms as president, and it was not anything that was, say, socially acceptable. There were children, during that period of time, were on iron lungs, that, if you remember the old iron lung machine and everything, it was horrible. And the Salk vaccine pretty much eradicated it for us. It was a wonderful development. The parallel, I hadn't thought about that, but the parallels with COVID are definitely there.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
And I can remember my best friend as a child, Ole Anderson, who later became a physician, his mother had had polio, and she was pretty wheelchair bound. She could maneuver some with crutches, but she was pretty physically limited. And so, that kind of made an impact, certainly on me as well, that polio is real and I know people that have had it. It was a very life-changing or even life-threatening disease, and that was a huge epidemic in the fifties. So we go through these things, and I think they've probably been with us from the beginning of time. And different diseases will be with us, new ones will pop up as we continue.
Bill Brown:
I totally agree. We just have to be prepared and trust science to help us deal with it.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
What makes you tick, Bill?
Bill Brown:
I have no idea. I do believe, when you start talking about extraordinary people, and people have accomplished a lot in their lives, I think it's a gift from God. And I think you have it. My wife has it. Our children thankfully have it, and it's an energy. And you can be in a group, and somehow, you just have more energy than everybody else. And it's definitely a God-given.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
That's a beautiful answer, Bill. Anything else? This has been just an amazing interview, and I really want to thank you for spending this time with us and sharing your ideas and thoughts about life and your life's story and things that were important to you. Anything else you want to add today?
Bill Brown:
Well, I think my main passion and why I'm still working is to try to improve dentistry. I think that everybody should send their children to a dentist who has a laser for treating their cavities. They should go themselves for if they need root canals or periodontal treatment. It's important that we utilize the technologies that have been developed over the last 15 to 20 years, whether it's detecting breast cancer or treating cavities or preventing cavities. We need to do that, and we owe it to our children to give them the best possible medical care.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Where do you think AI is going to go? And where do you think the role of AI is maybe in medicine and dentistry? Do you have any thoughts where we're going to be five, 10 years from now?
Bill Brown:
I'm very, very excited for the use of AI to eliminate mistakes. I think, if the AI is given all the data, all of your health characteristics, your DNA, your family history, if it's got all the information, in terms of diagnosing it, it's going to really help detect cancer at an early stage, similar to what my visual fields device did back in the eighties with glaucoma. I think, if we can detect and diagnose and then, hopefully, treat, with things like vitamin and light, instead of prescription drugs, and we can overcome things with exercise and all the things that we hear about that are good for us, that we should be doing, I think the AI is going to improve that tremendously. Right now, we're looking at using AI to identify decay at a very early stage, maybe that you never have to have your cavity surgically treated. I'm excited to see the AI applications in medicine be very, very life-changing, and I hope that we can put together the controls to keep it from the dark side.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
Well, it's going to take an engineer of genius, passionate person like yourself, to make that happen, Bill. So thank you so much for spending your time today and sharing your thoughts with us. Bill, I really appreciate it, and I know that everybody enjoyed hearing your story.
Bill Brown:
Thank you, Kim. I enjoyed sharing, and I look forward to a few more years out here on the frontiers of laser dentistry.
Dr. Kim Kutsch:
It's so exciting to see someone like Bill, who was there right at the beginning, optimistic about the future of lasers in dentistry. They might not be a mainstay in dentistry yet, but I hope people like Bill inspire the next generation to try something new and challenge the status quo. Thank you so much to my guest, Bill Brown, for your passion and enthusiasm for the field, and thank you for coming on this journey with me today. Around here, we aim to inspire and create connections. We can't do it without you. If this conversation moved you, made you smile, or scratch that little itch of curiosity today, please share it with the extraordinary people in your life. And if you do one thing today, let it be extraordinary.