New Ideas in Education

Initially Flores intended to focus in his real estate business, but too many dental opportunities came calling. First he started a high-quality implants clinic and dental lab with three partners, which is now the third largest in Mexico. And then he complemented the clinical and lab side with a dental education institute.

The implants clinic allows general dentists to send patients for treatment, choose the type of implants they want, and have all the necessary work done for them by highly specialized lab technicians and implantologists from I+D's Dental Implants Clinic unit. This type of service is in great demand from dentists who don't have the time or ability to place implants.

Given the interest shown by many dentists, the next step for Flores was to create an educational institute for postgraduate studies in several dental specialties.

I+D is a not for profit made up of seven partners, among them “some of the best dentists in Mexico,” such as Antonio Bello, Alfredo Sakar Sakka and Ricardo Mitrani. Flores’ partner and dental technician in the commercial lab, Joel López Cortes, is also a partner in I+D, along with two well-known figures in the Mexican dental business, Daniel Stern of Dentadec and Sandra de la Parra of Brasseler.

As co-founder and President of I+D, Flores runs the day-to-day operation of the business with Daniel Stern and Ricardo Mitrani, with the remaining partners taking and advisory role.

Unique Approach
"We decided to open a center to provide the best dental education in the country,” Flores told Dental Tribune Latin America. Their quality has been recognized fast: I+D is the only private institute that offers implants, orthodontics, endodontics or aesthetic posgraduate courses with CE credits from UNAM Dental School.

Among I+D's sponsors are Ivoclar Vivadent, W&H, Oral-B or Dentadec, and in implants Nobel Biocare, Straumann, Biomet 3i, BTI and B&W Mexico sponsor training with their own systems. The use of different implants provides trainees with the unique advantage of choosing from five systems the best implant for their patients.

The postgraduate courses are seven months long, the first five focus on theoretical study and the last two on hands-on practice. Flores notes that “half of the dentists enrolled in postgraduate courses are from outside of Mexico City, from areas like Chihuahua, Oaxaca, and Puebla," a reason they have been thinking of offering the courses as internet-based webinars.

The appeal of I+D to dentists is that they offer courses that fall between a postgraduate several years long course from UNAM, and a 5-6 day course offered by an implant company for basic instruction in the use of their product.

I+D runs two courses of studies in its Mexico City location during the seven-month period on two consecutive days. There is also a third I+D program held in Guadalajara with more than 50 students enrolled in their implant courses. The general cost of the course is $4,500 Mexican Pesos ($450 USD) per month.

Multiple choices
I+D also offers courses in prosthetics, aesthetics, periodontics, orthodontics, odontopediatrics, Smile Design, emergency medicine and for dental assistants, among others. They also offer intensive one-day hands-on workshops.

The company began in the early 2009 and in their first year, 130 students enrolled in education programs of I+D in classes for 12-16 dentists. One year later, Flores says they have over 200 students enrolled.

In addition to education, the on-site clinic for restorative dentistry places implants for patients, for dentists associated to the clinic, and for those referred by a general dentist, where the reffering dentist can choose from a selection of products from five top implant companies.

Using the Implants Clinic is simple: there's a fee for the surgeon to place the implant; a fee for the use of the facilities; and the cost of the implant, which is set by the implants company at a discounted price.

Flores points out “that we are the first to reduce said cost by $1,000 Mexican pesos ($100 USD) for the second implant placed in the patient during the same surgery,” providing great savings. I+D also gives discounts to referring dentists.

In a recent I+D newsletter the managing director of the company, Humberto Rodríguez Eduardo Gárate of Biomet 3i, showed a graphic comparing Mexico with France and Germany in terms of the number of dentists that placed an implant and restored a tooth, only placed the implant, only restored the tooth, or did nothing. The results of I+D's research showed that a large number of Mexican dentists chose either to refer the patient to the clinic, or “come to the clinic and do the surgery here.”

This doesn’t mean that all dentists are not interested in performing implant surgery.

In 1990, Flores started the first product education seminar for Ivoclar Vivadent. Over 5,000 people attend the annual August meeting, one of the largests outside of AMIC Dental expo. Flores conducted a survey asking: “Do you think implants are here to stay? Do you think implantology will be offered in all clinics? 90% responded affirmatively to both. "But when asked if they had ever placed an implant,” he says, “eighty percent said no.”

Opportunity knocked
Armed with the data from real surveys, Flores brought together for the first time the top implant company directors for a meeting.

“With 70,000 dentists in Mexico, you are doing something wrong,” Flores told them, because most don't know how to place an implant. The idea was to “help develop implants dentistry in Mexico,” Flores explains, and he and his partners convinced companies of opportunities that a private dental school could have.

Ironically, Flores never wanted to open a dental school. "I wanted to provide continuing dental education,” he says.

He recalls getting approval by Ivoclar Vivadent to do seminars as long as it was in partnership with dental associations, but Flores found the inability of those groups to work together a nightmare. “I am going to do it myself,” he told his company, “and I am going to charge for it.”

Since then, educating dentists and consumers on dental implants has been his goal. Now, I+D has taken that good idea to another level.

Resources
• I+D: www.inteligenciadental.com
• Ivoclar México: www.ivlocarvivadent.com.mx