My Story

Ajeet Ghumman, DDS, Cert. Ortho

An Orthodontist, a business owner, an instructor, and an entrepreneur. Dream big and surround yourself with those that support you in every way.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to immigrant parents, I had a simple upbringing in a good community with a great set of friends. I was an avid soccer player, wildly creative, and my hobbies at the time included arts and computers.

It was in my early university days, that I decided to pursue a career in dentistry. I had a knack for medicine but was drawn to dentistry, where I could utilize my talents along with my affinity to connect with others to be able to help individuals while feeling a sense of fulfillment at the same time.

After completing my university degree, I gained acceptance to Howard University, School of Dentistry in Washington, DC, which was the stepping stone to where I am today. A dental school like no other, where the skills learned will shape you, prepare you, and provide you with the fundamental know-how to excel in any situation. Very quickly after entering dental school, I knew that Orthodontics was to be in my future, but to achieve that goal, I had to graduate with the highest scholastic average amongst my peers, and rank first amongst the entire class - and I did, along with receiving a full tuition scholarship due to my achievements both academically and clinically. I worked hard but more importantly, met a group of friends that became family, and we ensured that we would all support each other toward success. Coming from completely different upbringings, backgrounds, and eras, I am grateful for the support I received from Dr. Ron Brun, Dr. Chris Burton, and Dr. Syed Rahman.

After dental school, I had the pleasure of attending a General Practice Residency at Hartford Hospital, Connecticut. This prestigious one-year program helped to expand my dental skills into all facets of dentistry and related areas of medicine. It was in this program that I was able to perform complex multi-specialty and multi-disciplinary work under a group of accomplished and renowned individuals seasoned in their careers. The work I was able to provide ranged from general dentistry, pediatric sleep dentistry, oral surgery, periodontics, implantology, emergency medical care, orthognathic surgery, and facial plastics.

Counting the years of my undergraduate degree, dental school, and general practice residency, I had already accumulated 9 years of post-secondary education, ultimately being accepted to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, now formally known as Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, for three additional years of schooling. Being only 1 of 4 students to be accepted, it was an honor to be able to achieve such an accomplishment after years of hard work and fortitude toward the vision I had set in my head. Being known as the most "read student," my Orthodontic skills began to truly develop under the apprenticeship of Dr. Robert Binder, Dr. Rene Johe, Dr. Anil Ardeshna, Dr. George Langer, Dr. Robert Montemurno, Dr. Isaac Post, Dr. Jeffery Cooper, Dr. Peter Antonellis, Dr. Joe Lohner, Dr. Susan Rider, Dr. Todd Sherwood, Dr. Richard Bloomstein, and Dr. Frank Bogdan. In listing the above individuals, I cannot forget to mention my co-resident, Dr. Adam Cohen, who had the same desire to strive for success as I did, and was a soundboard to my daily endeavors as a resident.

The Turning Point

After 12 years of post-secondary school, I felt beyond prepared to embark into the world. Naive and full of knowledge with a passion for excellence, the simplest step was to obtain an associate position to help enhance my clinical skills, speed, and patient experience. It was this anti-climatic moment that became one of the biggest turning points in my career. The basic fundamental premise of an associateship is to enhance one's skills along with clinical and career mentorship, and regrettably, this was not the case in my situation. Unfortunately, the assurances made to me were overly embellished, which is not uncommon as many new graduates face the same situation time and time again.

Luckily, I was able to withdraw from this situation to find myself working alongside Dr. Walinder Dhol, a true expert in his field, who remains a mentor to me today. Dr. Dhol provided me with the framework that I needed to expand my knowledge into early preventative orthodontic treatment, airway, myofunctional therapy, and neuromuscular dentistry.

Despite feeling reassured of the mentor-to-mentee relationship, I found there was bitterness left behind from the initial letdown as a new graduate. I knew my path was eventually ownership, but I now wanted to do something different. I wanted to ensure that anyone under my eventual mentorship would be given the tools of greatness. Not only to be shown "what to do", but, more importantly, shown "what not to do," by being open and honest about the realities of clinical treatment, ownership, and entrepreneurship, inclusive of the highs, the lows, the struggles, and the triumphs. It was this, "aha moment", that helped formulate one of the guiding principles that I operate under today, which is "People First."

THE BIRTH OF DENTAL WORKS 4 KIDS & ALIGN ORTHODONTICS

In 2012, after consideration of many opportunities, I decided to move to Toronto, Ontario, to embark on a business ownership opportunity. In preparation, I spent years attending various dental education lectures on business and business management. The opportunity had presented itself to purchase, what at that time was Dental Works 4 Kids, a small pediatric dental office providing a high level of pediatric dental services and being the first office in Ontario to provide in-office general anesthesia services.

The practice had potential, and I clearly saw that the vision of what I wanted for my patients, their families, and the team that I worked with could become a reality. The previous owner helped make the transition as seamless as possible, and I was able to quickly grow the practice to what is now known as Dental Works 4 Kids & Align Orthodontics. A multi-specialty practice, with three locations in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, providing Pediatric Dentistry for infants, children, and individuals with special needs, Orthodontics, General Anaesthesia, Speech Therapy, Myofunctinoal Therapy, Nutritional Counselling, and specialized Teen Dental Treatment.

Embark On The Vision And Embrace The Team

My vision had always consisted of a multi-specialty, multi-location group of practices for a few reasons. As an Orthodontist, or dentist for that matter, we are afforded the opportunity to build long-lasting relationships, and, because of this, we’re able to affect positive change in the lives of those that we meet. It was this reasoning, along with the willingness to be able to do something better for the team members involved in the direct growth of the practice, that gave me the drive to be able to get to where "we" as a team are today. From the administrative team to the clinical team, to the associate doctors that I have the pleasure of working with, I felt a strong duty and responsibility to be able to do something better for them. Providing them with a place they can call "home", a place where they can grow their careers, provide for their families, pay off their loans, improve their skill sets, expand their knowledge, and eventually grow into other areas of the practice eliminating the so-called "growth ceiling." The number of hours spent on leadership, training, educating, and motivating, were tiresome at the time, but beyond rewarding. Any time I felt "we" as a team took one step backward, we were, in actuality, taking two steps forward.

As a natural part of business and life, there will be those few individuals that just may not take refuge in your vision, or have self-serving needs above the team as a whole and are looking more for short-term gains versus long-term success and stability. There are individuals, no matter how well your intention is, who will not understand what truly motivates and drives you. They may have at one point in time, but as you grow, adapt, and change, you may outgrow them, and that is okay. However, you will find many individuals, if your intentions are true, that will gravitate towards you. Circle yourself with those individuals, and give them your everything. If you do, you will find that you will be rewarded in ways you had never imagined.

The Entrepreneurial Hat

In a fast pace world, where we are constantly fighting for time, I found that one of our challenges was scalable solutions to improving efficiencies in the practice, and effectively creating systems in everything we do. An idea spawned through discussions with my team leads - How can we make our lives and the lives of our team easier as we grow and expand our practice? How can we promote independence while keeping our finger on the pulse of the practice ensuring the team is being held accountable to underlying policies and procedures set out to guide them towards a common goal? Our answer came in the form of Clinch, a cloudbased platform we created to allow us to automate our daily tasks, eliminate redundancies, cut costs, and improve the value of our practice. To my surprise, the system showed to be much more useful than first imagined, and today is the backbone of our practices. Through the recognition and support of some of the largest dental product and supply organizations and specifically, Don Grant, who has held various sales and management roles within these organizations, we have been able to make Clinch publically available to all dentists and dental practices, that felt they could benefit from its need and necessity.

While growing Clinch to help improve the daily functions of dentists and their team members, and bring value and cost-cutting to their expenses, we found that there was also a need to better educate the dental team to be able to support any dentist and dental practice in the way those individuals had envisioned. Keeping this in mind, Clinch has now expanded into Clinch and the Clinch Learning Center, where dentists can send their administrative and clinical team members to be trained and upskilled to help their dentist and dental practice reduce stressors, reach goals, and achieve ultimate success.

WHAT'S NEXT

I consider myself fortunate to be in the field of dentistry, which has allowed me to take my hobbies, talents, knowledge, and character traits along with the morals and values I have developed along the way and be able to reflect this on to my patients, families, team members, and colleagues to be able to truly support them.

Currently, I own 3 multi-specialty practices that operate with 8 doctors that are constantly improving their skills, knowledge, and lifestyle while providing the highest level of care to our patients that go beyond the standards of routine dentistry. I work with a dedicated team of about 40 individuals who have been able to provide for their families and grow their careers within our organization. I am a part owner and shareholder in a cloud-based platform and learning center providing tremendous value, training, education, and mentorship to those who are currently using it. Lastly, I have a tremendous support network that never gets enough recognition for assisting me to get to where I am today.

The success I have achieved has been beyond what I could imagine, and I truly thank those that have supported me along the way. When focusing on growth, focus on "People First."

As for what's next ... mentorship is an ongoing commitment. With a focus on team care, customer care, data/compassiondriven decisions, and scalable solutions, my priority will be on connecting and supporting peers.

Ajeet Ghumman, DDS, Cert. Ortho., FRCD(c), is on a mission to improve the profession with a “people first” attitude. Dr. Ghumman is a business owner, an instructor, and an entrepreneur, focused on mentorship, educating, and supporting those around him, whether it is his patients, team members, associate doctors, or peers. His priority is on leading through a selfless attitude and affecting change in those individuals he connects with.

www.dw4k-align.com