We were lucky to catch up with Armen Akopian recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Armen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was your school or training experience like? Share an anecdote or two that you feel illustrate important aspects or the overall nature of your schooling/training experience.

I went to New York University College of Dentistry and while I was there I explored every speciality of dentistry. I didn’t know what it was I wanted to do because I thought I liked everything. I spent time in the pediatric, orthodontic, prosthodontics and oral surgery departments. I wanted to see what I was really good at and what I enjoyed the most. It wasn’t until I heard about the Aesthetics department that I was 100% sure of what I wanted to do. The director of the programs was Dr. John Calamia and he has been credited as the inventor of the porcelain veneer. After shadowing in the Honors Aesthetics program as a sophomore and junior I knew I had to apply and get in for my senior year. It was a very selective program and there was only about ten people from our class of over 400 selected to be part of it. I studied hard and made sure my grades were up to par and was thrilled when I was accepted. This is where my love for cosmetic dentistry started. I saw the impact a smile makeover had on a persons confidence and how their whole aura changed. I wanted to be able to provide that for my patients. Being in the program was a blessing because we got to do cases with the top cosmetic dentists in the Tri state area as dental students and it sparked my love for what I’ve been doing for the last decade.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When people ask me what I do, my go to answer is I am a restorative and cosmetic dentist. Inevitably when the conversation continues they begin to understand that my love for dentistry is not about the teeth. It’s about what the teeth do for a person. As I described before when I got into dental school at NYU I spent my time exploring every specialty. The dental school load is heavy as you can imagine and there isn’t a lot of free time but whatever free time I could muster I would go into the post graduate specialty clinics and shadow the residents. I spent time in almost all the departments including oral surgery, prosthodontics, and even pediatrics but it wasn’t until I discovered the aesthetics department that I fell in love. The way they were able to make a huge impact on each patient’s life by simply improving the appearance of their smile was incredibly appealing to me. Every single person I witnessed that got a smile makeover was happier, more confident and even said they approached life with a new found sense of empowerment. I knew this was what I wanted to do so I got to work on applying for the honors aesthetics program for my senior year as I described before. During the program they took us to the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry meeting and I remember being fascinated by all the incredible speakers and talented clinicians from across the world. I dreamed to be a top dentist like them and after graduating my thirst for more knowledge was unquenchable. I asked these top dentists I had met what was the best continuing education program that would make me a better dentist and they referred me to Dr. Frank Spear. While still working my regular 9-5 as a general dentist, I invested the next four years of my free time and thousands of more dollars learning everything I could from the master clinicians in the program. After taking one of the modules in that program about restoring the terminal dentition (patients that were missing all their teeth) I started to get interested in dental implants. So, I made another large investment in time and money to learn implants from the best in the world at the NYU Continuing Education Implant program. After doing that for a year I wanted more so I did a deep dive and took all the courses I could on dental implants, from placing them, to restoring them, to dealing with complications.

I now had restorative dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, and implants in my tool belt and could help a wide variety of patients that had any or all of these issues. Around that time, I reconnected with another world class dentist and lecturer, Dr. Dean Vafiadis, whose specialty is full mouth reconstructions, which is a procedure patients require if their bite is collapsed due to age, grinding their teeth or years of botched dentistry. I trained under him and was able to add full mouth reconstructions to my repertoire of services offered.

I currently see all types of dental patients from routine general dentistry, to implants, to smile makeovers and full mouth reconstructions and I am faculty at the Full Mouth Reconstruction program where we teach fellow dentists our techniques. I am grateful for all my mentors who helped develop me into the clinician I am today. I can honestly say the training I underwent allows me to take care of my patients in a way that I feel proud of and makes an impact on their lives which is really why I do what I do. As a wise dentist once said, it’s not about the teeth, it’s about what the teeth can give the person the power to do.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I think empathy is a prerequisite to being in health care and cosmetic dentistry especially and it is something that has helped me connect with my patients. People are coming to you in a very vulnerable state with all their insecurities about their smile and you have to be able to make them feel comfortable and trust that you will be able to help them. I find everyone has different fears and hesitations but by creating an environment where they feel comfortable sharing that with you before starting treatment is the way you get successful patient outcomes.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Consistently producing high level work and doing so in an ethical way. I am lucky because I believe I have an eye for what’s esthetically pleasing and always push the envelope to get my ceramist (the person that creates the porcelain veneer) to bring my vision to life. At the same time its important to relay to the patient that anything we do in the mouth has a shelf life and when they are young we want to do the most minimally invasive work that will have the most cosmetic impact. This means not shaving down their teeth to little nubs and condemning them to a future with dental problems. I’m sure you’ve seen TikTok trends advertising porcelain veneers and showing the shaved teeth underneath them which is NOT the way it should be done and in my opinion is paramount to malpractice. My multidisciplinary training has allowed me to be able to plan cases out conservatively with longevity and aesthetics in mind.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.doctorarmen.com
• Instagram: doctor.armen
• Linkedin: Armen Akopian