“Everything is connected with everything.”

A conversation with dentist Dr. Mateo Hermel

Like many professions, dentists have to put up with clichés. One of them wants you to become a dentist first and foremost in order to be able to afford a chalet in Switzerland or a holiday home on an island…

I must disappoint you: It doesn’t suit me one way or the other. Even as a child I was fascinated by the dental profession. I come from a family of doctors where people talked about medicine from morning to night, which interested me enormously. At the same time I was always a great tinkerer and enthusiastic about all fine motor skills. If you combine both, dental studies are an obvious choice.

What is dentistry in and of itself: a craft? a science? an art?

I’m sure it’s all together. Precision craftsmanship is the basis without which nothing works. You need science in particular to understand the numerous interrelationships. This also includes the manifold interactions between the teeth and the organs in the body. Only when you have understood this holistic structure can you think systemically and be innovative. And this could then be described as art: this interlocking of craftsmanship and science, from which strong results and progress arise.

Beautiful and good: Teeth From ZAHNLOFT

Aesthetic dentistry is also an issue in the dental loft. Against this background, isn’t this field somewhat lightweight?

On the contrary! A smile is not just any contraction of the facial muscles. Rather, frequent authentic smiles demonstrably increase your well-being, make you more attractive, younger, more self-confident, more productive and the like. But if you have bad or unsightly teeth, you don’t dare to smile – and unintentionally do without an underestimated source of strength.

When smiling makes you younger: Does this also apply in the physiognomic sense?

That’s exactly what it does. An unsightly set of teeth does not stand on its own, but substantially impairs the appearance of the entire face. Here, too, everything is connected with everything. That’s why you can’t just make your teeth beautiful, you have to think about the overall impression in all its nuances. A wide nose, for example, also requires wide teeth.

Now you almost sound like a designer…

…that maybe I would have become if dentistry hadn’t grabbed me. In fact, both areas have a lot in common. There is the famous design principle “form follows function”, form follows function. And this is also largely true for dentistry: aesthetic adversities often go hand in hand with functional problems.

That means you kill two birds with one stone.

Right. Beautiful teeth work better and functional teeth look better. Besides, there’s another reason why I became a dentist in the equation: In this profession one sees very fast mad results due to the many developments. And I enjoy them as much as my patients.

Talking is the first duty of the dentist

Speaking of developments: How do they affect the trend of “participative decision-making”? Are there so many innovations that the best individual solution can only be found in a doctor-patient relationship based on partnership?

You could say that. The world in which people only opened their mouths in the dental practice so that the experts could do their mysterious work is long gone. Today they open him up to talk. That is why time-consuming, dialogue-oriented consulting is one of our central characteristics. With photos, videos and microscopic images we make the whole thing even more vivid. We are only satisfied when the patient can fully understand what it is all about.

That sounds as if the patient in the dental loft is much more than a patient in the conventional sense.

If that’s the way it sounds, I said it right. Patients are our partners for success. Another example is our anamnesis, which is also much more detailed than usual. You will receive the corresponding questionnaire by post and can fill it in comfortably at home. He collects information in all nuances that only together make up the whole picture. People are as different as their teeth and therefore deserve an individual appreciation. And that goes far beyond the treatment chair in the dental loft.