"Preventive Innovation, Anxious Achievement, and Second Opinions" with Dr. Tina Saw

🐣 Can you hear the chirping? Episode 10 of Season 2 of Kinda Different has hatched!

In this episode, Matt chats with Dr. Tina Saw, CEO and founder of Oral Genome. They discuss innovating in the preventive space, turning anxiety into a superpower, and helping patients trust their diagnoses and treatment options.

Listen in on Spotify or Apple, or watch and listen below. A lightly edited transcript is also included!

You can find Tina and Oral Genome at the following places:  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtinasaw/
Website: https://www.oralgenome.com/

Matt Allen:
What's up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Kinda Different, a podcast where we talk about innovation in dental care. We connect with absolutely amazing guests and dentistry leaders, thought leaders, just people who are really pushing the profession forward. And then we talk about how we all together can make dental care more human. I'm Dr. Matt Allen, CEO and co-founder of DifferentKind and your host for Kinda Different. And today I am super excited. to have with us Dr. Tina Saw, who is the CEO and founder of Oral Genome, which is a really cool platform that I'm excited to have her share more about and what they do and how they're innovating in the dental space. But Tina, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners and your company, and then we will go ahead and get into it.

Tina Saw:
Perfect. Well, thanks, Matt, for having me on. My name is Dr. Tina Saw. I'm the CEO and founder of Oral Genome. I'm a dentist, been in dentistry for over 16 years. And what we do at Oral Genome is point of care dental saliva testing. We help people with early disease detection with a test that they can run the cells either at home or in the dental office.

Matt Allen:
Awesome, that is a very concise, I think an easy to understand description, which is great. It sounds like you've probably worked on that, which is awesome. Yeah, tell us a little bit more, because I think that this is obviously something that, as a patient might be new to, if I walk into my demo office and they're like, hey, here's this thing, like, how does that work? What does that look like? Give us a little bit more insight there.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, so I really believe that we really should be helping our patients with better at home prevention plans. And I was looking at medicine and there was a time where I was having, I was really ill and I couldn't figure out why. So I went to the doctor and they did some blood testing on me and they were able to look at these biomarkers in my body and understand like what really was going on. And I was like, why are we not doing this in dentistry? And I thought, yeah, there's a lot of male in and male out saliva kits out there, and then you bring the patient back. But what if there's a way that we could give results really quickly and to be able to get better at home prevention plans and better insights into what's going on in your dental health? So that is why I started embarking on the journey to formulate oral genome.

Matt Allen:
That's super interesting. And I think, yeah, like to the point of most of the markers in dentistry that we look at in terms of disease, right, are after the fact, right? So you actually have a cavity, not you're at risk for getting a cavity or you have some things that we're learning that might put you at risk for getting a cavity. So are there specific things that helps patients walk away with? Like what is, if you were coming in and a patient was interacting with an oral genome test, You know, what are they walking away with and what does that interaction look like with them in the provider?

Tina Saw:
Yeah, so when I built the test, we really thought about the consumer experience with everything. I think that saliva, there's a lot of biomarkers out there. And if you really, you really have to deep dig deep as a dentist inside and think about your dental school training and what those biomarkers were, what those recommendations are. And so I really thought about how can we simplify the process. So I looked at companies like 23andMe, I looked at Ancestry DNA, and I was like, how do they simplify, and I really well too, how do they simplify lab reporting? And that's exactly what we did. So when you walk through the mobile app that we have built out, it essentially is, we're measuring your biomarker, we're telling you the level of it, we're telling you your risk level for the specific disease, we're connecting it to the oral systemic health, and we're... connecting it to very tangible recommendations that you can do at home. We also coach the provider too and tell them, hey, this person is at a risk for periodontal disease, they probably have periodontal disease, let's take a deeper look. And then we're also reaffirming that diagnosis for the provider at that point. So that's essentially what we do.

Matt Allen:
Awesome, I love that. Obviously you see, as we talk about innovation in this space, right, just in dentistry in general, not specifically like, you know, with oral genome, which is obviously very innovative. But when you kind of think about this, it sounds like, and forgive me if I'm reading too much into this here, but it seems like you think that the, especially the prevention aspect of the dental ecosystem is ripe for change. If you agree with that. Maybe share more if you disagree with that, maybe tell me why and you know, well what you think where you think kind of an area that is in the dental ecosystem is ripe for innovation.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, exactly. And I think that a lot of innovations in dentistry have been on the restorative care, have been on the reactive care. We're looking at x-rays all the time. We're seeing like what's already happened. I believe I read a statistic somewhere that it takes over 40% of bone loss to happen on the x-ray for us to be able to see that it's already happened. By then it's too late. When you think about it as dentists, we're looking, we're feeling tactfully, feeling the holes in the tooth and the softness, and then we're treating those cavities. but what if we're able to get them on a good prevention plan before? You're actually bringing more patients into the share that way because you're bringing more trust. And so that's what I, my vision is to really innovate in the prevention space. We really need to be more about whole care as providers. We can't just be the ones fixing things. We really like, that's why we all went into dentistry is to be able to help people and help them achieve a healthier smile and a whole health and be with them on this long-term health journey.

Matt Allen:
I love that. I mean, I think that's so, so very important. Obviously you learned from other industries in this as, as you kind of went through this, you mentioned 23 and me and several other companies there. As you think about what other, you know, health tech innovation has done really well. How has that informed your journey both as just a founder and you know, as a world genome as a company.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, I mean, I spend a lot of time, I think, because I've also had health issues, I spent a lot of time in medicine. I like to hang out, like, looking at the optometry space, the chiropractic space, because I think that every single field has their own type of thing, a way of doing it. And I figured, you know, if I'm looking outside industry and bringing in the best of what they have, I could do anything. And so that's what we did.

Matt Allen:
I love it, I love it. Yeah, there's so much out there that's happening that's beyond the walls of a dental office or even our profession, right, that I think we can bring in. And it sounds like you've actively been able to do that, which is really cool. Great, let's learn a little bit more about you. I think it's always super interesting to talk about products and talk about things that we're building and whatnot, but we are all people behind those companies and those products. So I wanna learn a little bit more about you. I think especially as founders, oftentimes, and rightly so, right, our vision and our values should be reflected in our company. So just walk us through a little bit more about how some of who you are is reflected in the company that you're building.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, I mean, I think who I am, I mean, I'll give you a little background is that my mom of two, I have a six-year-old and a five-year-old. And I think part of what I founded Oral Genome was, is I actually do believe that everyone has different risk levels for different things. And you know, I was always that parent too, who would, you know, before I will fully admit, like, this is so embarrassing, but I would have parents come in to my dental practice and then they'd be like, the kid would have a lot of cavities and another kid wouldn't have cavities. And then it was like, well, that mom is just, I was a judging mom, like in my head as a dentist, like, oh, they're maybe not taking really good care or not feeding the kid right or doing all that stuff. But then when I became a mom myself and I had two children and I noticed that my son had more cavities, my daughter had perfect teeth, like I knew there was something going on. going on. So that's where I started thinking, you know, what if we can measure these biomarkers rebalanced in them and come up with a plan that were individual to each child or each person? Yeah, so that's kind of a little bit about me. I'm always really just thinking I have this really strange thing where like I see things that are happening in private practice or around in the world and I just find this thing like, there's gotta be a better solution, there's gotta be a better mouth trap. And I kinda just stay up thinking about it and just trying to bring solutions. For me, I don't, I'm a dentist, just a dentist. I mean, I don't have any other experience, but for me, it's finding the right people and bringing them all together to help me really embark upon my mission.

Matt Allen:
That's awesome. And as you think about that, then kind of crafting of team and doing those things, are there specific values that drive you personally, right? Of whatever those might be that you are already instilling in your team or hope to instill in your team over time. Like, what does that look like for you in terms of what values drive you and how might that be reflected in your work as well?

Tina Saw:
Yeah, so when I was building my team for oral genome, I was looking for people who really believed in the mission, like they believed at 110% and subscribed to it. One of the things that we do at oral genome is we help underserved communities such as those in the IDD, the foster care population, people in the rural health who cannot necessarily get to the dentist. We're really increasing the health equity and access to care by being able to... be able to provide personalized help at a really affordable manner. So for me, bringing in those team members was people who believed in helping other people. They weren't there just to make a paycheck or get their pay on what we're doing. They were, the people who are on my team right now are people who are not just gonna do their job technically, but they are going to push forward in some sort of partnership or some. sort of health coalition to be able to bring this to areas where people need the care the most.

Matt Allen:
I love that. And I think that obviously, you know, focus, you know, building a company that's focused not just on, you know, profits, certainly, but not just even on patient, you know, overall patient outcomes, but focusing on where the marginalized communities might be experiencing more challenges, you know, that, and we all fall into some of those realms, right? Like it's not, Hey, I am only in this one community, right? Like I have in a very rural area. And certainly the lack of, of you know, care here can be a challenge sometime, especially specialty care. And so, yeah, I think that that's a really important way to think about, especially in the early days of building a company. And so I love that you're focused on that, it's amazing. Awesome, well, let's talk a little bit then in terms of, I think that, well, actually, I have one more question for you and just to learn a little bit more about you. One of the, I was recently booking someone, booking a meeting with someone on Calendly. And I loved this question from them. They were like, what music have you been listening to recently? And I was like, oh, what a cool way to learn more about someone, right? And that's how they had operationalized that. So maybe you could just share with us some music you've been listening to, a book that you've been reading, something that's been inspiring you creatively recently, would love to hear more.

Tina Saw:
I have been actually reading this book recently about harnessing your anxiety for leaders. I bought the book on Amazon. I'm gonna have to look up exactly like where, give me one second. Yes, it's called the anxious achiever. Turn your biggest fears into your leadership superpower. So I think as a founder, what I found, which I didn't really, really realize going into this journey of building oral genome, because as a dentist, I had my own problems. In practice, it was like team member problems. Someone called in sick, patient didn't show up, insurance didn't pay on a claim, et cetera, and stuff like that. And then, I, as I started building oral genome and as, as I started bringing partners into the situation and started going like looking at all the deals that were on the table and people who wanted to bring our technology in. I think there is also something like, I guess in dentistry and when you're in dental school, so when you're in dental school, you get your score right away from an exam, you know, like the next day it was done and you like were satisfied. In In your private practice, you saw your patients eight to five, you were done with your day. Maybe someone would call on call or have some pain, you call on medication. But I feel like in the startup life, what I didn't realize is how long it would take. When you are establishing relationships and finding your way and finding the right partners, nothing happened overnight. And so it caused a lot of anxiety in me and I became, I would say, yeah, the anxious achiever. And I was reading this book and I realized anxious achievers are people who have this high drive need to succeed and they won't sleep and they will just keep going and going. But sometimes that anxiety of not knowing can drive them crazy. So how do you control that anxiety and put it into your superpower? And so I'm learning that all right now, because we're coming into a time at oral genome where it's exciting. We are launching our product very, very shortly. I mean. or making some big partnership announcements in the next couple of weeks. But it took, it's been a process for me internally to control those like feelings inside and look cool on the outside, I guess.

Matt Allen:
I love it. It's a great recommendation. I'm going to go definitely look that up. I have another one in that realm by a guy named Steve Cuss. Cuss, I think is how you pronounce it. I've actually met him before. It's called managing leadership anxiety. So it sounds very similar in terms of that and some great practical tips in there. So yeah, I think for leaders, it sounds like both of those are probably really good reads. So thanks for sharing with us what you're leading and how that's impacting your life. I love it. Which is obviously what we want from good books is they don't just you know We read them and put them back on the shelf as they leave us change. So thanks for sharing Awesome. Well, let's talk a little bit about making dental care more human and I think that obviously the Title of this podcast is kind of different And you know, how are you making dental care? Different I would say and I think we can make some guesses about that, but I'd love to hear it in your own words And then how do you see that making it kind? And maybe we've already talked a little bit about that too, but would love to hear kind of both of those things in your own words.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, at Oral Genome, we are really just decoding our mouth. We are building transparency. We are essentially being your oral health advocate. And we're doing it in a kind way, because the thing is, is like, we're non-invasive and we're telling you the truth, and we're doing it in an objective manner. And really our goal is to really help evolve with you and evolve recommendations based on your needs that keep- changing in life. We're there every single step of the way.

Matt Allen:
Yeah, it so reminds me of the Brene Brownism, clear as kind, right? And it sounds like you're providing a lot of clarity for people, which obviously can be very kind, right? So I love that, that's awesome. Imagine, well not imagine, right? We are all patients. And as a patient yourself, right? It sounds like you've talked about some of the health issues that you've experienced and some of the frustrations that you had or some of the light bulb moments that it set off for you. When you think about yourself as a patient, what experiences other than the one that you've already described, which obviously led somewhat to what you're doing now, what other formative experiences can you share with us that left a mark on you that said, hey, this is how it should be or this isn't how it should be? We'd love if you could share an experience or two there.

Tina Saw:
Oh, Matt, you challenged me. One of the things that we don't talk about in medicine and dentistry is second opinions. It's something that as a provider, we're really proud of our treatment plans and our diagnosis. We are taught to look at different things and we're taught to how to speak to a patient to close a treatment plan. But in medicine and dentistry, It's very frequent but not talked about that we go to different, patients go to different providers sometimes because they just wanna get a second opinion, make sure it's right, there's no overdiagnosis, this is the best way of treatment. And I think about the number of patients that have come to my chair and thought they were. overdiagnosed with cavities at another office, or that they really didn't need that periodontal scaling and root cleaning or deep cleaning. And I think what we do, and as I mentioned before, is we're really reaffirming, we're providing that tool through a test that says, we're not saying, yes, you have cavities or yes, you have periodontal disease. We're just showing those markers that are. are saying, yeah, you probably do have those things. And we're saying, yeah, you probably should get treatment because it's not a lie. You know, it really is what the test is showing. So I think I've kind of drawn that personal experience from being a provider in the chair, doing a lot of second opinion consults and understanding like, you know, what is it in a patient's head? And before I even formulated oral genome, I did a lot of consumer studies and people really saw us as the advocate, as that test who is really going to do a checkup on my dentist. And like I said, I didn't really like to talk about this publicly, but it's really how consumers do see things. And we have to face that.

Matt Allen:
Yeah, I mean, obviously we're in a much different realm than, you know, back in the day where, you know, people would just say, Oh, you're the doctor, you know, best, right? Like there's so much information out there. There's so much ability for people to read things and understand things. And in a really good way, I think sometimes that's viewed in a negative light, right? Of this patient was like looking on the internet and it's like, oh, well, we, that's how we make all of our decisions. Like unfortunately, and probably fortunately in a lot of ways, it provides a lot of that. you know, ability to actually have a conversation and not just tell patients what they need, right? But to understand what they want, to understand their values, how that might shape what the treatment plan can and should be because we shouldn't be just making treatments plans for patients, right? We should be making treatments plans with patients and giving them options and helping them understand, you know, how different pieces of it impact each other. So I love that. And I think that, yeah, you're right on, at least from my, you know, opinion there. So thank you for sharing there. Awesome, well, I mean, we can have tons more questions we could ask. We always try to keep it, you know, within the realm of like, hey, one commute. I know you're in San Diego and I know that the traffic can be bad there. So maybe, you know, it might be a longer commute for people there. But here we're out of, you know, it tends to be pretty short because we're in a real space. So if people want to learn more, if they want to engage more with you personally or learn more about what you're building, tell us where they can go. Help us understand what it would look like to to learn more.

Tina Saw:
Yeah, so we do have currently have a landing page right now. It's oralgenome.com. Um, I will say I have shared a lot about what we are building here on this podcast. Um, we will be releasing a lot more detailed information in a couple of weeks. Uh, we are also, um, there's going to be, yes, just stay tuned like on LinkedIn and things, because there will be a big release and press release of different announcements who we've partnered with. and how we are impacting everybody and where we're gonna be launching. So stay tuned, find me on LinkedIn, send a connection request, follow our oral genome LinkedIn page and stay tuned for those big announcements.

Matt Allen:
Yes, and by the time, you know, usually we record a little bit before we release. I don't know exactly when they're coming, but it's either going to be a lot closer to the release time or that might even information might even be out. So yeah, depending on when you're listening to this, all of that news may be public or at least it's a lot closer to being out in the light that it is at this very moment. So Tina, thank you so much for taking the time with us today. We're so appreciative of you and, you know, really love to just have this insight into you know, I'm guessing you're hoping right. It was going to impact every single patient in dentistry at some point or another over the, you know, the course of their lifetime. So thank you for sharing this information with us and thank you for just letting us know a little bit more about who you are. We really appreciate it.

Tina Saw:
Yes, thank you so much, Matt.

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