Dr. Bill Hang: A Breath of Fresh Air

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and think again" – Mark Twain

There are a lot of followers out there…the world is full of them…many who are following false shepherds, others are just wandering down the path of least resistance. Oftentimes critical thinking and a healthy skepticism for the status quo are comatose. It is easy to not question what you were taught….easy to focus on the trees, and to miss out on a forest. It’s easy to just keep on walking down that road that was paved for you by institutions or the authorities, your parents, or by sheer habit.

We see it play out in all areas of society…women follow the subservient and submissive roles that have been established for them by men--for centuries….people grow up and feel they have to follow the established paradigm for how to live….college, marriage, kids, retirement, etc…

A famous Apple ad from 1997 said this so brilliantly….

“Here’s to the crazy ones-- the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules..and they have NO respect for the status quo…you can vilify them, or disagree with them. About the only thing you can’t do… is ignore them….because they change things….they push the human race forward….the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do…

Independent thinking is rare, remarkably so. So too is it rare for a person to scrutinize what he has been doing for a decade or two that has been financially successful, and earning pats on the back. He wasn’t told he was doing anything wrong. On the contrary, he was following the”standard of care” and he was in good graces with colleagues and patients alike. His conscience was clear, well, it was until he started taking a closer look….when he started looking at the biggest picture..the one no one bothered to tell him about; the one that his dental school education failed to show him. At that moment in time Dr. Bill Hang was forced to make a decision that would have him choosing his own standards and ethical and moral codes and no one elses. If he failed at meeting those self imposed standards then no approval from anyone or any other institution would suffice; no amount of monetary compensation would ease the conflict.

Bill Hang D.D.S. is a pioneer. Let’s start right there. That word is probably overused but for orthodontist Bill Hang of Agoura Hills, Ca it just begins to capture the spirit of the man. He is a breath of fresh air…literally and metaphorically. Bill Hang is not like any other orthodontist you will come in contact with…at all!

When Bill Hang sees a child, or adolescent patient come into his office for an “orthodontic” consult those accompanying parents are very likely to hear things that they haven’t heard from traditional orthodontics. They are going to get questions about things they have not likely imagined. Dr. Hang understands that parents are conditioned to value straight teeth but he also understands that the general public has been largely under informed about the structural, esthetic, and postural issues that should be diagnosed and treated by a dentist. He understands that the parents of these children have likely never heard anyone talk about sleep apnea or how to prevent TMJ in the first place. Dr. Hang is probably not going to get too focused on your child’s teeth for the first segment of his exam. He is going to look at posture, both oral and body. He is going to look at facial proportions, lip support, facial profile, facial height, signs of allergies, signs of airway obstruction, and then, he will take a look at the teeth. Dr. Hang believes that if you address the “big issues” the smaller issues (like straightness of teeth and beauty of a smile) will mostly resolve themselves. And, bringing your child in at an early age makes it much easier to avoid and/or correct, poor facial growth. My own experience with Dr. Hang started when we decided to drive the 1 and 1/2 hours so that our kids could get a very holistic treatment alternative. My kids were between 7 and 10 when we brought them in for their first consult. Their treatment took about a year and they were done by age 11. At the end of the year they had great airways, great facial posture and a great facial profile, and teeth that were properly positioned in the face. Dr. Hang insists on building a proper foundation before he builds the house….and certainly before he paints it (the straight teeth part).

Well, traditional dental education has not necessarily stepped back enough from the “picture” to see the scale of things. Bill Hang took it upon himself to step back. He noticed that many of the patients he had treated years ago while practicing in Vermont were now of age to bring their kids in for orthodontic treatment and he started connecting the dots. He saw that the approach he had been taught (and applied) in order to eliminate crowding and straighten teeth would often dictate that teeth be extracted and pulled back into the face, creating a concave facial profile. He noticed that correcting an overbite by bringing the upper teeth back left lips unsupported and thin, chins weak, noses looking bigger, faces compressed, airways compromised, and muscles and joints often traumatized. He started to see the "forest". His conclusions left him feeling rather troubled and disenchanted about the role he had been playing for more than a decade, doing things “by the book” but knowing that he was creating esthetic and structural problems, and not correcting them. He abandoned the modalities and protocol of his traditional education and decided to address the institutionally labeled “successes” that he now deemed failures. He vowed never to extract what he considered perfectly good teeth and instead, to create the room in the mouth for their perfect accommodation. Anything less would leave the face unsupported and put a patient on the brink of other serious medical issues, most namely, TMJ problems and sleep apnea. When you bring the teeth back in the face NOTHING good happens…on any level. But, it’s not easy swimming against the current—it can make the other fish very uncomfortable.

It was nothing short of an epiphany…..I am always fascinated by what makes a person have an epiphany. Whether it is Dr. Bill Hang, or Oskar Schindler, or whomever, it is very rare to see someone step back from a culture that is rewarding and profitable, and making a strong course correction. It takes tremendous courage, and a highly developed conscience. It is so very rare to step out of the lineup…but thank the Gods that we have a few people who do…because, like the Apple commercial, they are the ONLY ones who change things. The ones who just follow in footsteps don’t change a thing…..MLK changed things….he went completely against the grain and he aggravated half of the country, at least. It got him killed and it left his kids without a father and a nation without a moral leader. That's the risk that people take when they challenge the status quo. In the end, we have a national holiday named after him. We don’t give someone a national holiday who merely marched in line. We don’t make statues for people who followed the status quo. We laud those who refused to sit at the back of the bus…those who threw the first crate of tea into the Boston harbor in protest to tyranny. Those are the people on whose backs we build a fair, informed, and civilized society.

I highly recommend that before you make any decision about your child’s facial development or the straightness of his or her teeth that you make sure you hear what Dr. Bill Hang has to say….you owe it to yourself and your child. Look at the forest, always.

Dr. Hang's website is Facefocused.com

Many people can talk about “facial orthopedics” but I have met VERY few who actually understand it.

Full disclosure: Dr. Hang has no idea I am writing this piece and I haven’t spoken to him for over a year. I have no business relationship whatsoever with Dr. Bill Hang. I admire his work and I feel that his talents are unique and incredibly important.

“Visionaries are those intrepid souls who risk the wrath of their own tribe to push the tribe forward. They challenge convention and rewrite the possible. The visionary works without a tightrope and is willing to be called heretic, sinner, and outcast all for the hope of bettering the lives of the children and grandchildren of the people casting them into the abyss.”

My opinions!

Food for thought....