With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1181452
It's not an exaggeration to say that the revolutionary dentistry business model governing the BC Perio Dental Health and Implant Centre, which so many British Columbians rely on for their dental needs, was created thanks to the powerful vision and considerable tenacity of Dr. Bobby Birdi – as well as a passion that has informed him since his youth. The Edmonton-born Birdi is one of North America's very few Certified Dual Specialists in periodontics and prosthodontics, and he says of his childhood, "I wanted to become dentist because I liked working with my hands and making things, but also enjoyed helping people with their health. My parents were definitely my inspiration to work hard and achieve whatever I could. They were amazing." During his schooling and six years of two residencies in the U.S., Birdi became interested in how dentistry was delivered to the public. Specifically, he noted that if clients had multiple needs that required different skillsets, they would be referred to specialists. "That was fairly common, and it struck me that this was inefficient both for the client as well as the dentist," he recalls. Birdi moved to Vancouver in 2012 with the aim of providing an all-in-one, world-class dental service to customers. "I thought it was feasible because consolidation was happening in the medical field with great success. Combining different services and skillsets hadn't yet reached the dentistry profession, and my idea was that if I could acquire several practices and combine them in a new facility, it would provide the public with a team of professionals instead of just one, a variety of services, and improved efficiencies overall." Birdi's strategy for consolidation was to acquire the assets of older practices, and before long his search yielded three such practices on Broadway whose owners bought into the vision of providing a one-stop shop to the public. BC Perio was born, but as far as Birdi was concerned this was only the foundation of his new company. In short order, he also developed an in-house digital lab (for three dimensional modeling), a testing and research centre, and many other components that would allow he and his colleagues to provide everything from surgical and periodontal procedures (including surgical laser techniques) to dental implants and cosmetic dentistry. More acquisitions of dental practices followed. "This allowed me to open a satellite in Coquitlam," says Birdi, who also strengthened the BC Perio brand by becoming a media celebrity of sorts, appearing on local television and social media channels to explain practices ranging With his pioneering and fast-growing practice, Dr. Bobby Birdi brought specialties in periodontics and prosthodontics under one roof WHEN YOU NEED MORE THAN A DENTIST PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL VERGE