From Dentist to Medical Empire 🇦🇪 in Dubai

DDD Dr. Max Riewer

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A very warm welcome here to another podcast of the Skillnet episode Dubai Dogs Diary and today I have a doctor here that is really a very special doctor to me. We are already very much connected since almost I am here in Dubai and himself Dr. Max Reber is since 25 years here in Dubai and has shaped the medical landscape in Dubai. Long before longevity became a trend and per buzzword he was building systems, established standards and created institutions.

Today he operates three clinics and has become a trusted authority performance-driven health care in the region. Very welcome Max. I'm very happy to have you here in the podcast.

Thank you very much Angela. I also feel enlightened. Let's have some fun, let's talk a little bit and give people some insights about Dubai or in general some advice what should be done.

We've already done some this and that interview together so I think also the listeners might know where you're coming from, the same home country we have. Let's fast forward a bit to the decision when you had actually made to come to Dubai. What was the reason for you to move to Dubai? That's a good question.

I mean I was always interested to work outside of Germany because I like it if it's international and even 25 years ago I saw more opportunities outside and luckily I had the opportunity to spend some vacation time in Dubai and I said I tell everybody the same thing in our field it's very easy just walk to a dentist and speak to him. You're not a big bank where you cannot just speak to the big boss or something like this. The industry is still a small field, it's very personal so I said to myself let's go there see what happens and immediately got very nice job offers.

I said what the heck why not give it a chance what can you lose and that was the best decision of my life. And you say that it's been already so long ago more than two decades and I really envy that because you was already such a visionary back then and already thought outside of the box and I interview especially the doctors in this format here. I wanted to know if and what the surrounding environment has been saying about that.

Was they imitating your dreams and you're pursuing to come to Dubai or was that something that they were supportive in it? See the good things with Dubai the government everything is very supportive and anyway if you have a dream have a vision you can succeed in Dubai but the problem is not the outside the problem is how you structure yourself so it's quite easy to open the clinic and to run it but if you want to bring it you want to scale it you want to bring it to the next level that's where the problems will come for you because you cannot be everywhere so it took some time for us with my colleagues together we decided let's develop a system that we can open another branch without us being around there all the time that is a lot of thinking you have to do and especially you need to give people a lot of guidance because people are very creative especially if you hire other dentists they're all very good they're all very very nice they know what they're doing but everybody has its own ideas but you should run the clinic the way you wanted to run not somebody else wants to run it because we have proven it works our way because we see a lot of newcomers coming to us they have super ideas we like it but we have to tell them that works maybe in Germany or that works in America but here you have to consider also the religion for example everything we can do in Germany you cannot do all these things here it's just already the approach with the patient is already different you don't shake hands with an Emirati lady and all these tiny tiny things so that's the learning curve we have done from the beginning we learned it and then we were thinking how to bring it to the next clinic and how to bring it to the next level and that was quite an interesting way and a lot of challenges we had to go the good thing is when I started here in Dubai we still had this sponsoring system you needed a local partner oh yes and he owned 51 percent luckily a few years ago the government stopped that completely you have 100 ownership because that was the biggest danger we had because your your sponsor could say from one day to another thank you very much have a nice day there's the door leave because he owned the majority of it so this problem is completely solved today if you decide let's open a clinic you have to consider many many things or in general any business you have to consider and do by now many things first is the location if I want to open a clinic is it for the customer the patient's easy to reach that is the key if you have a lot of traffic jam in front of your house or people cannot find any parking you should consider it twice one of our projects we have a lot of parking issues we solved it with valet parking there's two or three people just to take the key of your car and park it for you so the problem is solved but you have to consider this it's also something that will cost you a little bit more money you have to put this also into your calculation because all three drivers we have now they're not cheap you have to pay some fees you have to pay this and here and there but in the end we had no choice we had to do it for a customer satisfaction yeah that's one of the things you don't expect in the beginning you don't have it also in Germany necessary or in any other country so there's something special here that you always have to adjust but let's get a little bit back I wanted to go more to the start of your journey you've been already in the three clinics that you have we're gonna go there on the point where you scale but what has been actually the initiation not to be here as an employee but as your own entrepreneur where's this coming from oh that's that's a good question for me it's from the family side my father is a successful businessman and I was used to travel with him around the world and he had a company that was also working worldwide and I'm the only son so luckily my father maybe had in in a young stage already the discussion if I would be interested to join that company or not and I told my father I was very young I told him dad you work too much you work seven days a week I don't want to have this life and I'm not good with numbers in my field I only have to count to 32 that will do the job okay so my father also agreed with me son yes I agree with you you're definitely not the guy for the numbers and everything so that's okay and then he supported me in any way and I always wanted to go in dentistry I knew from very young stage that would be my way I wanted to go I never had a very good school exam or abitur we call it but if your mindset is set for something when you really want to do it nothing can stop you nothing can stop you from this you always say this is the dubai gin and you have actually the dubai gin the genetic of this successful environment when you entered dubai there was literally nothing right I mean there was there was not too much action going on we had three four nice places the german-speaking community was very small everybody knew everybody of course the competition was also definitely less but that doesn't mean I was the only one there was still a lot of other nationalities of dentists in town but I don't care just do a good job just be honest and you will go your way so that was not the problem for me but the challenges yes they were still there in the beginning also the cultural challenges whatever I did wrong also the service you have to provide that's also the other key we talked about about the car parking but also maybe a clinic has to open seven days a week so you come from germany and they tell you here why you're not open on sundays what do you mean why should we open on sundays on sundays you go for golf you do this and that nope yeah you offer that service if you don't do it somebody else will do it and that's a big surprise for many many from abroad that come here to dubai they used to work five days still you're gonna work your five days but somehow the clinic has to be arranged that you give the seven day 365 days full service now being a doctor here certainly a lot of listeners around that was they have to do this licensing process and all of this to get actually also registered as a doctor in the first place and tell us a little bit about about that did you do this yourself I mean we had a totally together project dubai dogs fast track as well where we worked together and helped and this is a big it is still nowadays a big mess to say and a hassle to get the people there but how was it during my times it was much much easier everything was more personal there was only one department in dubai was in charge for the papers so they just told you okay you translate your license as a dentist your certificate from the police that you're a good guy and certificate of good standing from the association of dentists that was the three papers we needed and then you got it approved from the embassy in germany or the consulate then you got these papers here to dubai to the health authority looked at it said okay now you can go for your exam and during this time the exam was not online it was quite different you had three four dentists sitting in front of you that was the committee and they were asking you for half an hour all the questions in the world about dentistry or general questions and it was really fun i enjoyed it because you could interact with somebody and you could also explain why you have this opinion and this and this but i knew already okay it's going to be a i tried to give lots of answers to the problem because you should not insist on one answer you can say no there's several solutions to the problem every dentist will understand if you have this and this problem with your tooth you can solve it this way that way or the other way and i put them all on the table and they were happy said okay you know this you know this you know this happy today is a different game totally different game just mean it's good that you do this on a professional league because otherwise people no way they can get these papers by it's a challenge already as we have seen from the german government side but also here from the this let's say the companies who are in charge here in the uae they're also not very supportive i mean i understand them also they have doctors from around the planet applying for a job or for their for their license but to explain every time the same thing is is really a little nightmare yes yes still yeah okay can be done yes it can be done but when you then encountered here your first job you had first a job i had in the preparation of this interview already i came to know that and then you have made the decision okay i make this my own clinic what is the concept that you have that is still your unique setting point today that you also scale see now it depends where you come from a little bit if you just have the german mindset you might have a little problem it will work for you but you want to start your own clinic and the german way is very traditional it's still i know everything that's a little bit outdated you should have several specialists on board the one is the specialist for children i want a specialist for root treatment or on the special for surgery i want a specialist for gum and and and and and i realized very fast if you have these specializations on board you're gonna succeed because you cannot know everything you cannot be perfect in everything so that's a little bit i call it the american way where you have already these specialists and patients also the feedback we get is very very nice because they know you guide them to this and this doctor and it comes back to you it's the same when your gp doctor you have a problem he will refer you to a heart specialist or this specialist you're very thankful because you know you go into the best hands that's what i recommend that's the way it doesn't mean you cannot run the show by yourself you can still do it why not there's doctors doing it since 20 years here that works also but i don't believe in this i believe in the specializations and that's the future of dentistry we're talking about digital dentistry holy cow how that changed the last five to ten years yes where we used to take these impressions with this funny material that looks like chewing gum and patients are throwing up today you take this camera internal camera you scan everything and patients say what that's it yeah that's it come back tomorrow come back today the crown is ready for you and that's fun that's also how our job changed and that makes also dubai a little bit special because you have to be up front if you're not up front you're going to be outdated because people talk a lot here in dubai they talk to each other they communicate a lot they're going to say oh you know what i went to my dentist he was using this and this technique what i never heard about it my dentist still like this so where's your dentist i want to see this that's how it works so max when you have actually a lot of you said it yourself there's a lot of other dentists here around in dubai you are the dinosaurs here who shaped also the who shaped also a little bit the medical landscape in dubai yeah how do you set yourself apart besides all of this specification that's one point but i also know you work with a lot of technology that's very innovative maybe you just let us a little bit know about it it's it's many factors that have to make you unique it's already how you set up your clinic that's what many doctors also don't understand and my it's my personal opinion the way the clinic is set up it reflects you also your kind of standard your kind of work as a patient if i walk into a clinic and it looks like a junkyard it doesn't always mean that the doctor is bad it can be still outstanding but it gives the first impression the first taste is maybe not the best still the doctor can convince you that's not the point but i think i believe if all these tiny factors come together you have an amazing team you have amazing guidance you have a good setup you have good equipment and then you have all the factors you need to succeed that's actually a very good part that if you bring it all together like that now to scale and to grow your company your dentistry i wanted to know how do you choose all of these different specialists that you have what is the process that you that you that you have that you run to screen somebody to take okay he's fitting in the team he's not he can also be a benefit for the company because i know a lot of doctors are telling me as well there is marketing required from as well the employee so it's not only your duty to bring in the clients but it's also coming from the employer it's coming also from the employee that he has to have his or her marketing in in the goods in a good place so how do you actually what are the criterias let us pick my let us pick your brain let's see if if we hire a new dentist in our team i'm always very interested are you active for social media or not it makes is a key today makes a big big difference especially the young doctors will have a young target group and if you don't play that game you will not reach these people anymore tiktok generation instagram and so on and so on and so on if a doctor tells me no i'm not into this i don't believe it we have a problem already that means yes we might still work together and we might help you to build you up for social media but if your doctor tells me no i don't like it it's not my world then do i will not work for you definitely it will it will fail completely coming back to the other question ask me how do you also select the doctors what's what's what's more important of course in our field we have a major problem if i hire a doctor it's a long process first the doctor has to get the license we have to issue my visa money money money by the paper he can be outstanding doctor but we only know once he worked with us maybe after three four five months we see maybe it's not what we expected and then it's a long process to tell him sorry very much let's see how we can go on in the future or something like this so the selection process up front has to be very very strong and you follow a little bit your instincts of course the problem is we cannot tell the doctor okay just stay with us a week and just show us what you can do that's not legal that's not he needs a license but if he has a license he can make a trial period of work to of course that's a cool thing if doctor that's why i also tell any other doctor you know we can have a serious conversation once they have the license for dubai life gets very very easy it means also your value will increase yes somebody is a newcomer to dubai i'm here as a tourist i would like to work in dubai yes we can talk but you know how complicated the process is to get your license also people fail in the exam they don't take it serious you have to sit down and study it's not you cannot make it yes you can make it you can achieve this goal but you have to be so it's not oh i just look at this book for five minutes or don't be arrogant also many doctors are arrogant ah this will be a joke i'm the best in the world and then they failed yeah no doesn't work like this so the easiest thing is if you have your diploma already your license for dubai it's a different discussion and then what qualities if they are working with you or going to work with you what are you looking for i mean you have over 60 employees half of them are doctors i suppose probably but what are the qualities so they have to have marketing in place their own marketing it's not a must that they do their own marketing it helps but if not we build them up we help them we have our own marketing department so that they can get this i cannot expect that everybody can do this just have to be open-minded the other things we are looking for i mean you have to be a social person yes i mean you don't have to be an entertainer in dubai but you have to be able to communicate dubai is a very open society people like to communicate people like to talk people have time to talk it's not like we used to have it in europe or in germany you run four chairs at the same time here quality time not quantity time it means you focus on one patient but if you're the best dentist in the world and you don't have any social skills you don't know how to interact it's also a little bit weird because that will not work i'll give you an example yeah for the first time you're going to see an emirati family they come to you brand new you cannot tell the wife sit down let's start you're gonna talk with the husband for half an hour maybe about munich maybe about london maybe talk about football maybe talk about traveling just to build trust but if you're the guy who i'm just here the dentist it it will get a little bit tricky again you can succeed you can survive but if you're more the reserve type it's a challenge okay so they should not be introverted then of course have their dental skill that you that you need to have but let's talk a little bit about leadership you have so many cultures in dubai and how many cultures you have in your team that is leadership for advanced people is advanced level to lead so many different nationalities how does that go see that that's a nice challenge i love about dubai so that means you deal we have a team from 15 different countries 15 different countries 15 different educations different expectations of leadership that you don't have in germany normally it's one nationality and you know roughly what has to happen how to adjust this to get this done what i will do here with the german will not work for colombian it will not work from the one from philippines it will not work from the doctor from jordan or something like this so everyone needs an individual approach that makes it very very unique but it's also the unique selling point so i'm not breaking these people so i give them the freedom to do it their cultural approach i'm not telling them my way is the correct way from the setup yes but their personal approach i leave it completely to them because they know much better than me how somebody should be approached from this or this or this country and then when they have their special nationality my for example you have somebody from netherlands from spain do they also then attract their people from their nationalities hey of course that is the key also that's that's the interesting part in the end when you look for a doctor and your mother tongue your native speaking german or spanish it's always nice that you can speak with your doctor and your language that you trust that you know which you're 100 confident that's what you see very very often why did you choose the german dentist because i'm german i love to speak german but then again dubai is also quite flexible here but that's not a skill you have to have is english you don't have to be perfect nobody's perfect in english for me with my german accent i don't hide it i'm proud of it yeah that's fine for me because don't forget we're all here in dubai as a guest and always make fun if i say even the ones from manchester don't speak english and we all get along with each other yeah and nobody expects that your perfect oxford english or something like this but if you just know how to communicate explain simple things it's all fine definitely it's fine max since you are here so long i wanted to pick your brain actually to talk a little bit about these middle east situation that we have every now and then there was something like that in in the past which you have might be experienced as well but tell us a little bit about how is it also interculture in your team they are absorbing the situations right now i think it is with the like schrödinger's cuts it is a two two realities in one and both are all right and i wanted to know from your perspective in the past how did you deal with this how was it dealt with from country or from the uae side what what is the going on within the team and what role you play with that very important point leadership is very easy and easy and relaxed times when the sun is shining now the sun is still outside but it's a little bit different game so your job as a leader is very very simple because you need your team you depend on your team especially my job without my team i cannot work so my duty is every morning i speak to everybody how you're doing do you feel affected do you feel depressed do you need some help and then it gets interesting which cultural background people have if you speak to a lebanese doctor you will tell him max why there's no problem all is relaxed you speak to the german doctor i'm a little bit nervous but then they ask you max you have been here for 25 years if you had this experience before and i tell him when i was flying the first time to dubai i was sitting with three people in the airplane not more all together three people and of course the crew why and was the war going on with iraq and all these stories and i was very stressed when i was flying here for my introduction if i want to be a dentist here or not and i was thinking oh my god did you make the right decision but dubai proved again that it's not a problem to handle this but again coming back to leadership that's why we are talking also here we have to listen to your team and guide them maybe there's also one member of your team who's totally scared and totally show him strength that's that's the key on one side give him support and don't forget you're not only having doctors in your team you also have the normal helpers the income is just a little bit different than ours and for them every dirham counts it's very important if i would tell him which we had the situation before if i would tell him guys now we have corona we don't have patients at all i have to cut your salary they will not survive so during that time we had a discussion with the doctors doctors we can only pay you on a pure commission base and all of them played along because i explained them i will not cut on my stuff their salary if i cut on them they're gonna die technically they're gonna have no money left to buy anything food luckily after a few months the problem was solved at the moment if you take this situation we have right now we have enough patients we are lucky you're not affected from it this stage let's see what the future will bring but i've seen so many situations before financial crisis corona crisis this crisis and it always went very well and the government is also supportive by the way that's also interesting but the government immediately reacts and say okay forget any tax anything you have to pay now there is no fees for you that is also very very very helpful but again coming back to the leadership happy to have you here if you like this video just give us some support and thumb up activate the bell and share it listen to your stuff talk to them spend some time with them that they feel safe because the way you behave it reflects on your team if you panic they panic if you show strength in tough times they follow they follow yeah that's so true and that is also intercultural wise in the team manageable and you can stretch with with your energy everybody strengthens them amongst each other i think this is such a wise thing to do max one more question when we look into the future i'm not gonna ask you how long this situation gonna gonna take because nobody knows that we don't have a glass wall you know and see what happens but what i wanted to ask you regarding the future is i know you are very technical lover with innovations and so on what role AI plays in the future of your clinics i love the question it will change the game it's changing the game already AI will have a big effect the first one you will see on our front desk some of our clinics have four or five front desk ladies you will not need any more four or five front desks maybe you need maximum one or two the rest AI can do for you i couldn't believe it i tested it a few weeks ago for myself and i challenged the system and the system replied to every question the proper way so that's not only me and dentists in general we see that when we speak to all other people from all other businesses entrepreneurs or people that have big companies they're all changing now there is no escape from this you also have to do it there's no bad intentions you're not there to fire people that's not the thing but if you don't do it then you get immediately outdated and you have running costs you have to cover these because everything gets more expensive and you have to save on something and here we go the good thing is i can tell my front desk guys don't worry we open anyway another clinic very soon so we can transfer you and they're all happy but that's also the thing from the leadership you should not scare your staff if they see AI most of them think oh my god i'm going to lose my job and then you have a big problem with the front desk because they're on the fire they're that should not happen involve them in the journey explain what's going on and then you're on the safe side yeah otherwise the clinic is also finished and when it comes to AI in the treatments and in your room what is the future vision for that unbelievable unbelievable i've seen it for myself it was so inspiring i had a german friend of mine he's also a dentist but looks more he's a software engineer spent the last two years just developing the software and that's a good thing because he comes from the field he understands our problems so he simulated with me the whole thing we played this patient dentist game i had a microphone he had a microphone and i pretend i was treating him and i told the system okay we have to do this filling we have to do this treatment plan it's going to cost you this and this and we need two appointments on this and this date wow after end of the discussion we had everything was organized wow wow that was a dream come true wow and imagine if you can do this in all kind of languages yeah yeah there's a game changer it doesn't matter yeah also here in dubai what makes it so so

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