My original reasoning for getting into dentistry came from sitting in the dental chair. I had an incident when I was a freshman in college where I played racquetball and took a racket to the mouth, hit a couple of my front teeth, had to have some work done. And I knew I wanted to go into healthcare at the time, but I didn’t know really what avenue. And I was really interested in what the dentist was doing and I was pretty amazed at what he could accomplish. And so that, kind of, started my journey down the path. I’m like, “This is cool, it’s in the healthcare profession.” And he was able to take some really messed up broken teeth and make ’em look nice again. And really, I started the journey, and from there, there was no looking back.

The most rewarding part to me is seeing a patient that, for some reason, has been out of routine of coming into dentistry. Our profession was hard on patients back in the ’40s and ’50s, and we have a lot of patients out there that are just afraid. They don’t wanna come in, they’re ashamed, maybe, of the way their mouth looks or feels, and it takes everything they can give to get through the door or to make that call. And taking that patient and turning ’em into someone that is confident in their smile once again, can come in for a routine appointment and smile and greet us and say how thankful they are for the service we provide. And bridging that gap because it’s a huge gap to bridge. But we’re able to do that. And over the past 20 years, we’ve learned how to do that.

And I think at this point in my career, that’s what’s most rewarding, taking that dental phobic and turning ’em into a dental fan. Really, my goal and our team’s goal is to take the time to connect with our patients, to understand what their goals are, what they’re looking to accomplish whether it’s with their smile, whether it’s with their care of their mouth, their oral healthcare, or in the relationship. You know, what are their goals? What are their aspirations? And looking to, once we make that connection, meet or exceed that.

And it’s very different for every patient. You know, we have some people that want to come in and they want a complete new smile and we can do that for them. We have other patients that come in and they just want to have their cleaning every six months and they wanna make sure nothing’s gonna, you know, go wrong, but they’re happy with their smile. And so really, it’s just making that connection and understanding what they want us to do for them and tailoring that to them. We don’t have a cookie-cutter response for every patient. We’re able to take the time, energy, and resources necessary to really meet whatever they’re looking to accomplish.