In The Media – Los Angeles, CA

I went to UCLA as an undergrad and got my Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and then got my Master of Science in Kinesiology and went on to Washington University in St. Louis School of Dental Medicine for Dental School. Graduated from Dental School in 1978, upon graduation I then entered a two-year residency at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the USC School of Dentistry in Pediatric Dentistry. Since that time I've been practicing dentistry. I've taken thousands of hours of continuing education and at some point I got my fellowship in the Academy of General Dentistry and then my Mastership in the Academy of General Dentistry. Later on I was accredited by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry which makes me one of approximately a dozen dentists in the United States that have both their Mastership in the Academy of General Dentistry and their accreditation in the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry.

I'm a clinical instructor at the UCLA School of Dentistry in Pediatric Dentistry, where I give lectures and instruct in the clinic for undergraduate dental students. As part of that, giving back to the community, I'm involved in charitable work by doing dentistry on underprivileged children through the UCLA School of Dentistry, where our clinics are in underprivileged areas of Los Angeles. In addition, as part of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, I'm part of a program called Give Back a Smile, and what we do is help victims of domestic violence and repair their smiles. Give them back a new smile.

As a general dentist, I love to be able to help most anybody. And I've had patients from a few months old to 103 in the office at the same time. So my philosophy of practice is really, I try never to say no to anyone. I'm definitely the person that will say, yes, we can do that. So my philosophy gets down to, I want to help people and give them back a great smile. It's something that has been afforded me by my training. And I like to be able to do that at a moderate and fair fee. Fair being something that both the patient feels fair about, and I as a business owner and as a dentist feel good about. Doing dentistry on people is a privilege that I enjoy. It's the greatest profession in the world. And to be able to help people that way is a gift that I've been given, and I just want to keep being able to give it.

One of the neat things about being a dentist is we really get to play with toys. These toys we call instruments, and they do help us provide good, efficient care to patients. And we have many of those pieces of equipment, anywhere from several lasers that we have, one to diagnose dental caries, one that helps us in doing surgery in the mouth, another piece of high-tech equipment is known as air abrasion. And what air abrasion is is a small little sandblaster that helps rid the tooth of small amounts of decay so that we don't have to get the dental drill out and take more of the tooth away than is necessary. We also have a number of pieces of equipment to help us with root canals, things that make it a root canal, not a Jay Leno joke, but something that a person can have performed on them with little or no discomfort while they're here and getting the work done or post-operative. We're also blessed now to have digital x-rays. And what digital x-rays do is help us see on this large screen the x-ray that formerly was very small. And as you can tell by being on a large screen, we can see so much more. And it's up to 97% less radiation than traditional dental x-rays.

I've been a dentist now in this location for nearly 25 years, and I've gotten to know many of my patients from when they were little kids to now being adults and bringing in their own children, as amazing as that sounds. It's great to be able to have that relationship with patients, and patients have told me over the years that the reason they come back to me is, one, so we have a gentle touch. That's always helpful. We get very close to patients. We're in most people's private space, and that's difficult for many patients, and I, as a dentist, have learned to understand that over the years, and hopefully, thus, I am treating them in a gentle way with a kind smile behind my mask that we wear, and people like that, and they come back. I try to explain to patients in English rather than in dental terms what the condition of their mouth is and what the solutions are to that. No one likes to hear something that maybe I learned in some dental lecture and I can speak to another dentist about, but that's not what they understand, and to be able to explain that to them in layman's terms, in simple terms, makes it so much easier. People have said that sometimes through the help on the computer, we're able to educate them in non-threatening ways. The other reason I think people come to see us is we have been able, over the years, to keep our fees moderate. I know that dentistry is not necessarily affordable to everybody, and we try to make it affordable to as many people as possible, and we've been able to do that for a lot of people over many years.

Dentistry isn't necessarily the most enjoyable thing in the world to come visit. There are many jokes on television all the time about having a root canal done or something like that. So for some people to come into the dental office and get dentistry done is a traumatic, fearful experience. So what we can offer patients is certainly nitrous oxide, otherwise known by many people as laughing gas, but we also have conscious sedation. What conscious sedation is is someone will drive you to the dental office after taking some medication at home and when they bring you here we may give you some more medication so that when you lay down to have dental work done you're able to breathe by yourself. It's not general anesthesia, but it's just to make it feel a little bit better. I liken it to maybe having a few beers or a few glasses of wine before you come in and the great thing about it is you have no memory of it afterwards. The person drives you home and the next day you're back at work or school. As well as conscious sedation here in the office to make people comfortable, we have televisions over all the patient chairs showing either the latest movies or what I really enjoy showing patients is some of the old TV shows like Leave It to Beaver or I Love Lucy or the Jeffersons, Friends, maybe SpongeBob for the kids. Those are always fun for people to see while they're here at the dental office.

You know, we have over 25 years, a number of patients who have had their dentistry done here at the dental office, and have come in in pieces and left with the biggest smile in the world. One that comes to mind is a lady who was a victim of domestic violence. She came in with busted up front teeth, some that had gotten totally knocked out, and she needed help. Even though she couldn't smile, she couldn't go out in the world and get a job, even go to the supermarket without not smiling, and we were able to give her back her smile. That was a very warm, rewarding experience for us in the dental office, and we'll never forget that day that she got her smile back.

Back in my younger years as a dentist, since I have all these years of experience, you get to do one of those cases where you're really putting back the entire smile of a person. This person was about a six foot four guy who had been a football player in high school and college, had gone on to be a paratrooper in the army. He was one of these people who really just wore out his teeth. When he came to see us, his teeth were worn 50-75% of the way, just from normal wear and tear. So the treatment for him was crowns on all of his teeth. When we got finished with his work and he had that smile, it's something that touches you in the heart that you've really made a difference in the patient's life. Not only at that moment, but really forever, because that smile will last him forever.

A Marine found us on the internet while in Afghanistan, and he wanted to have a nicer smile for when he came back from combat. And I didn't know at the time that he was writing me via email from Afghanistan. He said, well, I'll be back in town soon, and then I can come see you. And then when he came back and made his appointment and came to see us, he related that he was in Afghanistan when he was talking to us. So we were able to give him a smile that he had wanted while he was in combat. And that just wowed us all to think that the smile is that important to this tough Marine. And, you know, it really had a gentler side, a more human side.

I think the way people relate to me as far as being a dentist is that I relate to them. I don't set myself up in the ivory white tower kind of concept even though I'm wearing this white coat and maybe children, little kids, will kind of like shy away from it. But I try to be more personable. I try to relate to the patient directly and be warm and caring. I think that comes from my training as a pediatric dentist and I'm able to translate that into working with the big kids which is what adults really are anyway. And I think that's one of the big reasons why people come to see me and why they enjoy us and refer many of their friends over a number of years.

You know, trust is a hard thing for the doctor-patient relationship. And it has to do with some kind of human connection that we just have to do. And some people are trusted more than others. It can be a smile. It can be the manner that I, as the dentist, present to you, as the patient. That's where trust comes from. That's really, for us as a dentist, foremost and beyond anything else is to do what's best for the patient. No matter how you're getting paid, or not getting paid, or whatever. It's to do what's best for the patient. And that's the philosophy that I adhere to. And I guess it comes out in the way I present myself to patients. And that's why they'll hopefully come to love me and consider me their dentist.

Many patients will pick their dentist from a list because it's on their insurance plan. I understand that. We've chosen over the years to treat the patients as patients and not a number because of their insurance. I totally understand that insurance is a big part of the equation of coming to the dentist, but many of the insurance plans restrict people and restrict dentists because of the coverage and the financial remuneration to the patient. So patients want to come and see us. They want to hopefully come and see us because they've gotten a referral from a friend, and that friend has said, we're a good dentist. They've seen us on the internet maybe and like what they've seen, like what they've heard, and have chosen us not because we're a name in their insurance book, but because they seem to have a connection with us if they've never met us or it's from a friend's referral, which many of our patients refer their friends to us. It's because someone else has come and seen us and thought positive of it.

Our goals as a dental practice can be many, but it's foremost to treat the patient properly. When the patient enters the practice, we say hello and say it with a smile, and when they walk in the door, do the same thing. When they meet me for the first time, smile back at each other, we make that connection. The goals of the practice on a business sense will be answered. The goals on a patient-doctor relationship will be answered because it will be a positive relationship.

A smile is the most important thing that a human being can offer another person. When they were doing the extreme makeover shows, they discovered that beyond all the different things that the plastic surgeons can do, if the dentist couldn't do a proper smile, then the case wasn't accepted. The smile is the center of the face, and the smile is the center of what we as people present to other people.