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To Dr. Lena Turner, practising dentistry means “personalization” — attending to know every affected person in an effort to present the perfect service.
Turner’s observe, Lena Nicole Turner Household & Beauty Dentistry, is at 7759 Herschel Ave. in La Jolla.
“We’re distinctive within the sense that I did prepare in oral medication,” mentioned Turner, who famous that she did a two-year residency in oral circumstances after ending her basic dentistry program in 2007.
“I at all times needed to work in well being care,” she mentioned. “I went to dental college initially to do oral surgical procedure,” impressed by the work of the nonprofit Operation Smile, which supplies surgical procedure for cleft palate and cleft lip to youngsters worldwide.
On the College of Pennsylvania Faculty of Dental Medication, nevertheless, Turner centered on prognosis and oral medication and “the remedy of circumstances like oral lesions, oral facial ache,” she mentioned.
“I discovered myself liking that just a little bit higher,” Turner mentioned. “It’s form of like placing a puzzle collectively to determine what’s happening with the affected person and with the ability to greatest assist. … It’s important to think about the affected person, the affected person’s age, their medical situation.”
“Oftentimes, these sufferers have seen a number of dentists or a number of clinicians,” Turner mentioned. Many oral lesions “are systemic circumstances that manifest within the mouth, so typically we have been the primary clinicians to diagnose these circumstances after which correlate them to a systemic situation.”
Integrating oral medication into basic dentistry includes “not simply trying on the mouth or the tooth and diagnosing cavities,” she mentioned, but in addition contemplating, for instance, “this affected person has gotten irritation and it’s persistent and so they’ve been doing rather well with brushing and flossing their tooth however nonetheless having this drawback. What else may issue into that?”
It’s “trying just a little bit deeper into the affected person’s medical historical past, perhaps just a little bit past simply the tooth,” she mentioned.
Turner purchased her observe in 2016 from Dr. Ellen Miyashiro, who had been practising dentistry in La Jolla for greater than 30 years.
“It was a boutique observe … very patient-oriented,” Turner mentioned. “Her sufferers have been like her household. I like that strategy vs. it being simply tooth. It’s an individual.”
“I needed to proceed that legacy,” she added, noting that lots of the earlier sufferers remained and he or she is now treating their relations.
“You get to know every affected person and you realize what they’re going by means of, and their households and I actually take pleasure in that facet of it,” Turner mentioned.
Entrance workplace dental assistant Stephanie Fu, dentist Lena Turner and dental hygienist Claudia Bailey (from left) work at Turner’s Household & Beauty Dentistry on Herschel Avenue in La Jolla.
(Courtesy of Lena Turner)
Dental hygienist Claudia Bailey and entrance workplace dental assistant Stephanie Fu stayed on after Turner purchased the observe.
Turner mentioned each have helped her deepen her data and relationships together with her sufferers. Bailey “is aware of the sufferers actually intimately,” Turner mentioned, and Fu “is nice with the sufferers.”
“I’ve been lucky that they stayed on,” Turner mentioned. “Actually, they’ve helped me develop the observe.”
When sufferers name, she mentioned, “it’s simply not Dr. Turner; it’s Lena and Stephanie and Claudia.”
“I might take into account myself an introvert outdoors of dentistry,” Turner mentioned, “so it’s pleasant to come back in and speak to the sufferers and see how they’ve been for the reason that final go to and meet up with them.”
Past the non-public relationship, nevertheless, Turner mentioned she works to make “positive that I’m doing the perfect service for the affected person and so they’re not getting issues that they wouldn’t in any other case want.”
Her observe has proven her that “persons are so form and so they belief that you simply’re going to do what’s greatest for them,” she mentioned.
For extra data, go to lajolladmd.com or name (858) 459-3229.
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