At Aesthetic Dental Care we’re set up for comfort. So when people come in the first thing they see is not a typical waiting room but it’s a reception area that’s really based on being living room style so that there’s a comfort level immediately and we try to convey that through the massage chairs, through the paraffin hand dips, through the refreshment center. We’re just trying to make people more comfortable and we’re trying to get to them to know that it’s okay to relax here. Most unique situation at our office is probably the relationship building. That’s what we’re trying to establish, we’re trying to be different, we’re trying to get to know people.
Philosophy of Aesthetic Dental Care is to stay at the top of what is new in dentistry to maintain the cutting edge, and that’s why we spend a lot of time taking courses throughout the country but especially at Las Vegas Institute of Advanced Dental Studies, known as LVI. LVI is the premiere postgraduate dental program in the country and we have been there many times with staff and it is a training ground for what is new in dentistry and it allows us to really stay on the cutting edge.
Went to Syracuse University as an undergraduate, followed that up with dental school at Boston University where I got a DMD degree along with the master’s degree in nutritional biochemistry. I was the first one to combine the two programs at the school and that was another passion of mine, the nutritional biochemistry end of it. So I combined those. After that I went to Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York for a one year residency and then went out into practice. Went to practice for 20 years in upstate New York in Binghamton and then moved to New Jersey.
In Binghamton we had a practice that was a little bit more typical and it was a busy type of practice and it wasn’t really a relationship type of practice, it was more volume-oriented. And we decided after a while that’s not what we wanted, we wanted to slow things down, we wanted to change the face of the practice. And that’s when we changed to a more relationship-based practice. And we looked around the country at where we wanted to be and we found an area in New Jersey in particular in Caldwell, Fairfield, and we decided this was where we wanted to make our home.
Team is great. Rose at the desk will be the first one usually who responds to the first call, she’ll be the one that talks to people that are coming in. She’ll get them relaxed, she’ll build a relationship with them. She’ll find out a little bit about them and she’ll find out who they are, what they want, and then she’ll relay that to us. when they come in they’ll meet Suzanne who has a wonderful technique also for getting people comfortable, also for developing a relationship and a rapport with her that really is a very nice, special technique that she has. And we have Dr. Atlas who is an anesthesiologist, he’s fulltime at UMDNJ where he practices, and when he’s not there he’s working with us here and he’s giving IV sedation to people that are extremely fearful and want to be put out and he’s a wonderful asset to our office. And we’ve become a team, and that team membership is very critical to making everything work very well.
At Aesthetic Dental Care of New Jersey we want them to know we’re nonjudgmental, no one’s gonna come in and yell at them, no one’s gonna go ahead and have any thoughts about their bad histories or their stories. We’re just here to help. And we want to describe that as something that it’s okay to be nervous, it’s okay to be anxious, it’s okay to be scared to death, we’re gonna get them through it. They’re going to probably meet Rose first. First thing she’s gonna do is offer them something to drink or she’s gonna have cookies that she baked and she’s gonna first establish the fact that we’re here to make you comfortable. They will go through an intake with Rose so that they will describe some of their situations, whether it’s fears or whether it’s wants or desires, and they’ll talk with her and she will talk with them and begin to build that most important relationship and that will then be conveyed to us and then we’ll come in and we will pursue further.
My name is Rose and I’m the office manager, practice administrator. And I think more than that I’m just a member of the team that takes care of our patients. Well we all come in and we discuss the patients that we’re going to be taking care of that day and the treatment plans that we’ll be presenting to them. And then I’m usually the first person that they’ll see when they come in and I really enjoy interacting with the patients. We don’t just offer dental treatment, we try to develop relationships with the patients. We just try to make it so that patients feel comfortable that they’re coming to visit a family here and then they’re taken into one of the operatories for their appointment and hopefully treated as gently as possible and that’s why they keep coming back.
Most patients love him, especially patients who are petrified of coming to the dentist. Because we do a lot of sedation we have patients calling who haven’t been to the dentist in years, maybe it’s taken them 10 years to pick up the phone to make that initial call. And what we find is the hardest thing is actually getting them to come in. Once they come in Dr. Strauss is just so gentle and so reassuring that their fears are allayed very very quickly. And what we find is that most patients who are really petrified come in and they’ll have sedation for the first appointment and they’ll have it for the second, and by the third they need a lot less. And ultimately they’re coming in and they don’t need anything because they’ve learned that dentistry does not have to be unpleasant and it does not have to hurt.
The life changing effects we have on patients. They can come in feeling extremely uncomfortable with themselves, with their smiles, with the way they’re presenting themselves to other people, whether it’s professionally or personally. And patients who make the commitment and the investment not only of dollars but time to have life affirming dental care done are absolutely thrilled with the results and the changes that we see in people not only in their personalities but in their self confidence, self assurance, is overwhelming. And that I think is the one aspect that we all really love about it. And after that it would be the relationships that we develop with our patients, and every one of them is not just a chart, they are really a member of our dental family.
I’ve been a dental assistant for about 14 years. I’ve gone on a lot of training courses with all the dentists that I’ve worked with in the past and I find that Dr. Strauss has taken it one step further with the knowledge that he wants to have for himself and also to give to his patients. We start around 8 o’clock in the morning. We don’t have a real set time for the end of the day, it’s basically when the last emergency patient calls and that’s when we leave. We have days that we have a lot of procedures going on and Dr. Strauss specializes in full mouth reconstruction so we can have as few as one or two patients in a day.
They enjoy his interaction and he’s very family oriented and based on enjoying, seeing the patient’s reaction, talking about families and stuff. He doesn’t keep it to just dentistry. We’re very like I said family oriented, it’s a team practice. We all know about each other, we are able to flow from one person to the other, we can do a perfect hand off, and the patients see that and they really enjoy it because we’re not working against one another we’re working with each other. The best part about my job is interacting with the patients and seeing how we can change the patient’s life and how we can make them smile when they never wanted to smile before.
My name is Dr. Glen Atlas, I’m an MD, medical doctor. I specialize in anesthesiology. And I come to Dr. Strauss’s office and administer anesthesia to the patients so Jerry can safely do dental work and I take care of the anesthesia end of the patient. IV sedation, it stands for intravenous, it’s administered through an IV. And we’re able to very quickly adjust the medication so that the patient’s depth of anesthesia is just right. And the medications are very short acting, we can make them deeper or lighter within a very short period of time. And patients recover from it very quickly with minimal side effects.
First I speak to the patient directly and make sure that their medical history is compatible with an anesthetic in a dental office setting. This isn’t for everybody, if somebody has a sever coronary artery disease, lung disease, kidney disease, this type of thing, they may not be candidates. However most people can safely receive anesthesia in this setting with a reasonable medical history taken.
Patients can be made very deep very quickly. They can be lightened up very quickly, and this can be
adjusted to their needs within a moment’s notice. Oral medications don’t work as quickly and can’t be titrated or adjusted as well. Typical patient will show up, okay I show up about an hour ahead of time, I set up my equipment. Patient shows up with his or her ride. Dr. Strauss and his team are ready for the patient. Patient sits down in the chair, I start the IV on the patient, and patient will get very comfortable, very forgetful, extremely relaxed, and then Dr. Strauss can administer local anesthesia which is still used and the patient will be very comfortable.
The medications are all very short acting, by stopping them the patient can walk out of here in approximately half an hour.
Doctor Strauss worked with a previous dentist that I worked with and as a result it became his practice. I had porcelain veneers placed on about 90% of my teeth. I would say the experience that I had with Dr. Strauss was extremely positive. From the moment I entered the office to the moment I left my final appointment with an extraordinary set of porcelain veneers placed in my mouth it was extremely positive. I the most important thing about Dr. Strauss was he was a man of his word and throughout the entire process he was extremely nice, extremely professional in his workmanship, and kept me very comfortable.
I think that in any profession we get complacent and it is clear to me that Dr. Strauss has not taken his learning from as many years ago as he may have acquired it in dental school and kept it current from that point. It is important for me to know and for his patients to know that he has kept up with in service training, probably has developed his own workshops, and has brought into this office that he works in all of the current technology. And I think it’s his premiere goal to make sure his patients reap the benefits of his training.
I came across Dr. Strauss actually from my wife’s dentist. He was recommended very highly by him and I had an issue with my teeth and he recommended Dr. Strauss and said that he would take care of me and everything would be fine. In the beginning I would smile but it was always kind of a shy smile. I would try to hide it. I mean if I laughed I’d try to turn my head or something like that. Now with the Invitations I don’t even have to think about it. It changed my smile and it also changed even the way I eat food. So it was definitely worthwhile, it was definitely worth the time. In less than a year it was a major improvement.
When I came in to see Dr. Strauss for the Invitations I wanted to improve my smile, that’s really the main reason I came in here. The first thing we had to do was take impressions of my teeth which was a relatively quick process. Waited a few weeks for the impressions to come back and then I was fitted with the invisaligh, the braces themselves, which was a little bit uncomfortable in the beginning because there is some pressure on your teeth and they’re starting to change their form. Other than that once they were in and once I got used to them in a couple of days there was no pain at all, no discomfort at all.
You know when I came in to see Dr. Strauss it was a great experience. I mean he was my dentist before I had the Invisaligns anyway but I’m very comfortable with the staff and everyone. Everything is run smoothly here, never have to wait for an appointment, everything runs well. The experience of the Invisalign was great. I’m wearing the retainers now after the Invisaligns straightened out my teeth but all in all it was a great experience. And once they were in I wore them 18 to 20 hours a day, I didn’t even know they were in most of the day. Everybody that sees my smile now is amazed, and amazed in the time frame that it happened in. So especially my children too, now that we’re taking family photos and stuff like that now they tell you to smile it’s just right on cue and I’m done, I don’t have to think at all about it. I definitely would recommend Dr. Strauss to someone else. You want to come in here and relax and be at ease and have a good time, because the staff in here will keep you comfortable and it’s worthwhile, it’s worth a visit.
