We sent one of our staff to visit Dr.Gary Braunstein (actually, the gentleman’s mother, aghast at her son’s admission of neglecting to visit a dentist for almost three years, added her persuasive strength to the discussion).

We were surprised to see him returning so promptly and happily after his appointment.

“It was great!” he declared.  “It was fast, painless and they had a lot of toys.”

“Toy’s?”  We looked at him in bewilderment.   He elaborated:  “Well, really neat video equipment.”

Ahh - - the adult male toy of the ‘90’s.  Now we understood.  “No kidding,”  he chirped as happily as a 12-year-old skipping in from a video arcade.  “First I sat in this comfy chair in the waiting room where they have a TV screen.  I hardly had a chance to check out the movies playing before I was ushered into the station with even more electronic stuff.”

“What kind of stuff and was this really a dentist’s office?”   we queried, beginning to get a bit suspicious.  (Perhaps he’d stumbled into Toys R Us by mistake.)

“Well, they had a monitor where you could either watch a full-length movie or TV or do this interactive learning activity, where you get to hold the control and move the cursor to find out about different cosmetic dentistry procedures - - teeth whitening - - all sorts of fun stuff.”

“Ok, but how about the un-fun stuff?  How did the actual exam go or did you just sneak in, play games and sneak back out?”

“No, but he did something almost as exciting.  He took this pencil-like object - - a high -resolution camera with a tiny video head - - and worked it around slowly in my mouth, tooth by tooth.  Everything he did appeared on the TV monitor.  I could see everything, even the bubbles in my saliva!”

(We thought that sounded a bit gross, but he was so enthusiastic, we let him continue.  Boys will by boys, you know.)

“It was like going on a ride inside my own mouth.  Gary should call himself the Disneyland dentist.  And as he shows you every problem, up close and personal, he explains the different options you can take, the short- and long-term effectiveness of each alternative and the price, too.”

“In other words,” we said (glad to get a word in edgewise, and not only a word but what we thought was an extremely witty remark), “he gave you the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth.”

“Hey,”  he said with a hurt look on his face.   Don’t make jokes.  Going to the dentist is serious business.  It’s not all fun and games, you know.”

Boy . . . you sure could have fooled us!

Gary Braunstein DDS Inc
205 South El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024
(760) 436-9691