Office Showcase
Grace Jun, DDS (Oklahoma City) By: Grace Jun, DDS Where do you start when building your dental practice? Do you start with your patients in mind, or do you start with what will make you the dentist happy? When I began building my practice, I decided to start with what would make me happy because I am the common denominator, and I will spend the most time in the clinic. As the leader of this clinic, it is important that I feel content in the place I spend the majority of my day. If I am not content, my team will not be either. So, I decided to create a work environment I was sure would meet my needs. I had no idea where to start as far as the budget was concerned. To help guide the prioritization of my desires in this process, I generated a list of my five non-negotiable attributes and five second-tier wish list items before beginning. For all other office desires, I accepted that I may have to adjust the costs or remove them from my wish list entirely in order to stay on budget. 5 non-negotiable items: 1) Natural sunlight in every operatory. Natural sunlight brightens the mood and is great for restoration shade selection. It also energizes the space. 2) I wanted the space to be mostly white, because white creates a feeling of freshness and makes a space look larger. 3) I wanted objects to be hidden, because clutter creates a feeling of disorder. 4) I wanted doors in every operatory, because privacy is important to me. I wanted the doors to be glass, so more light could flood the operatories. 5) I felt a wall designed especially for social media posts was necessary for marketing purposes.
5 second-tier wishes: 1) I wanted all cabinets and drawers to be soft-close, because I do not like to be startled in the middle of a procedure when my assistant may accidentally shut a drawer too hard. 2) I wanted six o’clock and ceiling mounted televisions in every operatory. The six o’clock TV for programming for patient education, and the ceiling mounted TVs for patient entertainment. 3) I did not want canister or fluorescent lighting that would figuratively blind the patients. I placed LED lights on the sides of the operatory ceiling to prevent patients' eyes from being shocked by the lighting. 4) I wanted sinks in every room, because I use the sink all the time. 5) I wanted nitrous plumbed through the chair, because I wanted unrestricted movement and less clutter. In determining how I wanted the office to flow, I had to first consider if I wanted the patient's treatment to be presented in the operatory or in a consult room. Did I want to use a cart system or would every operatory be equipped to perform most procedures? For my practice, I decided that having simple conversations concerning treatment or financials was easiest in the operatory, since each operatory has a door for privacy. There are remote terminals that can process payments in the operatories to avoid a front office bottleneck. All our operatories are fully stocked and ready for 80% of all dental treatment procedures (restorative and operative). The remaining 20% of procedures (endo, removable, surgery) are performed through a cart system we roll into an operatory. One of the most used carts in our office is the hygiene cart. We have a portable cavitron and its cart is fully equipped to perform hygiene procedures in any operatory. Once I decided how I wanted to practice, I looked for inspiration for the design of the practice. I relied on ideas from Pinterest, my past travels, and other everyday architectural influences for ideas
42 journal | January/February 2022
