Photo credit: Peter Waiser
When it comes to anniversaries, twenty years is a special one for businesses. This year, GumDocs, the periodontal and implant clinic located on the fourth floor of a brownstone at Catherine and Bank is marking that special milestone. While the space has had a few makeovers over the years, one thing has not changed. The GumDocs are committed to patients and to provide care with the latest technology and techniques in the dental industry.
Dr. Cameron Jones established the clinic in 1995 after deciding to venture out on his own. While he had practiced around town in various clinics, he wanted to set up his own shop. This led to an eventual partnership with Dr. Gordon Schwartz and then team grew. Between 2007 to present, four other doctors joined the practice, diversifying the services the clinic has to offer, including gum & bone grafts, surgical extractions including wisdom teeth removal, and a wide range of implant procedures.
Care for patients and remaining innovative converge at the clinic. The doctors adopted the LANAP system, which is used to treat gum disease in a less invasive fashion. This new technique is a much more comfortable procedure to more traditional methods that are less patient-friendly.
Patient-focused care extends to the clinic’s implant solutions as well. Normally a temporary healing cap is affixed to a surgically placed implant, and then replaced with a permanent crown after three to six months. Instead of the healing cap, the clinic mills and places a temporary crown on the implant for an improved look aesthetically.
A much more complex process that the clinic dubs “Teeth-in-a-Day” involves the restoration of one or both arches for patients with poor dentition or who have dentures. In this procedure, a minimum of four implants are placed which hold in place a temporary prosthesis. This allows patients to leave the clinic with a temporary set of teeth, which serve as an interim solution until a permanent set is affixed. If patients are uncomfortable sitting through a long procedure, sedation is offered and the procedure is performed in conjunction with another medical doctor.
Similar to the manner in which the team has expanded, so has the clinic’s size. The practice originally took up only a fraction of the space it currently does. Since its initial years in operation, surgical suites and a postsurgery waiting room have been built, as well as a fully-equipped lab outfitted to produce dental solutions, including temporary implant solutions.
The main waiting room also doubles as a venue after business hours for lectures delivered by the clinic’s doctors to general dentists, hygienists and support staff. This engagement within the community and in the field is also important to the doctors – some of them also serve in posts at hospitals in the city.
The team is poised to develop dental implant-specific courses for institutions in order to align with the current and future requirements of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario and the Ordre des dentistes du Québec, respectively. Both colleges have mandated a minimum amount of training for members who want to place or restore implants.
The practice also uses technology in communicating with its patients. They can be notified of an appointment through a text, email or traditional phone call. It is critical to keep in touch with patients in a way that works for them, but even more crucial to make each patient feel at ease once they enter the clinic. It’s all in order to ensure the 100 patients that enter the clinic daily feel attended to, and it’s been that way at GumDocs for the past two decades and will be in the decades to come. For a full list of services and for more information, visit gumdocs.com
