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Nice teeth, Capitol Hill — Three new dental offices and one new First Hill clinic say ahh

We’re sure there’s a demographic explanation for it. Four new dentistry-related projects are open or underway around the Hill. Here are updates on each.

  • Sweet Tooth: We first told you about the plans for Sweet Tooth Family Dental to move into an antique shop on 14th Ave across from Safeway back in September. In the meantime, Dr. Gene Beck has opened his practice on Capitol Hill:

I am the owner of Sweet Tooth Family Dental on 14th and John.  The office is totally new but in a 1904 historic Capitol Hill home.  The remodel was carefully planned to respect the work that Henry and David of Henry’s Bed and Breakfast Antiques  did in 2007.  The space feels really homey and comfortable and almost like it has always been a dental office.  I’m hoping to have the office up and running by January 9th. I’ve been a dentist for 15 years and have worked in Seattle area for the past ten years.  I have a community health back ground and love working with families to improve and maintain dental health. I also love to bake, so plan to treat my patients with a a package  some of my baked goods to make their dental visit a little sweeter, thus the name Sweet Tooth.  We are a new practice and welcome all patients.  Our website is sweettoothfamilydental.com  and our office # is 206-323-1436.  Our address is 211 14th Ave E,  one house North of the violin shop in the big blue house.

Sweet Tooth, we should note, is a CHS advertiser.

  • Packard Building: We’ve also learned about a dentistry project planned to bring a new tenant to the Packard Building. We already told you about the coming-soon gelateria at 12th and Pine. We can now tell you that D’Ambrosio Gelato will have a neighbor to help you take care of cleaning your sweet teeth. Filings with a city indicate a $50,000 construction project is being planned to transform a retail space in the Packard Building into a new practice space for Philip R Howard Family Dentist. UPDATE: The Packard will welcome Tara Sullivan, DDS and “The Dental Shoppe” this spring.
  • Smiles on Madison: The Safeway and apartment complex at 23rd and Madison will also soon be home to a new dental practice. Filings indicate Smiles on Madison is destined for 2209 E Madison after a buildout of the space is complete.
  • Swedish Hospital: First Hill also has added a special dentistry clinic focused on providing “complex specialty care:”

Swedish recently added adult specialty dental care to the extensive list of free services available to low-income uninsured and underinsured patients at the Swedish Community Specialty Clinic (SCSC). This is the only specialty clinic of it kind in the Puget Sound area. Staffed by local volunteer dentists and oral surgeons from the Seattle-King County Dental Society, the dental clinic focuses on complex specialty care. The focus is starting first with difficult tooth extractions and plans to add root canals in the future.

 Swedish is making the new specialty dental care clinic available to interested media for a two-hour window. This will be an opportunity to tour the clinic and interview key people including a patient, a couple of the volunteer dentists, as well as key administrative reps from Swedish, Project Access Northwest (PANW; www.projectaccessnw.org), and Washington Dental Service Foundation. Media will also be able to watch and photograph or film an actual procedure being done on a real patient.

 The clinic has three fully outfitted dental surgery and treatment rooms paid for by community grants and the Swedish Foundation. Severe mouth pain related to dental problems is one of the most common problems seen in hospital emergency rooms. Often, despite their best efforts, emergency department physicians can’t fully treat patients who have active oral infections or abscesses until a problem tooth is removed. Specialty Dental services are available by referral from a primary-care dentist and by appointment only. Swedish estimates some 25 volunteer dental professionals will see up to 450 patients in the first year of the clinic’s operation. As many as 45 volunteer dentists and oral surgeons will treat an estimated 2,000 patients in year two. SCSC opened in September 2010 with medical services, but because of the known need for specialty dental care in our region the clinic was designed with space that would accommodate three dental chairs. Swedish partners with PANW for operational support. PANW personnel provide effective patient triage and case management, and work with SCSC support staff to help maintain dentist schedules and set initial visits and follow-ups. Some community health centers offer primary-care dental for adults, but no one is doing specialty care. With the health-care safety net slowly being eliminated, hospitals have no place to send these patients, so Swedish and PANW had to step up to meet a growing need. The dental clinic is designed as a referral-based service. Patients likely to use it come through the Swedish system, or through a variety of low-income community clinics authorized to refer patients. For more information on specialty dental services, call Project Access Northwest at 206-788-4559 or visit www.swedish.org/Services/Swedish-Community-Specialty-Clinic.

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12 years ago

Henry still has an Antique Shop at the back of the house – down the driveway. Check it out!