A Practice Built on a Different Kind of Care

Why We Practice Differently

I graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and then from Baylor College of Dentistry with my DDS degree.

For the first ten years, I practiced traditional "drill-and-fill" dentistry. During the latter part of those years, however, I became extremely ill. I believed that occupational exposure to mercury was playing a significant role in my illness, and my health deteriorated to the point that I became suicidal.

It was an extraordinarily difficult period, not only for me but also for my wife and children. I wasn't the husband and father I needed to be. I was sick, and eventually I decided that I had to leave dentistry.

I sold my dental practice and went into the real estate business with two friends who had already been in the industry for several years. Together, we developed small subdivisions. Suddenly, instead of spending my days inside a dental office, I was outdoors — driving a pickup truck, working with contractors, and coordinating the construction of streets, water systems, and sewer lines.

Over time, my health began to improve dramatically. I have always believed that spending so much time outdoors and in the sunlight contributed to my recovery.

Real estate also became financially successful for me. Over approximately seven years, I gradually accumulated what, to me, was a substantial little fortune. Eventually, I formed my own company, and many of our projects were joint ventures with savings and loan institutions.

Then the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s hit.

The institutions involved in my projects failed, and their collapse took me down with them financially. It was a terrible period. I had sworn that I would never practice dentistry again, but now I had two children in college and needed to support my family. I considered buying another business, but with bankruptcy hanging over me, I simply didn't have the resources.

Then something happened that, looking back all these years later, I believe was truly God's hand in my life.

In 1988, a dentist I had never met called me. He was practicing in Dallas, while I was living in San Antonio. He had invented a sterilizer that he believed could help protect the medical and dental professions from the AIDS epidemic. His invention was gaining considerable attention and success, but it required all of his time and energy. He needed someone to take over his dental practice immediately, and he offered it to me.

Nobody gives away a dental practice.

I went to Dallas to meet him. I hadn't worked on a patient in eight years, and naturally I wondered whether I could still do it. He reassured me. He told me he would stay with me in the beginning, introduce me to his patients, and help me make the transition.

"It's just like riding a bicycle," he told me.

He was right.

Within a month or two, my confidence returned. But what happened next would completely change the direction of my professional life.

One day, a woman who practiced craniosacral therapy came into my office. She introduced me to approaches to health and pain that were completely different from anything I had encountered in traditional dental education. After experiencing some of her work myself, I became fascinated with learning more about alternative and complementary approaches to health.

That curiosity opened doors to a remarkable group of physicians, dentists, researchers, and teachers who profoundly influenced my life.

One was Dr. Janet Travell, a physician known for her pioneering work involving myofascial pain and trigger points and for serving as a physician to President John F. Kennedy. I was fortunate to know Dr. Travell during the last several years of her life. Her thinking about pain, nutrition, and the treatment of the whole patient made an enormous impression on me.

I also studied with Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, a German-trained physician who introduced me to techniques involving muscle testing, neural therapy, and approaches that I began applying in my work with chronic-pain patients.

Another important influence was Dr. Bill Wolfe, whom I had known from dental school and who became one of the first dentists I encountered who approached dentistry from what would later be called a biological perspective.

Later, I met Dr. Yoshiaki Omura of New York, who developed the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test. I studied with Dr. Omura for nearly twenty years. Through that experience, I learned a tremendous amount about acupuncture theory and other complementary approaches. I gradually began integrating those concepts with what I had learned from Dr. Klinghardt, Dr. Wolfe, Dr. Travell, and others.

Dr. Lee Cowden became another important influence, helping me bring many of these ideas together over the years. He has also been a wonderful friend and a great blessing in my life.

Looking back now, I can see a path that I never could have imagined when I first graduated from dental school.

There was a time when I desperately hoped I would never have to practice dentistry again. Yet the profession I once wanted to escape ultimately became one of the great joys of my life.

Today, I view my work as more than a profession. It is a ministry.

I have the privilege of working with people who are often searching for answers after struggling with difficult health and pain problems. If something I have learned over all these years allows me to play even a small role in helping one of those patients, I consider that an extraordinary privilege.

I don't consider myself the healer. God is the healer. I'm just a dentist who has been blessed with the opportunity to serve.

And after all these years, I still sincerely love doing it.

That is my story.