Dr Anbar Ganatra

For me, good dentistry means looking beyond the one tooth that happens to be causing a problem today.

I want to understand the overall health of the mouth — the teeth, gums, bite, existing dental work, habits and what may become a problem in the future.

Then I want the patient to understand it too.

You should leave knowing what needs attention, why it matters, what can safely wait and what your options are. I don't think people should feel pressured into making a decision simply because they're sitting in a dental chair.

I prioritise according to urgency.

If there is an infection, active disease, significant pain or something that could deteriorate quickly, that comes first.

Once we've addressed the urgent problems, I want to stabilise the mouth. Then we can think properly about longer-term restorative or cosmetic treatment.

Trying to rebuild things before the underlying health is stable doesn't make sense to me.

The aim is to create a sequence that is clinically sensible and also manageable for the patient.

Whenever it is reasonable to do so, I want to preserve natural teeth and healthy tooth structure.

Dentistry gives us excellent ways to restore or replace teeth when we need to, but your own healthy tooth structure is still valuable.

That's one reason I think treatment should be planned carefully rather than simply treating each tooth in isolation.

Because preventing or treating something while it is small is generally much easier than rebuilding the damage later.

One of the misconceptions people have is that if nothing hurts, everything must be fine. Unfortunately, dental problems don't always work that way.

Decay, gum disease, cracks and other problems can develop without causing significant pain initially.

Regular assessment gives us the chance to identify those things earlier and decide whether they need treatment now, monitoring or simply better prevention.

What happens at regular dental check-ups →

Absolutely.

Pain is important, but it's not the only indication that something needs attention.

A tooth can have significant decay, gum disease can progress and old dental work can begin to fail before somebody experiences obvious pain.

That's why I prefer patients to understand what we're seeing rather than waiting until something becomes an emergency.

Not always.

There are definitely treatments that are primarily cosmetic, but health, function and appearance overlap a lot more than people realise.

If we're rebuilding damaged teeth, replacing missing teeth or improving the way the bite functions, the result often looks better as well.

And if somebody is considering cosmetic treatment, I still want the gums, teeth and bite underneath to be healthy first.

Probably that looking after things earlier is easier than rebuilding them later.

Small problems can become much bigger if they're ignored.

I also want people to know that having dental problems isn't something to be embarrassed about. Things happen. People get busy, anxious or simply haven't been shown what is going on.

The important thing is understanding where things stand now and deciding what the next sensible step is.

Just come as you are.

You don't need to apologise and you don't need to know what treatment you need.

The first job is simply to understand what is happening.

I would much rather somebody come in after ten years and let us help them move forward than avoid the dentist for another five years because they're worried about being judged.

We can take things slowly, explain what we're seeing and work out a plan together.

Learn more about how we care for nervous patients →