Beginning at the Foundation
It’s often said that quality starts at the foundation. From a building structure to a personal relationship, and even your health, a strong foundation gives you support. It instills a trust in you. It even helps maintain stability in a time of need. Just as a strong foundation is important to your home, it’s just as important to your overall dental health.
Orlando Periodontics starts at the foundation to make clients feel at ease, combining extensive patient education with compassion.
“Beautiful Smiles Begin at the Foundation” has been the focus of Orlando Periodontics since opening their doors more than 20 years ago. Moving to their state-of-the-art East Orlando location in 2006, the staff has continued their commitment to building warm relationships with each patient that comes in while creating a strong foundation that will provide patients with a better, healthier smile in the immediate future and the long-term.
“Our first goal with patients is to make them feel as comfortable as possible in what can sometimes be a stressful situation for them,” says Dr. Michael Connor, founder of Orlando Periodontics. “From the time you walk through the door until the time your final check up is finished, we strive to make every patient feel as comfortable and safe as possible.”
In fact, for Connor and his staff, comfort and patient education is priority one. “If they’re apprehensive after a few minutes in the chair, we didn’t do our job,” he says. “Often, a patient’s biggest fear is the dentist, so we pride ourselves in being able to change their perception of who we are and what we do.”
Conveniently located just off Lake Underhill and Alafaya Trail, Orlando Periodontics has been serving East Orlando in their current location since 2006.
Since 1985, when he started practicing general dentistry, Connor has taken the patient-first mentality with him. Still, even then, he wanted something more. After graduating with a master’s degree from the Medical School of South Carolina’s Periodontal Program in 1989, he knew he had found exactly what he was looking for.
“A periodontist is a specialist that diagnoses and treats diseases of the periodontium, meaning the tissues that surround and support the teeth - including the bone,” Connor says. Left untreated, periodontal disease may cause progressive bone loss, leading to loosening and loss of teeth.
“What’s so interesting to me is that periodontology is kind of a bridge between the medical world and the dental world, as gum disease can seriously affect your overall health,” he says. “Helping someone feel better after months, sometimes years, of pain is a real reward for myself and the entire staff and it keeps us going.”
The office also offers patients several services to achieve a healthier, happier smile as well, including oral pathology, implant therapy, wisdom teeth extractions and even grafting. In addition to those, they offer cosmetic procedures, sometimes referred to as “smile enhancers”, such as crown lengthening and ridge augmentation.
“Our office also offers a surprisingly relaxing environment, especially for a dentist’s office,” jokes Connor. “Each exam room is equipped with high definition television screens, something that clients have loved since the moment we installed them.”
Dr. Connor uses state-of-the-art technology in each exam room which includes patient comfort items such as HDTVs and green initiatives such as paperless X-Rays and patient charts.
Orlando Periodontics also has a heavy tradition of community involvement, ranging from health fairs to patient outreach programs and even nonprofit partnerships. “We all live and work in the community so we do whatever we can to get out there and help wherever we can,” says Connor. Their next large-scale community project is the Step Out: A Walk to Fight Diabetes event, held in November at Loch Haven Park. “We’re in the process of putting together our corporate team and we hope to raise at least $5,000 for diabetes research.”
But, no matter the procedure, the amenity or the event, it all comes back to patient care, according to Connor. “It has to,” he says. “For us, a huge part of that care starts with patient education; we want you to fully understand your current condition, what your treatment options are and how the problem will be solved. If you know what’s going on, it makes the experience so much easier, we find.”
For Orlando Periodontics, the next challenge is taking their already stellar patient reputation to the next level. “Moving forward I think it’s important that we don’t ever get complacent with our job performance,” says Connor. “That’s why we are consciously taking the next step to make our practice the premier office in East Orlando, we want to set that bar higher every day.”
Article by Corey Gehrold
Dr. Michael H. Connor, DDS MS, PA
12301 Lake Underhill Road #107
Orlando, FL 32828
407.277.3300 • www.OrlandoPerio.com
