Ex-roommates keep dentist office open wide

Dr. Lee (left) and Dr. Salem (right) tend to one or their patients at their practice s Scarsdale.

By ELIZABETH HLOTYAK

It's Sunday, you're reading the funnies and enjoying your branch. As you take a bite of your cream cheese covered bagel a sharp pain rips through your mouth. Oh no, you've broken a tooth, and to cap it off your dentist (the one you've had since second grade) doesn't work on Sunday. But that doesn't mean you can't solve the problem because Diamond Dental is open seven days, a week. 

Recent graduates of Columbia University's School of Dental and Oral Surgery Dr. Danny Salem and Dr. K.H. George Lee are the sparks behind Diamond Dental of Scarsdale.  These two former classmates and roommates, who graduated in 1998, are one of the first in their graduating class of 65 students, to open their own dental practice.

            Salem and Lee, who come from opposite sides of the globe, knew the day they met in a gross anatomy class that, they were going to be good friends.                

               "We just, clicked," said Lee. Gross anatomy "really bonds people together." 

               Lee, who was born in Taiwan, graduated from Lehigh University in 1993 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. He pursued several different paths in engineering and computers before settling on dentistry and fulfilling his interests in both science and medicine.  

               Salem, too, chose many different roads before coming to dentistry.  Born and raised in Yonkers, he graduated from SUNY Stony Brook with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1994. While pursuing a career in science at the College of Aeronautics, Salem realized something was missing. So he volunteered with an ambulance corp and found his calling in helping and serving people. He decided to enroll in dental school, fulfilling a dream he had since seventh grade.  

The roads they chose to dentistry may have been different, but they ware both driven to succeed. For three years they lived, studied, ate and breathed dental school together: Being roommates enabled the two, who were in the same strict, regimented program, to help each other.

 "Danny was a reliable alarm clock," said Lee "I don't do well in the morning."  

"We make a good pair," he said and "Danny and I both said [in dents) school] it would be great if we could open a dental practice together;" Lee said. 

While in college, the two entrepreneurial-students decided to turn one of their rooms into a “small station” where they embarked on some Internet ventures together. These small business ventures gave them confidence in building a dental practice.

 Once they graduated, they pooled their resources and opened up Diamond Dental last November.

"We shared the same philosophies and the same visions," said Salem. `This is what makes us such a good team."

 With all the recent medical findings related cardiovascular disease to gum disease and overall oral dentistry, Lee and Salem believe the hospital training they received proven to be of great value to their practice.

"We believe that the mouth is the gateway to the rest of the body" said Salem.  "Dentists today must promote both good oral and physical health."

            The two have trained at some of the leading medical facilities in the region, including Mount Sinai and Columbia Presbyterian, both in New York City.  Lee believes that having this hospital training allows both of them to "look into things that normally other dentists would overlook."

            They begin every appointment by taking their patient's blood pressure and discussing their medical history.   According to the American Dental Association, it is required that dentists ask for a patient's medical history, however, taking a patient's blood pressure is not a requirement.

            "Today's patients are coming in with more and more complicated health concern and taking many different kinds of medicine.  As a public service we take our patients blood pressure to help them monitor their overall health" said Lee.

            Both dentists also hold similar business philosophies.  "Health care is a different kind of business to run. Many dentists are not business people," said Lee. "We think like people who have MBAs.  Both my partner and I believe that if you have an efficient office your am able to do better work."