The Short Version
I'm a dentist who specializes in orofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders — the kind of cases most general practitioners refer out and most patients spend years trying to get diagnosed. I practice at Highlands Dentistry in Issaquah, Washington. I've been in clinical practice for twenty years.
I'm also the founder of BrushUp Health, a workforce education platform that trains dental assistants and front office professionals through AI-powered coaching, live instruction, and real clinical placements.
And I write here, at The Designed Edge, because I believe dentistry has no shortage of continuing education and a severe shortage of clinical philosophy.
The Longer Version
I chose dentistry the way most people do — a mix of aptitude, opportunity, and the vague sense that it was "a good career." What I didn't expect was how profoundly the work itself would reshape how I think about skill, presence, judgment, and meaning.
My specialty — orofacial pain — lives at the intersection of dentistry, neurology, and chronic pain medicine. The patients who find me have usually been everywhere else first. They've had teeth pulled that didn't need pulling. They've been told it's stress, or that nothing is wrong. By the time they sit in my chair, they're often exhausted and skeptical. Treating them well requires technical knowledge, yes — but it requires something else too: the willingness to sit with complexity, to resist the urge to simplify, and to listen longer than feels efficient.
That experience — of realizing that the hardest part of clinical dentistry is rarely the clinical part — is what led me to start writing. And it's what led me to build BrushUp, because the same gap exists at every level of the dental team: people are trained in technique but not in thinking.
The courses gave you tools. Nobody gave you the operating system.
What I'm Building
The Designed Edge — This publication. Essays on clinical philosophy, practice wisdom, and honest answers for dentists and patients.
BrushUp Education — AI-powered workforce training for dental professionals. Live instruction, intelligent coaching, clinical placements.
Highlands Dentistry — My clinical practice in Issaquah, WA. Orofacial pain, TMJ, and the kind of complex cases that require patience.
The Designed Life — A framework for intentional practice — designing a career around craft, autonomy, and the question of what "enough" looks like.
Beyond the Operatory
I'm a photographer (street, object, food), a woodworker with a 140-square-foot backyard shop, and a student pilot who hasn't logged hours in a while. I read Rumi, Morgan Housel, and Robert Greene. I practice yoga. I live in the Pacific Northwest with my partner, and my daughter is studying at UCSB with her sights on dermatology.
My operating framework — the one that governs both the practice and the writing — is eudaimonia: the idea that a good life isn't about maximizing pleasure or minimizing pain, but about flourishing through the disciplined pursuit of what matters. In dentistry, that looks like craft. In life, it looks like presence.
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