Dr. Stanley A Shustak, DDS

I've been a patient of this practice for close to 30 years. I've always paid the bills in full, never questioned a charge, never asked for a discount, always sat quietly in the chair, watched my diet, and practiced excellent hygiene. In short, I was the perfect patient. One Saturday, I awakened with a moderate toothache, which did not improve over the weekend. Monday morning, I called Dr. Shustak's office. I explained that I was not in agony, so I didn't need to be seen that day, but I did need to be seen soon. I explained that it was too painful to chew on that side of my mouth. The person who answered the phone indicated that the schedule was completely booked, and she'd have to talk to Dr. Shustak to see if an opening could be created to look at the tooth. She further related that they probably wouldn't actually be treating the tooth. That would have to wait for a later appointment. Later that afternoon, she called back, and told me that there were no appointments… available for two weeks. The best they could do was put me on a cancellation list. They made no effort to book something after two weeks. After hanging up, I realized that I had a toothache, had a significant issue with a tooth, and saw no indication that Dr. Shustak was going to even look at my mouth. Since I work in the dental business, I called one of my customers who had an excellent reputation in the city, and he moved some of his cosmetic customers to another day, and juggled the schedule to get me in Tuesday morning at 8 AM. After opening the tooth, they discovered that a filling had leaked, but for some reason, it had not shown up on xrays. There was signficant decay under the filling, and it was perilously close to the root. Thanks to the fact that my customer used a microscope while drilling, he was able to minimize how much healthy dental tissue he removed, and did not expose the root when cleaning out the decay. He installed a temporary crown, and booked an appointment to install the permanent crown in eight weeks. The tooth has been perfect since treatment. Had I waited for Dr. Shustak's office to get around to booking an appointment in weeks or months, the decay probably would have reached the root, resulting in intense pain, and an expensive, invasive root canal. I'm not sure if the office clerk misunderstood, and thought that I had merely cracked or chipped the tooth, but telling a long time patient with pain that you're too busy to look at their mouth sends the message that they just don't care about their patients. I'm looking for a new dentist.

Clean, caring, knowledgeable, and new technology. I feel like because of the new technology my x-rays were less painful this last appointment.

I love this dental office. Clean, friendly, upbeat, positive, knowledgeable, gentle touch, detailed and good location.