Dr. Albern Lee Spoolstra

About Dr. Spoolstra
Dr. Spoolstra was featured in Doctor of Dentistry magazine in September 2006.
Oral Surgery’s Steady Hands of Experience
By Debbie L. Sklar
            Forget “glitz and glamour”- when it comes to results, Albern L. Spoolstra, D.D.S., sticks with “tried and true.”  With his trademark technique, nonchalant style and relentlessness for each patient to have a positive experience, Dr. Spoolstra has seen it all.  
            Dr. Spoolstra, 62, who specializes in oral and maxillofacial surgery, believes in the same go-to methods that he’s been following throughout the course of his lengthy career.
            “The confidence is very high in our office and we don’t do a lot of big flashy surgeries- just good, honest, oral dental alveolar surgery,” he said.  “I stick to the tried and true or basic oral surgery methods that I have developed over the years by using chisels and burs to remove teeth.  The lack of trauma …to the tissue during the surgery produces faster healing, a lesser chance of postoperative complications and a happy patient,” he smiled.
            As an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Dr. Spoolstra is involved in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of diseases, injuries and congenital or development defects of the mouth, jaws and associated facial structures.  Treatment may range from the removal of wisdom teeth (third molars) because of impaction or infection, congenital or developmental problems and placing dental implants.
            However, his daily duties are centered on oral surgeries in both of his two Long Beach offices.  He has systematically reduced the number of trauma cases he handles in order to focus on his specialties, such as sutureless third molar surgery(see sidebar about a new study that shows that Dr. Spoolstra has been decades ahead of his colleagues in his chosen technique.)
            “I love what I do because when the oral surgeries are successful, it is like a musical that flows.  I don’t foresee retiring for at least another 10 years”, he said.  “When I graduated, I had the opportunities to reach out to other things besides general dentistry.  I choose to take a rotating internship at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital, which gave me the insight into hospital dentistry and other specialties.”
            Now, 30+ plus years later, Dr. Spoolstra, father of seven children and grandfather to seven grandchildren, still enjoys his profession and he continues to be successful at attracting patients from near and far.
INTENSIVE TRAINING
           While growing up, Dr. Spoolstra’s father was a carpenter for McDonnnell-Douglas and a butcher in Bellflower, CA.
            “People would call him up to butcher their animals, like a steer. We raised our own hogs and steers at home – maybe that’s why I became interested in surgery, “he said.
            Dr. Spoolstra’s mother was a homemaker to eight children; he was the oldest son.
            “I thought it was too hard and I wasn’t good enough.  So, I decided, just like that, that I would become a dentist, and wrote to maybe 50 dental schools,” he said.  “I earned the requirements that I needed, I studied hard and I earned better grades, but I didn’t get accepted until my second year.”
            Dr. Spoolstra attended Cal State University at Long Beach, and then received his dental doctorate from the University of the Pacific in San Francisco, where he graduated valedictorian, first in his class, before serving his residency at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach.
            The second year he was offered an oral surgery residency.  “The chief of the dentistry program said if I wanted the oral surgery residency, I could have it,” he recalled.  “I took it, and I did a lot of interesting things.  A big surgery at the time was called a mandibular vestibuloplasty with a split thickness skin graft,