Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Sydney dentist Dr Martina Lavery says a fascination with patient psychology and how it impacts on oral health is what drives her approach to her work. By John Burfitt
As Dr Martina Lavery talks about her love of different areas in dentistry, it soon becomes apparent she’s pretty much in love with most of them. One moment she is talking about the fun of basic tooth cleaning, the next she’s discussing the importance of diagnosing and treating bruxism, the next she’s extolling the advances in cosmetic dentistry.
But there’s one area that’s clearly top of her list—making authentic connections with patients and offering treatments that go beyond just attending to oral health. Dr Lavery takes a holistic approach, adopting an all-encompassing view of patient lifestyle and psychological wellbeing to understand how this impacts on what’s going on inside their mouths.
“I think of myself as being something of a dental detective, exploring a range of areas before I even begin looking at the teeth,” Dr Lavery says during a chat at her Martina Dental clinic in Baulkham Hills in Sydney.
“It has to be about creating a connection and getting a profile idea about that patient so we’re not just looking at teeth. I think it’s essential to get to a point with the patient that they feel okay to respond when you ask, ‘Is there anything else going on in your life right now that could be contributing to this issue?’
“That’s usually when the floodgates open and suddenly they talk about why they’re so stressed, and I am then able to determine how that is playing out with what’s occurring with their oral health. As dentists, I believe we always need to look at the whole picture and that needs to be at the core of everything we do.”
If it sounds like Irish-born Dr Lavery, a 1998 graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, believes dentists need to also assume the role of counsellor, she doesn’t. But she does believe dentists needs to pay closer attention to the psychology of patient interaction, to not only make the process easier for both practitioner and patient, but to also achieve better health outcomes and an easier treatment process, not to mention improved retention.
She admits her love of patient interaction is one of the reasons she got into the profession in the first place, and it has kept her motivated ever since.
After settling in Australia in 2000, she worked in a partnership practice for 12 years, before taking family time to have her two children. In 2016, she opened her own practice, and this year took a big step by launching both the Martina Dental and Plus Aesthetics clinics.
I would attribute my success as a dentist to my ability to connect with patients, and delve down into how they present to me, so that we can work together to achieve the best outcomes.
Dr Martina Lavery, owner, Martina Dental & Plus Aesthetics
Dr Lavery uses the term ‘building trust’ liberally in conversation, and the words also feature prominently across her social media platforms. She also adheres to the words of American poet Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Dr Lavery admits that philosophy has guided her since the earliest days of her career.
“What really makes me tick is the relationship-building aspect of my job,” she says.
“I would attribute my success as a dentist to my ability to connect with patients, and delve down into how they present to me, so that we can work together to achieve the best outcomes. For some dentists I know, dealing with patients is the most stressful part of the job, but it never has been for me. If you have patients you can connect with, then the dentistry should be pretty straightforward from there.”
Such an approach has proved vital in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Lavery reveals it was during the worst of the pandemic shutdowns that she saw the highest incidence ever of patients presenting with broken and sensitive teeth, as well as intense facial pain.
As a result, she adopted a more focused interest in three areas of dentistry—bruxism, neuroplasticity and aesthetics— which have taken her in a new direction.
“I believe most people will have an experience of bruxism—that intense tooth-to-tooth contact—at some point in their lives, but during COVID, the primary presentation of patients in pain I saw was related to bruxism,” she says. “Presentation during heightened stressful events like a pandemic is going to make it much more significant, but it also can become pathological when that bruxism continues at a rate no longer necessary for an acute stress response.”
Developing appropriate care plans, possibly including mouth and facial exercises, massage, mouth splints or relaxer botox treatments, along with explaining to patients what would have to be addressed in their mouth and facial muscles into the future, became a core part of her work. So also focused on the process of neuroplasticity—the ‘brain training’ that helps to rewrite patient behavioural patterns in terms of reorganising functions and connections to improve wellbeing.
“There is a symbiotic relationship between the mind and the body, and I feel I’m doing my patients a disservice if I don’t educate them to understand the power to improve their situation can actually lie with them,” she says.
It has to be about creating a connection and getting a profile idea about that patient so we’re not just looking at teeth. I think it’s essential to get to a point with the patient that they feel okay to respond when you ask, ‘Is there anything else going on in your life right now that could be contributing to this issue?’
Dr Martina Lavery, owner, Martina Dental & Plus Aesthetics
“A lot of this comes down to explaining what the muscles in the face and mouth are doing and how changing these can help. By explaining all that in a way patients can understand gives them more knowledge, and the possibility the success rate could be higher.
“I know I am on the right track when I hear patients respond, ‘That now makes sense’ as I explain what they can do to improve their issue. They feel they have some involvement in changing their lifestyle, and I want to let them feel empowered about their own lives.”
In recent years, Dr Lavery has also become more involved in aesthetic treatments and has completed a Masters of Facial Aesthetics from Ulster University in the UK. Her aesthetic work is performed in the new bespoke Plus Aesthetics clinic.
“How I got into this was related to bruxism, when I saw the results the masseter injections were getting which led to new questions from patients. That took me on a new pathway of learning about the balancing of facial features.”
Some of the additional services she now also offers include smile design, lip and cheek enhancements and jaw profiles. “During COVID, people were racking up much more screen time and got used to seeing themselves on the screen, as well as using features like FaceTime on smartphones more often. It made some more aware about their appearance.
“There are some recent studies like ‘The Zoom Effect: A Google Trends Analysis’ that claim all that had an implication in the amount of bruxism occurring. I do believe there’s a cyclical link there.”
As she prepares to mark her 25 year milestone in dentistry next year, Dr Lavery admits she is more curious than ever of where current developments and advancements will lead the profession, but it remains to be the basics of the work that keep her going.
“I am the kind of person who still loves the humble bread-and-butter aspects of dentistry. Cleaning a patient’s teeth of tartar is still one of the best feelings in the world,” she says.
“I received a Google review the other day from a new patient who said by the end of the consultation, she felt like she was talking to an old friend, and that is exactly the kind of clinic I want to run. If that makes them walk through our doors for their next appointment without breaking out in a sweat, then we have done something right.”
