DDS (USC), General Dentist
Dr Jeff Joy is a male General Dentist.
Jeff was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Southern California. His career in dentistry was not in his scope during his youth, although his father, was a dentist. He always loved making things and by 18 years old, he was a licensed building contractor in Brookings, Oregon.
He studied several disciplines at three different universities after graduating from Villa Park High School in Orange County in 1978. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cellular Molecular Genetics from Humboldt State University, Jeff entertained the idea of becoming a genetic engineer. Although intriguing, the idea of being stuck in a lab all day did not appeal to him as he wanted to have more interaction with people. He then spent a year building homes while deciding on what career direction to take.
After some encouragement from his father, Jeff decided to study medicine. He applied for admission to medical school in California but switched to dentistry after learning of the hierarchical approach to doctors in hospitals and the power of insurance companies that prevent the practice of good, ethical medicine. Jeff is a highly motivated and self-driven person who felt he would have a much greater impact being self-employed.
Jeff graduated from the University of Southern California School of Dentistry with a Doctorate degree in Dental Surgery in 1987, while also working as a clerk in a supermarket during the night and a waiter in a restaurant on the weekends in order to pay for his dental education. He was awarded the American College of Dentists Achievement Award upon graduation which identifies one student from the graduating class as the best all-around student for the four-year curriculum.
Three months after graduating, Jeff bought into a dental practice in Downey, California with an experienced prosthodontist, who specialised in the advanced reconstruction of teeth and jaws. He worked for 10 years absorbing and practising prosthodontics to improve his dental skills. Jeff then secured a second dental office in El Monte, California to further his skills after taking on associate dentists. In 1999, the original office in Downey was moved to a new building and expanded to twice the original size to accommodate the demand for advanced dental services.
In 2005, the economic and political climate of the United States made Jeff and his family increasingly nervous, which is when they decided to move to New Zealand. After 18 months of paperwork, Jeff, his wife, and their two children settled in Whangarei, New Zealand. He worked as a dentist with Bruce Sanson at the original Kowhai Court Dental office on Rust Ave.
After a few short months of practising in New Zealand, Jeff was inspired to make a difference in the dental health of New Zealand. He built the Kowhai Dental office at 61 Maunu Road, which opened in May of 2009, with the intention of introducing modern, comfortable and high-quality dentistry to the people of Northland. Jeff found that many patients he saw often had traumatic experiences with the school's dental nurse, which kept them from seeking regular needed care. Also that most people felt dentistry in New Zealand was too expensive to afford.
Jeff discovered that cost and comfort were the main reasons people stayed away from the dentist until absolutely necessary. Those factors, as well as durability, are the main focus in Jeff's approach to dental care at the Kowhai Dental offices now. During the first few months practising in New Zealand, Jeff found that dental suppliers in New Zealand were charging almost double on the same goods available in the United States. To overcome the high cost of dental supplies, Jeff and a friend started a dental supply company, Jeda Dental, which would source supplies from around the world and offer them to dentists in New Zealand with tremendous savings. As you might imagine, this upset the many dental suppliers in New Zealand. Jeff hoped this would force these same suppliers to reduce their prices in order to compete with Jeda Dental. As it turned out, this plan worked. Dental suppliers in New Zealand now charge the equivalent of other parts of the world. The cost of delivering dentistry is now about the same in New Zealand as most western countries. This enables Kowhai Dental to pass on these savings to their patients, making dental care accessible and affordable.
The patient demand continued to increase at Kowhai Dental and Jeff had to find more qualified dentists to help out. He advertised in the U.S. for dentists in the hopes of bringing in more doctorate-trained dentists. This process has proved fruitful as Kowhai Dental now has five providers (and more coming) with the education that Jeff feels is essential in providing high-quality dental care. By 2015, the patient demand for services at Kowhai Dental had grown to such an extent, that a second facility was clearly needed.
Until recently, Northland patients had to travel to Auckland to receive advanced dental services such as gum treatment, complicated implant services or orthopaedic orthodontics. The concept of bringing those services to Whangarei was behind the development of Kowhai's second facility. Jeff worked with local architects and construction teams to design and build the new facility at 63-65 Maunu Rd. Now, with the help of Wendy Williams, RDH and Matthias Stamm, DDS, PhD, exceptional gum services and complicated implant and oral surgery services are available at the new Kowhai Dental facility.
Jeff's daughter needed orthodontics and he was not satisfied with the proposed treatment from the orthodontists in Whangarei. He decided he would take the necessary courses to treat his daughter for her orthodontic condition. Three years later and several hundred hours of orthodontic education, Jeff is able to treat a variety of orthodontic problems for adults and kids. Jeff has studied orthopaedic orthodontics under Skip Truitt, DDS, MS, who is a renowned orthopaedic orthodontist in the United States.
Orthopaedic orthodontics (or functional orthodontics) differs from traditional orthodontics in one simple concept. Traditional orthodontics evaluates the available space in the upper and lower jaws, extracts any teeth that may not fit and then straightens the remaining teeth with braces. Orthopaedic orthodontics evaluates the size and position of the upper and lower jaws and manipulates their size and position with appliances to make room for the teeth present. Braces afterwards may or may not even be required after the orthopaedic therapy and rarely are teeth required to be extracted.
In addition to straightening teeth, orthopaedic orthodontics can treat many jaw (TMJ) problems that arise from jaw discrepancies. Jeff is happy to be able to provide these services to the people of Northland.
