40 UNDER 40

Why I Became
a Dentist

At 20 years old, 11,000 feet up in a remote Peruvian village, I found myself facing my first real dental emergency.

I was serving as a missionary and had recently had my wisdom teeth removed in Lima. The day after the surgery, I was transferred to a small village high in the Andes. Within days, something was clearly wrong. I was in significant pain, but there was no internet, no modern clinic, and seemingly no dentist anywhere nearby.

So I did what any desperate 20-year-old would do: I started asking strangers.

“¿Dónde puedo encontrar un dentista?”

Most people looked at me confused. One man finally told me there was no dentist—but that el huesero could pull my teeth.

A huesero is essentially a local bonesetter.

I decided to keep looking.

Eventually, a woman I knew told me about a man in another village who had “American equipment.” That sounded promising. There was no way to call him and no appointment to make, so my missionary companion and I simply started traveling.

Several buses later, our final connection arrived: a battered van that looked like the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo if it had fallen off a cliff and been put back together.

We climbed in.

By the time we reached the village, I was cold, exhausted, and desperate for relief. A young woman pointed us toward a small brick home and told us the dentist was inside.

An older man welcomed us in and led me to a back room separated from the rest of the house by a sheet.

And there I saw the “American equipment.”

An oversized canvas camping chair sat in the corner. Beside it was a small wooden desk with what appeared to be a Dremel tool resting on top.

I had come too far to turn around.

The man lowered the chair manually, asked me to open wide, and examined my teeth. After a few moments, he began shaking his head.

“Sí, sí, sí…”

Apparently, things were not looking good.

He told me I had cavities—lots of them.

I protested. I had never had a cavity in my life and had always received regular dental care. He suggested my Peruvian diet was probably to blame.

Naturally, I turned to my missionary companion for a second opinion.

He had never been to a dentist in his life.

“What do you see?” I asked him.

“Cavities,” he replied.

That settled it.

The dentist handed me a handwritten list and sent us across town to a tiny pharmacy, where I exchanged nearly all the money I had for a brown paper bag filled with supplies.

Back at his house, he emptied the contents onto the desk.

What happened next is still a little blurry.

I remember a syringe. I remember becoming extremely relaxed. And then I remember bouncing down the mountain in that same van, feeling nauseated and wondering what exactly had happened to my teeth.

As the medication wore off, I bit down.

Something was very wrong.

My teeth were still hurting, but now my back teeth felt completely flat. Looking at my faint reflection in the bus window, they seemed almost square.

I turned to my companion.

“What happened?”

“You spent all your money—and some of mine—getting your teeth fixed,” he said.

Unfortunately, they weren't fixed.

Almost a year later...

I was back in the United States and still dealing with the effects of that day.

By then, I was hesitant to trust another dentist. My mom finally convinced me to see our family dentist, Dr. Ned Lunt of Alamo City Dental.

I told Dr. Lunt the entire story.

He didn't criticize me for the decisions I'd made or tell me what I should have done differently. He listened.

Then he went to work.

Every molar—and several premolars—had been drilled into and overfilled with resin. Over a series of appointments, Dr. Lunt carefully repaired the damage and adjusted my bite.

Eventually, my teeth felt like my teeth again.

At the end of my final appointment, I happened to be his last patient of the day. Instead of rushing out, Dr. Lunt stayed and talked with me.

I was in college and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. We talked about careers, hard work, integrity, and what it meant to be truly good at something.

Before I left, he gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten:

“Tyler, in order to be exceptional, you have to realize you are not the exception.”

I wrote those words in my phone before I left his office.

Over the next several days, I thought about that conversation. I thought about Peru. I thought about how vulnerable I had felt sitting in that chair thousands of miles from home, putting my trust completely in someone I barely knew.

And then I thought about what it felt like to sit in Dr. Lunt's chair—to be listened to, cared for, and treated by someone whose skill and integrity I could trust.

I knew what I wanted to do.

I wanted to become a dentist.

But more importantly, I knew what kind of dentist I wanted to become.

I wanted to be the dentist I had needed when I was 20 years old and far from home.

The dentist who listens before he treats.

Who takes the time to explain why.

Who never recommends something simply because he can.

Who continues learning and improving because his patients deserve his very best.

And who treats the person in his chair with the same care he would want for his own family.

Years later, a lot has changed since that journey through the mountains of Peru. But I still remember what it felt like to be the patient who wasn't sure whom he could trust.

That experience is one of the reasons I don't take your trust lightly.

My goal has never been simply to be a dentist.

My goal is to be the kind of dentist you would trust with your family.