So the center’s owner, Dr. Nicholas Rallis, knows in…
By Daniel Arimborgo
If you walk west on 35th Avenue starting from Bell Boulevard, you will pass no less than half a dozen dental practices in Bayside before reaching the Center for Esthetic Dentistry on 209th Street.
So the center’s owner, Dr. Nicholas Rallis, knows in order for his practice to stand out, he must cater to his patients by offering expertise, caring and a wide assortment of services, particularly cosmetic dentistry.
From the outside the practice looks like just another one-family house, albeit a large one, at 209-20 35th Ave.
“That was our intent,” Rallis said, “that we have it look like a house from the outside. The interior was chosen very carefully to look like that as well.”
Inside the large waiting room, a high ceiling has interesting angles built into its surface. DVDs on a TV monitor show dozens of different dental treatments, such as porcelain veneering, bonding and teeth whitening.
Rallis’ Center is also a Brite Smiles affiliate, which supplies in-office tooth whitening supplies and equipment.
“As you can see, we specialize in smiles,” Rallis said.
“We offer the Brite Smile treatment, using computerized video-imaging, showing a ‘before-and-after’ of your mouth before work is done,” he said.
Music comes through speakers throughout the office. Everything from Latin classical guitar to New-Age and jazz plays through the office’s overhead/ceiling speakers.
The entire office says “high-tech.” Examination rooms are equipped with PC monitors to display patients’ records at a moment’s notice.
Rallis grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where he attended Fort Hamilton HS.
“Throughout high school, I actually assisted an orthodontist, he said.
“I knew then that I wanted to go into dentistry. You can say I’ve had my hands in people’s mouths since an early age,” he said, smiling.
After high school Rallis went to New York University for its undergraduate pre-dental and medical school programs . He did his clinical residency at New York Hospital Queens Medical Center. He opened a practice in Astoria in 1989 and has had an office in Bayside for the last seven years.
“I used to live in this area from 1988 to 1993,” said Rallis, who now lives in Nassau County. “So I like this area — it’s nice and safe.”
“When someone walks into my office, I want them to feel they are walking into a house. So we give them what I call the five-star VIP treatment,” Rallis said.
One advantage for patients at his practice, Rallis said, is one-stop service, so-to-speak. Any dental service a patient could want or need is available at Rallis’ practice.
There are three other specialists on the staff: an implantologist, a periodontist and an oral surgeon. His dental assistants, Una and Yolanda, each have over 15 years experience in dentistry. Dental hygienists Sandy and Patricia both have extensive background dealing with patients, Rallis said. Their area of expertise, Rallis said, is focusing on soft tissue management, which is a non-surgical approach to periodontal therapy.
“We treat basically the whole family but place more emphasis on cosmetic dentistry, Rallis said.
“We can actually change the color, shape and size of teeth,” he said. “We can basically give your mouth a whole new look.
Rallis’ practice boasts three newly developed, cutting-edge technologies: computer-assisted anesthesia; the Diagnodent laser, an early cavity-detection system; and air-abrasion decay removal — an early-decay elimination treatment which can be used on early cavities by employing small-scale air blasting in place of drilling, negating the need for anesthesia.
Rallis has an on-premise implantologist for dental implants. Implants involve installing titanium fixtures placed in the jawbone.
With computer-assisted anesthesia, a small computer determines the flow of anesthetic into the tissue, depending on a patient’s size and physiology, and is constantly monitored by the machine.
The Diagnodent Laser uses light to detect cavities in their early stages, by measuring density aberrations in teeth.
“I don’t know anyone else around here who has it,” Rallis said.
“We can detect decay before it can be diagnosed by X-ray,” he said. “Cavities that show up on X-ray are already deeper in the tooth than you want them to be.”
“Actually, this is all it is,” Rallis said, holding up the unit, which looked like a Water Pik, in one hand. “It’s such a simple thing, yet it works so well.”
“We run a laser over the surface of the tooth.,” he said. “It has a laser diode that uses pulsed light of a certain wave length into the surface of the tooth.”
“This information is transmitted back to the unit, where it is translated as a digital reading,” Rallis said.
A change in tooth density is detected by the system, much the same way sonar, radar, or CAT scans work.
“Basically, we’re running the laser over the surface of the tooth, and we get a different reading when the tooth is solid vs. when the tooth has decay in it.”
“This basically takes the guesswork out of diagnosing cavities that cannot be seen in X-rays,” he said.
“Therefore in treatment, we can be a lot more conservative and in a lot of instances, fill a cavity without using a drill or anesthesia, by using the air-abrasion system, which shoots a stream of sterile aluminum-oxide particles that blast away decay,” he said.
“It removes decay painlessly and is wonderful for children, who, of course, don’t like drills and needles.”
“We can do all these things under one roof so to speak,” Rallis said, “as opposed to patients having to go to different offices.”
Reach reporter Daniel Arimborgo by e-mail at timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 141.
