By Denny (Chon Pei) Wang, Specialist Prosthodontist at Devonshire House Dental Practice

 

Denny (Chon Pei) Wang is a Specialist Prosthodontist at Devonshire House Dental Practice in Cambridge, with particular expertise in prosthodontics, complex restorative treatment, and aesthetic dentistry. His work includes treating tooth wear, restoring damaged teeth, replacing missing teeth, managing bite problems, and planning full-mouth restorations. Alongside his clinical work, Denny lectures at UCL and holds an Honorary Assistant Professor position at the University of Hong Kong.

 

Patients come to me because there’s something about their smile they want to change. That might be worn or damaged teeth, gaps, discolouration, or sometimes just a smile that no longer feels right for them. 

Treatments like composite bonding, veneers, and crowns can all help – but in my experience, a truly successful result brings together three things: 

1. Health: We need healthy foundations
2. Function: We need to understand how the teeth and bite work.
3. Aesthetics: Then we can design a smile that looks right for that individual patient.

Whether you’re considering restoring your smile or interested in careers at Riverdale Healthcare, in this article I’ll explain how our approach at Devonshire House Dental brings those three elements together – from planning and trial smiles to choosing the right materials and using a combination of digital tools, traditional techniques, and close collaboration with our on-site laboratory.

 

Book your appointment with Devonshire House Dental. 

 

Key takeaways

• Health comes first: cosmetic or restorative treatment needs to be built on healthy teeth and gums.
• Aesthetics should be individual: the shape, colour, and proportions of a smile should suit the patient, not follow a standard template.
• Function and appearance should be planned together: the bite needs to work properly as well as the smile looking right.
• Complex treatment should be carefully planned and trialled: patients should be able to see and refine the proposed result before final treatment where appropriate.
• Treatment choices should be based on the case, not the trend: materials and technology should be selected for what will work best for the individual patient.

Good cosmetic dentistry starts before the cosmetic treatment

It can be tempting to jump straight to how you want your finished smile to look. Before starting more complex restorative or cosmetic dentistry, however, we need to know that we have a healthy foundation.

That means looking at things like:

• Tooth decay
• Gum health
• Existing restorations
• Worn or damaged teeth
• Missing teeth
• How the upper and lower teeth meet

If there’s active decay or gum disease, for example, we need to address that first. Sometimes another treatment also makes sense before we begin the main restorative work. If someone would like a lighter smile, for example, whitening can help us establish the right base colour before choosing the final shade of composite or ceramic restorations.

The cosmetic result is important – but it needs to be built on healthy teeth and gums rather than used to cover problems underneath.

A smile should be designed for the individual

One of the parts of restorative dentistry I’m particularly interested in is smile design – I don’t believe in giving every patient the same shape or style of teeth. A smile needs to suit the individual person, not conform to some standardised ideal.

When I’m planning treatment, I look at the teeth alongside the patient’s face and smile frame. We can use photographs and digital scans to consider how the teeth relate to features like the eyes and nose, rather than looking at them in isolation.

Some people are looking for a subtle improvement. Others want a more significant change. The right result should also reflect the individual’s end goal rather than somebody else’s idea of the perfect smile.

Patients should be able to test the plan before committing to it

 

For more involved treatment, I like to spend time planning and trialling the result before we move on to the final restorations.

After taking photographs and scans, we can work with our dental laboratory to create a diagnostic wax-up – a model of the changes we are proposing.

From that, we can create a trial smile.

That allows the patient to see the proposed shape and proportions in their own mouth before committing to the finished treatment.

We can look at:

• Whether the teeth feel too long or too short
• How the smile sits within the face
• Whether the shape looks natural
• Whether anything needs adjusting
• How the bite feels

For some patients, one trial is enough. More complex restorative treatment may need further planning.

This stage is vital, turning smile design into a conversation. Instead of asking somebody to imagine the finished result, we can show them the direction we are taking and refine it together.

A smile has to work as well as it looks

Appearance is just one part of restorative dentistry. Some of the patients I treat have significant tooth wear caused by grinding, erosion, or other factors. Others have missing or damaged teeth, or problems with the way their upper and lower teeth meet.

In those situations, we need to understand the bite as well as the appearance.

If we rebuild worn teeth without considering why they became worn, or significantly change their shape without understanding how they meet, we risk overlooking an important part of the problem.

That’s why we assess function throughout the planning process.

The aim isn’t just to create a smile that looks good in a photograph. It should also feel comfortable, work properly, and be planned with long-term durability in mind.    

Digital tools should support clinical judgement, not replace it

 

Digital dentistry is giving us much better ways to collect information and plan treatment. Scans and photography can help us understand the teeth in the context of the patient’s whole face. That allows smile design to become more personalised.

I don’t believe, however, that everything should become completely digitised just because the technology is available. 

Traditionally, prosthodontic treatment has used physical models and devices called articulators to help assess how the upper and lower teeth meet and move.

Those methods still have value.

Patients get the best results from a hybrid approach: we use digital tools where they give us more information, while retaining traditional techniques where they help us assess function more accurately.

The important thing isn’t whether a tool is digital or physical. It’s whether we are using the right tools to understand their case fully before treatment begins.

The right material depends on the patient

 

Patients sometimes arrive having already decided that they want composite bonding, dental veneers, or crowns. There’s plenty of information about these treatments online, but in reality there is no single material that is automatically best for everybody.

Composite is a tooth-coloured material that can be used to rebuild and reshape teeth. It can often involve less alteration of the natural tooth and generally has a lower initial cost, but it usually requires more maintenance over time.

Ceramic restorations such as veneers and crowns can offer greater durability and very strong aesthetic results – but they generally cost more and, depending on the case, can require some natural tooth structure to be removed.

The question’s not as simple as “which treatment is best?”

The better question is “which treatment is right for this tooth, this patient, and what we are trying to achieve?”

A big part of my role is explaining the options – their advantages and their compromises – clearly so that patients can make an informed decision based on their wants and needs. 

Close collaboration with our laboratory makes a real difference

 

Restorative dentistry is often a collaboration between the dentist and the technician who creates the restoration, so one of the advantages of carrying out complex restorative treatment at Devonshire House is having our dental laboratory on site.

For ceramic work, patients can attend the laboratory directly for shade matching, allowing the technician to see the teeth in person and tailor the restoration more closely.

Having the laboratory within the practice also makes it easier to discuss complex cases, check work, make adjustments, and maintain close quality control. If an existing restoration such as an implant bridge fractures, having the laboratory on site can make a much faster repair possible.

For me, that close relationship between patient, dentist, and technician is another part of making each treatment as considered and individual as possible.

Each treatment option is a tool

If you are considering a smile makeover or more complex restorative dentistry, I would encourage you to look beyond the name of the treatment. Composite bonding, veneers, crowns, bridges, and implants are all tools. What matters is how they’re used and why.

A good treatment plan should consider:

• The health of your teeth and gums
• Why your teeth are worn, damaged, or missing
• How your bite functions
• What you want your smile to look like
• The advantages and compromises of different treatments
• How much healthy tooth structure each option may affect
• What maintenance will be needed afterwards
• Whether you can preview or trial the proposed result

For me, restorative and cosmetic dentistry is not about creating the same smile for every patient. It’s about protecting what’s healthy, restoring what needs attention, and bringing health, function, and aesthetics together in a way that truly works for the patient.

Book an appointment with Devonshire House Dental

If you are considering restorative or cosmetic dentistry in Cambridge, speak to the team at Devonshire House Dental Practice about your options.

Book your appointment with Devonshire House Dental.

By Rebekah Days, Treatment and Social Media Co-ordinator at Alpha Dental Care Blaydon and Vitality Dental Care Bute, Riverdale Healthcare

Summary

Rebekah Days joined Riverdale Healthcare in one of her first dental receptionist jobs after university, without a clinical background or a fixed idea of where her dental career would lead. After spotting an opportunity to improve social media across Alpha Dental Care Blaydon and Vitality Dental Care Bute, she helped grow both practices’ online presence before shaping a new Social Media and Treatment Coordinator role that supports patients, private dentists and the wider practice team.

I started on reception, but knew I wanted to do more

I joined Riverdale Healthcare almost five years ago as a receptionist at Alpha Dental Care Blaydon. I now support both Alpha Dental Care Blaydon and Vitality Dental Care Bute. I had not worked in dentistry before, so reception gave me a good grounding in how a practice works day to day. I learned:

• The terminology used in practice
• The different stages of treatment
• How appointments are booked and managed
• How much communication sits behind each patient journey

After a couple of years, I knew I wanted more responsibility. I like being busy, and I like having something I can properly get stuck into.

Outside work, I was already doing social media for small businesses, so I could see how important it was becoming. Patients don’t just look on Google anymore. A lot of them now use social media to see:

• Treatments
• Before-and-afters
• Reviews
• Team content
• What a practice actually feels like before they get in touch

At the time, our practice accounts were not really being used. I raised it as something I thought we could improve, because I could see there was a gap and I wanted to help fill it.

Read more: How I’m working towards my dental nurse qualification while planning my own aesthetics business

Social media became a way to support patients and grow private dentistry

Once I had the go-ahead, I relaunched the social media accounts for Alpha Dental Care Blaydon and Vitality Dental Care Bute. Because they are two separate Riverdale Healthcare practices, that meant building two accounts and making sure each one reflected the team, treatments and patients at that site.

The content included:

• Treatment updates
• Diary availability
• Events
• Before-and-afters
• Day-to-day practice content

When the accounts started doing well, Kathryn Henderson, our Area Manager, asked if I would help other practices in the region get their social media up and running too.

For around six months, I supported several practices across the region. I visited teams, helped with events, took content and spoke to people about what made their practice different.

That part really mattered, because you cannot create good content for a practice if you do not know the team. You need to understand what treatments they offer, what their dentists enjoy doing, and what kind of patients they want to reach.

Once the accounts were established, people within those practices were able to take them forward themselves. That work helped me see how social media could support the wider business, especially around private dentistry.

At Blaydon and Bute, we have:

• Private dentists with specialist interests
• An implantologist
• A sedation dentist
• A growing focus on specialist private treatment

Vitality Dental Care Bute is also becoming a specialist private centre, with two additional surgeries and more private clinicians joining the team.

As the private side of the practice grew, there was a need for someone who could support both the marketing and the patient journey. That is how my role in practice support developed into Social Media and Treatment Coordinator.

Now, my role includes:

• Helping manage private diaries
• Supporting events and open days
• Speaking to patients about their goals
• Creating social media content
• Coordinating with labs and the wider team
• Acting as a point of contact for private dentists when something needs organising

Because I am not clinical, my role is slightly different from some treatment coordinator roles. A lot of treatment coordinators come from a nursing background, whereas my role is more focused on communication, organisation, social media and making sure things are followed up properly.

That works well for me. I get to be involved in the positive parts of the patient journey – speaking to patients, understanding what they want to achieve, seeing their before-and-afters and helping share those stories.

Read more: From hands-on learner to Clinical Lead: how Riverdale is helping me build a career in dentistry

I want to keep building the marketing side of my career

One of the things I have valued most at Riverdale is that I have been able to put my hand up and try things. This was not a role I stepped into because a vacancy at Riverdale already existed. It came from seeing an opportunity, talking about it, and having people around me who were willing to listen.

Chelsea, our Practice Manager, has always known I like taking on more, so if something comes up, she will ask whether I want to be involved. Kathryn also supported me when the social media work expanded across the region. That gave me more experience across different practices and helped me understand how each site works.

I have also been part of Riverdale’s Voice Forum, where people from practices can share:

• Feedback
• Ideas
• Updates
• Improvements with the wider business

That has helped me see how much opportunity there is to contribute beyond your own job title.

I’m excited about the next stage for Bute as it becomes a specialist private centre. There will be more to promote, more patients to support and more opportunities to show people what the practice can offer.

Social media will continue to be one of my main interests. If there was ever an opportunity to support marketing or social media more widely across the North East, that is definitely something I would be interested in.

For now, I am focused on helping our own practice grow, supporting our private dentists and making sure patients have a good experience from the first time they hear about us to the end of their treatment.

Explore careers at Riverdale

My career at Riverdale has shown me that progression can come from spotting an opportunity and being willing to put yourself forward.

I joined in a non-clinical role, but I have been able to build my knowledge, develop my interests and shape a role that supports both patients and clinicians.

Explore current career opportunities at Riverdale and see where a dental career could take you.