Dr Mary Phan has been in the dental industry for over 20 years, graduating from The University of Melbourne in 2005 with her first job appointing her as senior dentist within 6 months. She has since worked in multiple private practices where she grew a strong patient base working with strong skills in managing children, special needs patients and complex anxious patients.
Dr Phan believes in involving her patients in their treatment decisions, so they can guide her in the approach they want for their dental care. Dr Phan enjoys all facets of dentistry, with special interests in preventative care, aesthetic fillings, crowns and bridges, root canal treatment, TMD, paediatric care, orthodontics and wisdom teeth extractions. She truly enjoys coming to work every day, and loves to engage with our team of exceptional nurses to provide a fun and light environment, ensuring patients feel relaxed and comfortable while they receive the highest level of care.
Dr Phan is trained and certified by Allergan to provide Botox therapy to assist in Tempero-mandibular Joint Disorders (TMD), giving patients who chronically grind their teeth a more comfortable alternative to wearing their night guard (splint).
During her 20 years of treating patients, she began to notice a clear change in people’s teeth and mouth – children’s teeth are increasingly becoming more crowded, however, orthodontic interventions are being more and more delayed, with many patients being told to “wait”. By the time children are ready, they are advised that teeth will need to be removed or complex treatment is required. With this frustration, she decided to embark on gaining knowledge as to why crowding in kids have worsen and it shows that it usually stems from a delay in facial growth and in most instances a combination of airways issues. Due to the lack of these factors working well together, the jaw and teeth are not able to develop to full potential resulting in crowding.
Dr Mary has made the discovery that treatment protocols in the USA and Europe has drastically changed to early intervention for many years, however, in Australia we were still under a very traditional conservative philosophy of “waiting”. This led Dr Mary to connect and obtained direct training with the leading internationally renowned and early intervention and airways focused orthodontist, Dr Derek Mahoney. Following her training and obtaining her Graduate Diploma in Clinical Orthodontics from The City of London Dental School, she has worked alongside Dr Mahoney at the first airways and face focused orthodontic clinic in Australia, and leading the team in his first Melbourne branch.
Dr Mary passion for orthodontic care for both children and adult has resulted in her receiving the prestigious Fellowship at the International Academy of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics presented in New York, USA. She has also proudly won recognition for one of her complex cases from the International Academy of Dental Facial Esthetics.
Dr Mary is consistently continuing to educate herself in advanced training in orthodontics, being one of a few who integrates TAD’s anchorage into treatment to achieve a more predictable and superior result. Through early intervention, she has managed to avoid removal of teeth in most of her cases. This means less trauma and cost to patients but more importantly maintaining a beautiful full smile for patients.
