Bayside, Portland, Maine
Harborlight is a dentist-owned, single-location family practice in a renovated brick building on Marginal Way. Two general dentists, a lead hygienist families know by name, and a team of fourteen who are here most mornings before the city is awake.
The practice in numbers
One building, one team, one calendar. Big enough to have two dentists and a hygiene team that never rotates, small enough that Naomi knows which family is coming at 7:00.
What we put in writing
Back-to-back appointments for the household, one check-in, one conversation at the desk. Ask Naomi for a morning and she will build it.
Your family is assigned to a hygienist by name. If she is away, you are offered a later date or a named colleague, never a stranger by default.
Nothing beyond the exam and cleaning happens without an estimate on paper, including what can wait. Dr. Marsh reviews every one before it goes out.
Known faces
Every person below is part of this fictional practice. Hygiene first, because that is the relationship.
Lead hygienist
Jenna has cleaned teeth at Harborlight since 2012 and is the hygienist most families are assigned to. She keeps notes on who likes the chair tipped back, which child needs the mirror explained first, and who wants the 7:00 slot in January.
Dental assistant, children's visits
Rosa is an expanded-functions dental assistant and the person who sits at child height with the nervous ones. She runs the first-tooth visits and the show-and-tell before any child goes near a chair.
General dentist, founder and owner
Elena founded Harborlight in 2011 after training at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. She wrote the written-estimate rule on the first day and still reviews every estimate that goes out. She holds the emergency time on Mondays and Wednesdays.
General dentist
Marcus joined in 2018 from the University of New England College of Dental Medicine here in Portland. He does most of the restorative and cosmetic work and is the one who will tell you, plainly, what a veneer will and will not change.
Office manager, estimates and insurance
Naomi runs the desk, the schedule and the estimates. If a number on a plan does not match what you were told, she is the person who fixes it, and she books the Family Block so nobody comes back four times.
Both dentists are general dentists. Neither is a specialist, and we say so: implant placement, complex pediatric care and orthodontics are referred to people who do only that.
The building
We are on the ground floor of a renovated three-storey brick building at 212 Marginal Way, on the Back Cove side of Bayside. Every treatment room has a window, most of them looking at the water. The reception has a play table, a sofa and no television.
There is a small lot behind the building and two-hour street parking on Marginal Way. The Back Cove trail runs past the front door, and the number 8 bus stops a block away. Directions are on the contact page.
If this sounds like the practice you were looking for, tell us who is coming.