“My vision is to provide excellent care at a small patient-centered practice. With the current medical realities of today, our office has instituted several procedures and protocols, as well as installed additional equipment to ensure patient safety,” says Dr. Thomas Chiodo, a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon. The office goes beyond just patient screening and has a vaccinated staff that is both friendly and attentive. Every room has HEPA air filters installed to go along with both intraoral and extraoral suction to eliminate airborne aerosols. In addition to standard disinfection procedures, every treatment room is subjected to ultraviolet light treatments as an added layer to enhance the cleaning process. Excellent patient care and safety is the ultimate priority.

Dr. Chiodo has an empathetic chairside approach that allows him to treat anxious children and adults. That valuable skill comes from his experience working with children who have disabilities and a fear of dental care. He believes in focusing on each patient and never rushing a consultation or procedure. “People may not remember the details of a procedure, but they do recall if you made that experience as comfortable as possible,” he says.

Dr. Chiodo graduated from Creighton University School of Dentistry with specialty training at UMDNJ University Hospital in Newark. As a faculty member at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, he stresses that surgical expertise must be accompanied by interpersonal skills. He is on staff at Morristown Medical Center and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital–Somerset. “It’s very rewarding when anxious patients later return and tell us what a positive experience they had and how easy their recovery was,” Dr. Chiodo says.