Our Founder’s Story
David Buck grew up in Washington State and is a graduate of University of Washington School of Dentistry in 1988. He is a father of six children and now a proud grandfather. Dr. Buck became interested in dentistry as a senior in high school as he saw the amazing way dentistry impacted people’s lives. He grew up working with his hands and, in particular, avidly built models. He enjoyed constructing miniature models and the challenge of working with minute parts that make up a detailed model was one of his passions. Since dentistry is a highly refined skill of working in a small area requiring great hand skills, it was a natural fit for Dr. Buck.
Immediately upon graduating from dental school, Dr. Buck took a strong interest in alternative and holistic health care. In the first year of practice, Dr. Buck embraced holistic dental practice concepts. His Seattle office developed the first mercury separator installed in a dental office in North America. Now, as of a 2020 national mandate, all dental offices in the U.S. have this equipment installed to protect from environmental damage caused by mercury escaping into wastewater from the use and removal of silver-mercury fillings.
In 1989, Dr. Buck’s practice was one of the first dental offices to completely stop the use of mercury fillings in teeth. This led to Dr. Buck embracing a non-toxic, tooth colored ceramic and all bonded restorative practice. He was one the first dentists to use posterior tooth colored all-ceramic crowns/onlays/fillings in the early 1990’s.
Since becoming a dentist, Dr. Buck remains committed to continuing his education with extensive continuing education training in many leading-edge treatments. He became especially interested in bite dysfunction and TMJ problems in 1998, and he started what would become years of training in bite reconstruction and TMJ/TMD. The ability to help patients resolve decades of pain, headaches, jaw and facial pain became Dr. Buck’s passion. Progressively since 1998, he has developed a local, regional and national reputation in the treatment of TMD/TMJ now having more than two decades of experience in treating these conditions.
In 2002, Dr. Buck was appointed a clinical instructor and invited to teach other dentists in a leading post graduate dental institute. He supervised live patient clinical training programs.
In 2012 Dr. Buck was appointed as a visiting faculty member for LVIADS.
In 2013, Dr. Buck was appointed as the orthodontic director for LVIADS and continued to lecture and teach dentists advanced neuromuscular orthodontics.