I noted in the last issue of the Israelite that you were awarded the 2009 Best Prosthodontist in Las Vegas award.

I like your sense of humor. I am sorry to hear that you have had experiences that have terrified you of going to the dentist. While in dental school I learned to use hypnosis to calm the fears of my patients. I was often able to do complex care with no anesthetic. Unfortunately, this took a lot of time and was not always predictable. Shortly after starting private practice one of my friends needed dental work, but the anesthetic only lasted ten minutes and he was not a good candidate for hypnosis. A local oral surgeon taught me to use a mixture of drugs to help calm and sedate the patient. This was the beginning of our use of sedation dentistry in 1993. I did not like the side effect of the barbituates in the mixture and tried working with out them. I found that using triazolam in the dose we used in the mixture was much safer and did not result in the depression of breathing associated with the mixture. We also found that it caused amnesia for most of our patients. This was usually a good thing. We began to use that regularly with our terrified patients and found that many would become so relaxed that they would go to sleep while we worked on them. Others would stay awake, but be very relaxed. People, while under the influence of the triazolam, would talk to us as though they were not on the medication and never did anything they would not do if not on the medication. Most would report at the next visit that it was the best visit they had ever had to a dentist.