In The News
McCreight practices in her own unique way
— And she can boast being the only female dentist in Craig
Moffat County Morning News
By Will Fletcher
September 26th, 2004
Dr. Wendy McCreight is not your normal dentist.
But being normal certainly played a big role in Craig's only female dentist's decision to don a pair of latex gloves and go to dental school.
"For women, dentistry is a great career," she said. "you get to make your own hours and you can still make a great living without having to work 24/7." Aside from raising a 4 1/2-year-old daughter and soaking up all the mountain town experiences the area has to offer, the Parker, CO, native also owns and operates Yampa Valley Dental with husband and fellow dentist, Jim McCreight.
For the past seven years the couple has been working in Craig. During that time she has been the only woman in town with the title DDS attached to her name and most likely the only woman in Craig ever who has been able to practice dentistry.
And while Craig boasts no shortage of dentists, Wendy said her practice is the antithesis of your typical tooth Carpentry. Yampa Valley Dental employs a strong philosophy of low-volume, high-quality dentistry.
"We don't want to do conveyor belt dentistry," Wendy said. "We want people to know what is going on in their mouths and to feel comfortable being at the dental office."
And her office has the ambiance to back up such a claim. Inside one can find a fresh selection of cookies and biscotti in the waiting room along with peppermint chocolate mints — the real kind, loaded with sugar.
"We don't call it a waiting room. We call it a living room because we want you to relax because we know that what we do isn't going to make you happy," Wendy explained.
Candles burn frequently to remove the telltale signature "dentist's office smell." The office walls are painted soothing colors and after being hoisted into the dentist's chair, patients can drown out the pulling and grinding with comfortable sounds inside a pair of Bose noise-reducing headphones.
"We want the patient to know we're not just here to drill, fill and bill, " she said.
Wendy's family boasts a tradition in the dental practice field. Her father and her brother are both oral surgeons in Denver and whether she knew it growing up or not, she was bound to the profession, too. "My Dad always said, "You're going to be a dentist." I said no and it drove me nuts," Wendy said. And when she grew up, she even tried to set that fact in stone by getting away from the family field by becoming a cardiology nurse. However, while practicing in Texas several years back she found herself the chief nurse in an oral surgery practice. Looking on during surgery one day she remembers scoffing and saying to herself that she could be doing this job better on her own. "My career change was basically because I got sick of taking all the responsibility but not being able to be my own boss," Wendy said. "And, of course, I called my Dad and told him that I was going to dental school and he said, "See, I told you so."
She met her husband, also an aspiring dentist, at the University of Iowa during her four years of dental school. She said as a Colorado native she was duly impressed with the Colorado flag hung in his room. After marrying the two decided to find a quaint ski town to set up shop. "It's awesome because the two of us received exactly the same training and who do I trust more than my husband?" she said. "I can't imagine working by myself; it would drive me nuts."
But while both have similar schooling, she said her motivation for being a dentist is definitely unique. She said her motivation for being a dentist is definitely unique. She said the nurse in her has taught her to use a whole body approach to dentistry. The mother in her also gives her joy in taking in patients at a young age and watching them grow up. Wendy said she also loves the sheer joy that comes from being able to help somebody. The family practice in Craig as with their recently-opened practice in Steamboat Springs also specializes in cosmetic dentistry — the practice of doing reconstructive work on mouths.
"I like that I can get people out of pain," she said, adding that there is great satisfaction in being able to say, "That is so cool, your mouth is so back to the way it should be or better." But despite having carved out her own niche in dentistry in Craig and having a unique set of motives to do it, she said being a dentist comes right back to her upbringing. "Alot of people say, "Gosh how did you get into dentistry," and I say it was because I was around my Dad."