When you walk into Dominion Dental Spa, don’t mistake the stylish young woman, who often greets you while entering the office at 23535 IH–10 West near Boerne Stage Road for the receptionist. She’s Dr. Agata Sheppard, and most new patients are surprised to discover that she will be working on their teeth.
“I do get mistaken for the receptionist sometimes,” the 31–year–old Polish native says with a laugh, “or patients will comment that I look too young to be a dentist. I just tell them I use a great face cream, or I have a really good plastic surgeon.”
The friendly and jovial Sheppard might enjoy a good laugh or two, but when it comes to helping patients achieve a beautiful and healthy smile, she’s all business.
“It’s gratifying to see someone who is unhappy with their teeth, and then have a completely new outlook on life after they have had work done,” Sheppard says, recalling that recently, a man who hadn’t been toa dentist in 29 years made an appointment with her. A bad experience with a dentist as a child led to his avoiding the dental chair.
“He was a big man, and he was shaking like Jell–O in my chair,” she says. “We sedated him, and afterward he said if he had known he could get dentistry like this he would have come every six months.”
Dominion Dental Spa incorporates many of the newest technological advances in dentistry, such as sedation dentistry which she used to ease the fears of the frightened patient. “Dentistry has advanced to the point that pain is almost a thing of the past,” Sheppard adds.
In addition to the use of nitrous oxide to relax a patient, Dominion Dental Spa also offers cosmetic dentistry, bonding, cosmetic contouring, fixing excessive or uneven gums, teeth whitening, implants, braces, root canal therapy and extractions.
Sheppard also uses visual radiography in which X–rays of a patient’s jaw and teeth are taken without using film. Instead, radiation strikes a sensor, and the image is immediately displayed on a screen. Patients don’t have to wait for the film to develop, and about 80 percent less radiation is used.
Nicholas Grimaldi and his family moved to San Antonio recently from Wisconsin and were seeking a dentist, when an acquaintance told him about Dominion Dental Spa.
“We found Dr. Sheppard and her team to be truly one of the most competent and service–oriented dental offices that we have dealt with,” Grimaldi says. “My wife and 12–year–old son were in need of basic dental services. I, on the other hand, had a complete smile restoration.
“After a lengthy conversation with Dr. Sheppard about a treatment plan, I found Dominion Dental Spa to be on the cutting edge of the latest technology available in dentistry. By focusing on the entire smile and not just a few teeth, Dr. Sheppard gave me a natural–looking smile. I am very happy with the results.”
Sheppard believes in working with each patient to customize a dental plan, and it is important to her, she says, that she take the time to give people the attention they require.
“When I first graduated, I worked for a big chain of dental offices,” she says. “We saw about 30 patients a day. It was assembly–line dentistry. That makes for a bad dental patient, and I don’t want to work that way. I’m going to give someone an hour or longer if that’s what it takes.”
Incidentally, Sheppard is following in her mom’s footsteps. Her mother is a dentist in Hamburg, Germany. The two often share information and knowledge. “It’s an exciting age for dentistry, so I can share new technology, and she can share experiences with me. It’s a good exchange,” she says.
When she was 5, Sheppard and her family left Poland for Germany after civil war was declared in her homeland in 1981. During her last year of high school, she applied to be an exchange student and came to Alabama and then later went to Eagle Pass, where she graduated in 1995.
After graduation, Sheppard decided to stay here and attended the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she earned a biology degree in 1999. She later graduated from the University of Texas Health Science Center Dental School. Sheppard opened Dominion Dental Spa in March 2007.
Away from work, Sheppard keeps busy raising her son, Sarandon, 5; and two daughters, Imani, 3; and Farrah, 2. She also enjoys sports, the arts, reading business books and shooting at a local firing range. “It’s a great stress reliever on a Friday afternoon,” she says.
