So my wife and I are in the Philippines visiting family. We both sad to say have not seen a dentist for more than 10 years. Back home, my dental insurance seems never enough to cover the care. I'd really like to know going in to the appointment exactly how much it would cost and what would be covered. Perhaps this fear and my last experience of paying several hundered dollars for a cleaning years back kept me away. I am glad we were lucky to have our friend Rob in our lives who takes good care of our kids teeth in the US.

Happy Holidays everyone. I gave my daughters a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas. Wii has a newsfeed on it that takes national news from the internet via a WiFi connection. Guess what one of the articles on Christmas day was about?

A foreign trained dentist name Carlos Flores was caught running a dental clinic in Peekskill, NY in his kitchen. On top of this, Carlos claims to be a licensed orthodontist in Ecuador. You can find the article here. When I was a kid growing up in a Filipino community in the 1970s, I vaguely remember visiting a Filipino dentist in his home. Not sure if he was licensed or not or who he was. Within our own cultural communities, we would go to these folks. Their reputations would be passed on by word of mouth. Never had a problem.