Exquisite Dentistry
LAL Dental is a prosthodontic practice on East 50th Street in Midtown Manhattan, devoted to restoring and reconstructing teeth: implants, full arches, and the complex cases that other practices refer on.
Why that distinction matters
Dr. Lal teaching the techniques used in this practice to other dentists.
Nearly every dental practice in Manhattan advertises implants and cosmetic work. Almost all of them are general practices. Prosthodontics is a recognised dental specialty requiring three years of training after dental school, and it exists specifically for the work of rebuilding teeth.
Dr. Lal is a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics, certified in 2006 after a four-part examination taken over four years. He taught the specialty at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine from 2002 to 2010, and directed its graduate prosthodontics programme from 2005 to 2008.
For a straightforward filling, that background changes very little. For a full arch, a failing bite, or treatment that has already been attempted once and did not hold, it changes almost everything.
Planning before treatment
Comprehensive treatment planning comes first, and you see the whole plan, its stages and its sequence before anything begins. Complex work that is designed as it goes is how patients end up with restorations that cannot be cleaned, cannot be repaired, and do not last.
Prevention is part of it
Reconstruction only lasts if what surrounds it stays healthy. Thorough examinations, hygiene visits every 4 to 6 months, oral cancer screening and x-rays when there is a reason to take them are treatment, not an afterthought to it.
Technology with a purpose
Digital planning means implant positions are designed against the finished teeth rather than judged during surgery. The Solea laser means most routine fillings are done with no drill and often no injection. Both exist to make treatment shorter and more comfortable, which is the only reason to adopt either.
Dr. Kunal Lal, BDS, MS, DDS
Prosthodontist, Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics
Dr. Lal earned his master's degree in prosthodontics from Columbia in 2002 and his DDS there in 2004, after qualifying in dentistry at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India in 1996.
At Columbia he supervised twelve graduate residents in clinic four days a week, oversaw the curriculum, and was responsible for every resident's master's thesis. Across the division he worked with a team of more than twenty dentists. He received Columbia's Teaching Appreciation Award in 2004 and its Resident Achievement Award in 2002.
He has published on computer-generated surgical templates for implant planning and placement, and lectures nationally on computer-guided implant surgery with immediate loading. He also founded the Digital Dentistry Forum, a continuing-education study club for dentists working with digital workflows.
Full biography and credentials- Board certificationDiplomate, American Board of Prosthodontics, 2006
- MSPost-doctoral Prosthodontics, Columbia University, 2002
- DDSColumbia University College of Dental Medicine, 2004
- BDSManipal Academy of Higher Education, India, 1996
- FacultyAssistant Professor of Clinical Dentistry, Columbia, 2002 to 2010
- Programme directorGraduate Prosthodontics, Columbia, 2005 to 2008
Come and talk it through
A consultation is a conversation about what is going on and what the options are. It does not commit you to treatment.