Modern dentistry with a traditional touch

Originally published in Seoul Magazine, July 2007
By Tracey Stark

If you fear the infrequent trip to the dentist because of the inhospitable and overly-sterile environment associated with most dentists’ offices, e-Trust Dental Clinic in Gahoe-dong’s Bukchon neighborhood may be more to your liking. Built in a hanok house – a style of Korean architecture featuring a “madang,” or central courtyard and surrounded by several rooms with doors which all open out – this clinic offers patients a cultural experience as well as state-of-the-art dental care.

When entering e-Trust, there are none of the usual dentist-office smells or harsh lights. The most common materials here are wood and paper, not stainless steel and plastic. Instead of bright fluorescent lights, the place has a soft, natural glow from the glass-roofed madang, which serves as one of two waiting rooms. Soft green chairs sit amid pebbles and stepping stones instead of the usual faux-leather sofas pressed up against stark white walls and darkly carpeted floors.

Through an adjacent waiting room and across an open garden courtyard is a café and art gallery, which can be reached from the street as well, where patients can begin or end their visit with a cup of tea and check out the newest pieces of modern art on display.

For patients at e-Trust, it’s like stepping back in time 80 years, yet receiving the most modern care available.

“It’s good for the patients, psychologically,” says office manager Kim Young-ae. “Especially children,” she adds. “Children normally fear the dentist. But here, it’s like a trip to their grandparents’ house. They run around and play.”

The clinic offers all dental services – cleaning, whitening, checkups, fillings, surgery, implants, orthodontics, and even Botox.

Four dentists share the practice and work here several days each week, while practicing at other clinics the rest of the week in places like Gangnam and Yeouido. The founder of e-Trust Dental Clinic, Kim Yong-hwan, was a lawmaker in The Korean National Assembly with the Democratic Party and served as the Minister of Science and Technology under Kim Dae-jung. After leaving politics, he spent some time in Europe and was inspired by their use of older, traditional architecture for non-traditional uses. Thus, he chose the hanok style, favored by the wealthy in the early part of the last century, for his clinic.

There are six dental stations in the rooms surrounding the madang, all state-of-the-art equipment attached to hardwood floors and enclosed by traditional wood and paper doors. On a warm day, you might find all the doors open and a breeze blowing in from the garden courtyard connecting the dental clinic to the café/art gallery.

One room, which is used primarily for implants, has two short doors which open to the garden and allow the patient to let his mind wander while probing fingers and metal tools do their work. This room, Kim Young-ae says, would be the “sarangbang,” a sort of meeting place for men in a hanok, were this used as a house instead of a clinic.

Across from the primary waiting room, which is furnished with a low table, cushions and a wood floor, which is said to be several hundred years old, is former-minister Kim’s office. Like all of the other dental stations, his is equipped with an identical chair and lighting setup, but unlike the others, his walls are adorned with photos from his previous life in politics – framed portraits of himself with the likes of Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Mohammed ElBaradei, to name just a few. He specializes in crowns and implants.

While it may seem an unsettling thought to undergo a dental procedure with all of the doors open and the central waiting room busy with the comings and goings of patients and staff, the sight above your chair of the century-old wood on the vaulted ceiling, the smell of fresh air blowing in from the garden, and maybe even the sound of rain tapping out a rhythm on the glass-roofed madang may put you at ease.

In the search for a balance between east and west, tradition and modernity, Kim Young-hwan may have found the formula in his e-Trust Dental Clinic.

Checkups and X-rays: 20,000 won
Cleaning/Scraping: 50,000 won
Whitening: 300,000 won
Crown: 350,000 won
Botox: 600,000 won
Implants: 2,000,000 won

To get to Bukchon e-Trust Dental Clinic, leave exit 2 of Anguk Station, line 3, and head north in the direction of the Constitutional Court. Continue on from the court until you pass Kahoi Catholic Church. The dentistry is just past there, across from Gyeongnam Villa. For more information call the clinic at (02) 764-7528 or visit its website (www.dentaltrust.co.kr).