Dr David Chen is a licensed dentist in New York City. He maintains a full time private practice in Long Island City, which he founded in 2019. Cumulatively, he has over 13 years of experience within the dental profession.
Education:
Occupations:
Dentist and Author
Known for:
In addition to taking care of his patients, he spends his spare time writing about oral health, which opened up a completely new aspect to his life. One thing led to another which resulted in afterva coming into fruition. If you’re curious, you can read more about it on our about us page.
Yes, Dr David Chen is the founder and currently the sole author at afterva. That means every word that you read on here is all hand written or rather, typed by Dr Chen. We believe that healthcare content should be written by healthcare professionals and we just can’t imagine it being any other way.
Last but not least, Dr Chen has not quit clinical practice to be full time here at afterva. He is in fact full time at both Jackson Ave Dental and at afterva.
Education
Dr David Chen grew up in Queens and consequently received his education through public schools in the borough. He went to P.S. 32Q for elementary school from kindergarten to sixth grade. After that, he went to JHS 189 Daniel Carter Beard for seventh and eighth grade.
For high school, he attended The Bronx High School of Science. After that he attended Stony Brook University and received his Bachelor of Science there. He studied Biology as his major with Women Studies as his minor. Regrettably, he did not get a chance to finish the minor as a major but perhaps one day…
After college, he decided he wanted to explore the profession of dentistry so his next stop was Columbia University College of Dental Medicine.
After receiving his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (DDS), he did his post-graduate training at NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln.
It was a one year general practice residency (GPR) which had a pronounced focus on oral facial trauma. All residents had to take call in-house and there was an over abundance of facial lacerations and facial fractures. That essentially made up the bulk of Dr Chen’s surgical experience and if you ever see mentions of fond memories on this site, that’s where it was all from.
As of the moment that is the extent of his education but it certainly won’t be the last.
Professional affiliations and memberships
Dr Chen is a member of the American Dental Association (ADA) and consequently is a part of the New York State Dental Association. Within that, he most actively participates with the Queens County Dental Society since that is where his practice is located.
In addition to the queens dental society, he also takes a lot of continuing education (CE) courses with the Nassau Dental Society as well. After all, it’s just one neighborhood over so why not.
Background
Hello everyone and welcome to afterva. This section is just to personalize it a little bit more so that you get to know me for who I am. I don’t want to be just a name that is attached to the top of what you’re reading. That would be no fun.
My patients and staff all call me Dr Chen and I suppose if you’re looking to learn more about oral health, you can do the same. Although I really don’t mind if you call me David either. However if you’re an actual patient at my practice, I do believe in role playing properly.
Nevertheless, you’re probably curious as to why I’m spending all of this time creating and building this place. Well to be quite honest, I actually find writing to be very enjoyable and I certainly have my own style of doing it.
Perhaps one day I can write about non-oral health or dentistry related subjects but as my significant other says, I did borrow a lot of money and invested a lot of time into this dental degree. I should probably do something with it right?
It makes sense but at the same time, I do agree with Malcolm Gladwell in his 10,000 hours for mastery as well as Marci Alboher in having multiple careers. Therefore I’ll continue to push forward with my clinical practice to fulfill the 10,000 hours and then see what happens.
In the meantime, I’ll be spending a LOT of time writing here.
Early Life
For some background in my personal life, I was born on November 5, 1988 and raised in New York. I do have one sister who is younger than me and she is currently working with me, both at my dental practice as well as here on afterva. She’s the one and only illustrator here and as you guessed, she is the creator of Madam Molar.
I spent my entire childhood in Flushing, a neighborhood in Queens which I never really quite left. Well I suppose that isn’t completely true since my mom did bring me back to China for a few months and left me there with my grandparents. However, when I came back, I actually forgot who she was and that serves her right.
Professional Career
Pre-dental school
After completing undergrad, I did not go straight to dental school because I took a two year break in between. I was working as a full time dental assistant for Dr Laurie Litwin who kindly accepted me even though I had zero experience.
That is where I began my training and where I started learning about dentistry. Dr Litwin is my first mentor and everything that she taught me will never be forgotten.
Unfortunately I had to leave when dental school was about to start since I got accepted to Columbia’s dental program. Right before I left, Dr Litwin told me that after I graduate she’d probably still be around and I could have my first job as a dentist with her.
At the time I thought wow, I got a job offer already! However, she lied because she passed away before I even finished school. Truly unfortunate but life is what it is.
I’m sharing all of that here with you because I also want it to serve as a reminder for myself.
Post-dental school
After finishing all of my post-graduate training, I started working as an associate dentist in Westchester, NY. It was about an hour commute each way from Queens but the plus side was that at least I was going in the opposite direction of traffic!
To be quite honest, I wasn’t too happy working there even though I ultimately spent three years there. There was a clash of treatment philosophy and values. You can’t work and do the things you want to do when you’re working for someone else.
That is why I decided to open my own dental practice so that I can practice the way that I want. So that I can be the type of dentist that I wished to be.
That was the reason that I opened my dental office in Long Island City.
Memoirs
In the spirit of getting to know me, I figured what better way to do it than to share memories of important lessons that I’ve learned while practicing dentistry. Some of them will be about mistakes which I’ve made but have learned invaluable lessons from them. Others will be about philosophical values in regards to treatment and dentistry overall.
Learning from the past is incredibly important and you can see this if you visit our dental practice. We’ve models of lab cases sitting on the counters of every treatment operatory. Some people like to display their trophies but I prefer to display skeletons. All of these models are not from successful cases but rather failed treatment. Something went wrong with the procedures in each of those models. Essentially they are there to remind myself to not repeat the same mistake!
Well without further ado, here are some personal recounts from my professional career. They’re mostly memoirs of incidents during some of the dental procedures that I was performing.
- Apical pressure for tooth extractions
- Broken gates glidden
- Bleeding core build up material
- Extracting a referred out wisdom tooth
- Failed tooth extraction
All of these experiences have taught me and have shaped me into what you see today. I hold all of these memories very dear to me.
Personal Interests
- Coffee. Black only please because I don’t drink coffee flavored milk.
- Whisky. Good whisky should be served neat.
- Vacuum cleaners. A clean home is a happy home.
- Kitchen knives. It’s frustrating when it doesn’t cut through when you’re cooking.
My Reviews
People often wonder what oral products dentists actually use… Well since you’re asking, here are some that I’ve personally used and what I think about them.
As featured on
