Leading the Way in Comprehensive Dental Care

Gisella Murguia Norlander, General Dentist, Folktandvården Stockholm AB, originally from Lima, Peru, worked in a military hospital during her final year of dentistry school, obtaining a certificate for emergency medical staff. After owning a dental office in Lima for five years, she moved to Stockholm, Sweden in 2000, obtaining her Swedish Dental License in 2005. With nearly 20 years at Folktandvården Stockholm, she enjoys nature, sailing, reading and yoga.

Through this article, Gisella discusses the organization’s comprehensive approach to dental care. She highlights their focus on prevention, education and advanced treatments, as well as their commitment to serving diverse populations, including children, the elderly and patients with complex medical conditions, to achieve excellent oral health for all.

I have been with Folktandvården Stockholm for almost twenty years. Folktandvården is one of the leading dental companies in Europe. Over one million patients visit our 80 clinics each year for general, medical and specialist dental care. Our oral health specialists are located in Eastman Institute Stockholm.

We are a county company with about 200 employees. Every day, we provide highquality professional dental care. Through preventive measures, we reduce the need for dental care-related diseases. We take care of children from their first year of life, starting with education for parents, talking about caries, the importance of brushing the first tooth and correct nutrition.

Educating residents in oral health is reflected in a large group of young people in Sweden. We have a social obligation to offer high-quality oral health care to children and adults. Still, we have a lot to do.

I am treating children with tooth decay, performing endodontics treatment with microscope dental and extractions of teeth with enormous damage. And I work with my team and their capabilities to achieve our goal of good oral health. All these make me think about my time in Peru, working as a dentist in urban and rural communities. In rural communities, tooth decay was a minimal problem, so we have worked with prevention in the first place. Our best tool was a toothbrush; the compensation was a nice smile. I have worked in some communities in need of health in the north of Peru, together with colleagues who love to provide help. We took our equipment and instruments to almost forgotten places and performed extractions, curing tooth decay and learning about the prevention of caries.

Dentistry in Sweden is for everybody and we help our patients have a higher quality of life. Geriatric dentistry is another important field for us. We have a special clinic in “Stockholm Sjukhem” that delivers dental care to older adults, involving diagnosis, prevention and treatment of oral problems. 

Caring for elderly patients can be complicated. It involves understanding and careful preparation. We have a system journal, “TC”, to review their medical history, including medications. Despite the time and effort to complete a thorough assessment of a geriatric patient, this is the key to success in treating geriatric patients.

In folktandvården, another of our specialities is oral medicine. I have worked in Dental medicine at Danderyd Hospital. This field compromised patients suffering from related Oral mucositis, bisphosphonate-related Osteonecrosis of the jaws or oral pathology related to radiation therapy during cancer treatment. We use general anaesthesia in cooperation with the anesthesiologists to treat patients with dementia or diseases that are impossible to treat in dental practice for general dentists.

It is important to highlight our clinicians’ challenges in general dentistry. They are the first to discover changes in a patient´s gum, suspecting cancer, dry mouth, tooth loss or diabetes. We implement our clinics with guidelines to maintain knowledge and quality that can help the dentist reach our goal. I particularly love to work as a general dentist there. I can be better every day in different fields and I feel happy to help people of all ages with all kinds of needs.

Dental surgery is my passion because I need to be focused and aware of anatomy when I remove third-molar teeth. At the same time, I have to make a good decision on the timing of removal and complexity of the intervention, including consideration of the risk of morbidity of retention or extraction.

We are so many professional people who bring health to our community. We grow together using modern technology like scanning for the restoration of oral function with dental prostheses or orthodontic treatment using removal retainers. Cone Beam Computed Tomography is used for surgical planning for impacted teeth, joint disorders or other dental anomalies. AI is coming; we will implement this in our journal system and radiography journal. Isn´t that exciting?