Resident Spotlight: Dr. Chris Hansen
“My biggest take away from The Stewart Center, from a clinical standpoint, is the joint stability. As dentists, we tend to be very technical. We look at the teeth, we have a TMJ specialist look at the joint, and we have a physical therapist look at the muscles. But to restore health you have to restore the balance of the system as a whole.”
Dr. Chris Hansen practices in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Outside of his dental practice,
Dr. Hansen is active in leadership roles at both the state and national levels with the ADA and AGD.
He originally went to the university with the mindset of pharmacy school. However, he was quickly drawn to dentistry because of the ability to become an entrepreneur within your own practice. And so, he attended and graduted dental school at Marquette University. He now practices in the small town of Two Rivers, Wisconsin and keeps very busy. Dr. Hansen is an alumnus of the Schuster Center’s Management Program and really wants to get back to what he learned there – a relationship based practice with more personal services. This is part of what lead him to The Stewart Center.
Dr. Hansen has gone though the Pankey Continuum, many seminars with Kois, and intro courses with Spear. “The biggest difference between those and the Texas Center,” says Dr. Hansen, “is we go from learning, straight to applying and doing.” At The Stewart Center, the students complete, at least, one full mouth restoration case during their residency. “The Stewart Center is intentionally made to take what you’ve learned from the shelf and put your hands on it,” says Dr. Hansen. “There’s a significant amount of learning you do when you have to put a presentation together and defend your case in front of all your colleagues.”
The Texas Center has helped Dr. Hansen see the possibilities of helping people.
“In a small-town environment, we’re able to offer services that are so unique, nobody else can replicate it anywhere else.”
In fact, Dr. Hansen had a patient referred to him by another general dentist who was unable to help her. She suffered from facial pain and headaches, to which her dentist’s response was to put her in a night guard. This relieved her symptoms at night, however the second she took it out the pain would be back. “Two years ago, I would have had no clue what to do. I would have done the same thing, put a night guard in her mouth,” says Dr. Hansen. But because of his training at The Stewart Center, he immediately knew what to do and was able to communicate it to the patient whose response was, “I wish I had found you fifteen years ago!”
It has been an honor having Dr. Hansen go through our residency. We have enjoyed working with him, as well as his auxiliary staff. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors!