Familia Dental is a warm and inviting environment where everyone is treated equally and where no patient is refused due to their social status or insurance coverage. This mission is especially close to the heart of Familia Dental’s founder, Dr. Koushan Azad. Dr. Azad found a passion for helping others in the creation of a family friendly dental office that welcomes every patient with open arms and treats them as if they were his own family members.
The Spark That Lit the Fire
In the early 1980s, Dr. Koushan Azad was a normal child living in Iran as part of an educated, upper-middle class family. However, at the age of 11, a revolution erupted in his country that changed his life forever. The revolution resulted in a war, and the Azad family relocated from the only home they’d ever known to the safety of North America.
In the beginning, they had to rely on Medicaid and other government programs to make ends meet. Since his family was struggling financially, at the age of 16, Dr. Azad began working part time in a hospice facility to help them get by. This was his first taste of how rewarding helping others could be.
Stoking the Flames
In his first year of college, Dr. Azad was working towards an engineering degree. However, in 1991 during his sophomore year, he met a dental hygiene student named Romina. She shifted his life path by calling attention to how good he would be in the dental field.
Gradually, his interest started to shift from engineering to dentistry. He started dental school in 1994 and graduated in 1998. Although he initially practiced in mainly affluent neighborhoods, he always felt that he should contribute to the less fortunate communities that his family belonged to growing up.
Spreading Like Wildfire
For this reason, in 2008, Dr. Azad started Familia Dental. Dr. Azad’s goal was to provide high quality dentistry at affordable prices. His practice was the first of its kind, as it possessed a progressive approach which encouraged dentists to make patient decisions by considering scientific evidence, patient needs and the dentist’s own expertise. Whether a patient has state provided insurance, private insurance or is paying out of pocket, Dr. Azad wanted to ensure that they would be treated exactly the same.
Dr. Azad and Romina have been happily married for 25 years. Forty-two dental offices and three children later, they continue to be committed to their family and improving the health, lives and smiles of others. He is now an active board member who works to keep the original purpose of Familia Dental alive: that every patient at Familia should be treated as if they were a family member.