Dr. Susan E. Hale, DDS

I have been a client since 1987 and have watched your kids grow up with mine. It is rare to find a dentist that you feel is part of your family in addition to giving excellent dental service. It is well worth the trip from Phoenix to LA to continue to see you guys and get excellent care.
Oct 5th, 2012

This concerns my final visit, dated 12/19/19, which still, after all this time, leaves a bad taste in my mouth (not a dental joke): I've no complaint about the professional, state-of-the-art, exceptionally sensitive-to-my-anxieties dental care I received from Dr. Susan Hale and her team of 1st rate and friendly dental assistants. On that score, you are in good hands and I recommend. I'm simply bummed that I will no longer be availing myself of the office's primo dental care because of the snide and obsequiously rude treatment and behavior directed at me by a member of the desk/reception staff. I've visited the office on two occasions, and a red flag should have gone off when, both times, the receptionist in question glared at me as I entered the office--with nary a smile, hello, or greeting of any sort---until she caught sight of my partner, a longtime patient of the dentist, and ergo, a familiar face. This was followed by a dutifully officious interaction not at all on par with her interactions with my partner or other waiting room patients. Although I took notice and was bothered by it, my anxious feelings about the dental visit itself took precedence in my mind, and I let it pass. On my second and final visit six months later, not only did the same reception individual "greet" me in a manner similar to before (stony silence and a glare very close to a glower, until my partner came into view), but later in the visit when she was speaking to my partner about an appointment, she misunderstood a question I posed to my partner as being one directed at her, and in doing so, responded in an unnecessarily brusque, condescending way before shifting into a kind of robotically dismissive politeness no one...on the surface...could find fault with. No apology or acknowledging of the misunderstanding. So, alas, that will be my last visit. The exceptional dental care I received isn't worth dealing with whatever problem that particular staff member has with me. I stress the "me" part because it all felt so personally directed, I doubt that everyone will have the same experience. I should mention I'm Black, my partner is white, and one never knows if this plays into the disparity of our experience with the desk staff. And in the end, when one is met by subtly discourteous behavior from the first person encountered in an office, perhaps trying to parse out the source doesn't really matter, because the feeling of being unwelcome is the same. But the nagging issue of racial bias (its invisibility to all but those to whom it's directed, has always been its power) arises when one sits in the waiting room, never to witness said receptionist behaving in a similarly cool manner with any other patient...the inevitable question pops into mind: was it because no other patient has been a Black male?
May 10th, 2019