Dr. Gaurav Puri on Prosthodontists: Key Takeaways

• A prosthodontist is a dental specialist who focuses on restoring and replacing teeth, including implants, full-mouth reconstruction, and dentures.
• Every prosthodontist first becomes a dentist, then completes years of additional specialty training focused on complex tooth replacement.
• Consider a prosthodontist when you are missing multiple teeth, exploring dental implants, or need a coordinated full-mouth plan.
• This guide is authored by Dr. Gaurav Puri, a prosthodontist and co-founder of Altius Dental and a published denture-materials researcher.
• Smile Mart is a 4.6-star dental office in Graham, TX, led by Dr. Sang Ho Shin.

Who Is Dr. Gaurav Puri?

Dr. Gaurav Puri is a prosthodontist and co-founder of Altius Dental, and a co-founder of Smile Savers Dental Solutions, a Texas practice focused on expanding access to advanced implant and full-mouth dental care. His clinical specialty is the restoration and replacement of teeth, including dental implants, full-mouth reconstruction, and dentures.

Dr. Gaurav Puri completed a three-year prosthodontics residency focused on complex restorative and implant dentistry. He is also the lead author of a peer-reviewed study on denture base materials published in the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry in 2008. That combination of advanced specialty training and published materials research is what shapes how Dr. Gaurav Puri approaches every restorative case, and it informs the care standards across Altius Dental practices like Smile Mart in Graham, Texas.

What Is a Prosthodontist? The Short Answer From Dr. Gaurav Puri

A prosthodontist is a dental specialist who focuses on restoring and replacing teeth. As Dr. Gaurav Puri explains, that includes some of the most demanding treatments in all of dentistry: dental implants, full-mouth rehabilitation, dentures, implant-retained dentures, and complex restorative cases where several problems must be solved at once.

The key word is specialist. Where a general dentist is trained broadly across all of dentistry — cleanings, fillings, routine crowns, and preventive care — a prosthodontist has completed years of additional, focused education devoted to a single question: how do you rebuild teeth so they look natural, fit comfortably, meet correctly, and keep functioning for the long term?

Dr. Gaurav Puri describes prosthodontics as the discipline of putting a mouth back together as a complete, working system rather than repairing one tooth in isolation. That system-level thinking is what defines the specialty and separates it from routine general dentistry.

Have questions about implants or full-mouth options? Book online or call (940) 394-0709. Smile Mart welcomes new patients.

Prosthodontist vs. General Dentist: Dr. Gaurav Puri Explains the Difference

Every prosthodontist first becomes a general dentist. The difference — and it is significant — is what happens after dental school. Dr. Gaurav Puri completed a three-year prosthodontics residency dedicated to the science and craft of tooth replacement, including:

• How a bite should meet correctly across the whole mouth
• How implants must be positioned to carry chewing force efficiently
• Which materials perform best over years of daily wear
• How to make a rebuilt smile look natural on a real, individual face

Think of a general dentist as a family physician who handles a wide range of everyday needs, while a prosthodontist is closer to a specialist you are referred to for one demanding category of problem. Both are essential — they simply operate at different levels of complexity.

What Problems Does a Prosthodontist Like Dr. Gaurav Puri Handle?

Prosthodontic training targets cases where several factors must be solved together. In Dr. Gaurav Puri’s field, that includes full-mouth dental implants and All-on-X restorations (rebuilding an entire arch on four to six implants), full-mouth reconstruction (coordinating crowns, bridges, implants, and bite correction into one plan), and dentures and implant-retained dentures designed to fit securely and last.

What ties these together, Dr. Gaurav Puri notes, is that the restoration can never be planned in isolation. It must be designed around the patient’s remaining bone, existing bite, facial appearance, and how they will clean and maintain it for years. His restoration-first mindset means planning where the final teeth need to be first, then positioning the implants to support them — the discipline at the heart of prosthodontics.

Meet Your Graham Dentist, Dr. Sang Ho Shin

Everyday care at Smile Mart is provided by Dr. Sang Ho Shin. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Shin earned his DMD in 1995 and later completed a periodontics residency, earning an MS in oral biology and a certificate in periodontics from Texas A&M Baylor College of Dentistry in 2006. He has performed implant dentistry since 2006 and brings more than 25 years of experience in comfortable, restorative, and cosmetic care.

Dr. Shin’s services include implants, gum disease treatment, plastic gum surgery, bone grafts, sinus lifts, and comprehensive dental treatment. He and his highly skilled team are ready to help you maintain and improve your smile, reflected in Smile Mart’s 4.6-star rating from 396 Google reviews. This article is authored by prosthodontist Dr. Gaurav Puri, co-founder of Altius Dental, the group behind Smile Mart.

“Dr. Shin and his team were gentle, thorough, and took the time to explain everything about my implant options. I felt completely at ease.” — Verified Google review

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