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Two dental professionals with diverse, yet similar experience, both working in remote regional areas have combined forces to establish one of Adelaide’s newest dental clinics.

Principal Dentist Dr HanSam Kim and Oral Health Therapist and Practice Manager Rhett Peereboom operate Crown Dental at Allenby Gardens not far from the city.

Dr Kim and Mr Peereboom have family connections stemming back to their high school days in Adelaide.

After studying their degrees (Dr Kim studying dentistry at Griffith University, Gold Coast and Mr Peereboom Oral Health Therapy at the University of Adelaide), they embarked on different careers, with Dr Kim working in a large private clinic in the NSW regional town of Griffith.

Meanwhile, Mr Peereboom headed to SA’s Yorke Peninsula, working in clinics at Kadina, Wallaroo and Maitland for several years until more recently returning to Adelaide.

Despite their different training and cultural backgrounds, both share a strong philosophy of ethics and transparency to provide good value and earn the trust of their patients.

Or, as Dr Kim puts it: “I like to work for people, not for money and didn’t want a money-driven career focused on profits above all else.”

The pair were looking to return to Adelaide and the combination of family connections and common professional ambitions in practice ownership led to a business partnership forming. Their respective experience in regional communities has given them a solid practical grounding and a broad scope of complementary skills to take on the task.

As principal dentist, Dr Kim is the driving force in most clinical procedures and adult patients and Mr Peereboom looks after practice management, finances and also oral hygiene and taking care of many of the younger patients.

To help them on their journey, they enlisted the help of highly experienced dental equipment and fit-out company, Dental Concepts of Adelaide, who helped them find a suitable business premises in the northern suburbs. After looking at a number of properties with input from Dental Concepts, they found an ideal location within their target area which is located between a physiotherapist and a CPAP Sleep centre with ample parking.

Dental Concepts provided a “one-stop” solution, taking care of the complete project from concept and design, right through construction, project management, fit-out and even equipping the practice.

The result is a “clean sheet” build of an empty building, which allowed them to provide for their more immediate operational requirements with a two-chair practice – with provision for a third surgery for future growth.

With a catchy practice name and logo already selected, they left it up to Dental Concepts to present some design ideas and settled on a colour scheme harnessing a pleasing blue/grey, black and off-white and a vivid blue feature wall in reception. This fresh combination of simple, strong shades succeeds in being both contemporary and timeless.

The cabinetry features ample bench space with lots of storage underneath and shelving above. Each surgery also has its own X-ray machine.

Other design elements include ceramic tile look vinyl floorcoverings in the waiting room, distinctive crown logos identifying each surgery and carpet in reception and a private office. 

The large size of the building is sufficient to accommodate hallways wide enough to enable a wheelchair to turn around for better access, including treatment in the dental surgeries with the patient in the wheelchair if required.

The dental treatment units are fitted with the latest A-dec LED “stadium style” operatory lighting, which provides natural colour balanced light of differing intensity with no shadows. The LED lighting also includes a “cure-safe” mode to allow illumination without reducing the curing time of composites.

To leverage the design elements, they also selected charcoal sewn upholstery A-dec 500 patient chairs with traditional delivery systems equipped with two electric motors, turbine and scaler.

Dental Concepts supplied Crown Dental with the top-of-the-line A-dec 500 which suits the practice’s needs due to very comfortable patient seating which is ideally suited to longer procedures such as root canals and crown preparations.

The A-dec 500 also offers a very stable platform owing to its high load-bearing capacity and very smooth and quiet operation during recline. The decision to invest in a premium chair has already paid dividends, with one patient saying they had never been in a comfortable dental chair until now and had never sat in one dental chair where their back didn’t get sore.

Dr Kim said patients really liked the clean look of the chair and the modern delivery system which fitted in well with the modern feel of the practice which indicated the use of cutting-edge technology, suggesting a high level of patient care.

Services offered at Crown Dental include both digital and plaster impressions with their own CEREC, enabling crowns to be made inhouse to minimise delay and maximise patient convenience. 

The business is still in its fledgling stage but has started building patient numbers through referrals and also by offering gap-free procedures with health funds and is sure to find strong support from the local community.


 By David Petrikas