After 30 years, Dr. Stephen Jones is leaving Emporia. But he’s not done with dentistry yet by a long shot.
On June 1, Jones will be moving on to start a new practice in Wichita. His office on Commercial Street will be taken over by Dr. Clay Sligh from Kansas City, Mo., a dentist with 16 years experience. Like Jones, Sligh has experience in a variety of dental areas, including orthodontics, sedation and oral surgery.
“We’re extremely lucky to get someone with good experience and not someone fresh out of school,” said Jones, who has known Sligh for about eight years. “And since he’s 16 years out, he’s got a long career ahead of him, I hope.”
Jones said he wants to move closer to his remaining family in the Wichita area and has been thinking about either selling his practice or taking on a partner for a few years. Push came to shove, he said, when he saw a Wichita practice he especially wanted to buy. He was told six months later “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“He did, and I didn’t,” Jones said.
He plans to come to Emporia roughly once a week for the next year to wrap up old cases or help them transition to Sligh. In addition to his Wichita practice, he hopes to teach. But he also has a bigger dream: to establish a Center for the Dental Arts, a practice with several dentists under the same roof.
By tradition, Jones said, dentistry has been a solitary profession. About 75 percent of all dentists have a solo practice. That grants a lot of independence, but it also makes part-time dentistry impractical for someone who’s getting older or wants to focus on raising a family.
“If you have a private practice and only work two days a week, you can’t really hire staff and people will perceive you’re closed,” he said.
A group setting would avoid that, he said, while allowing dentists to share the costs of the more expensive pieces of equipment and cut down on the amount of time they spend as a manager instead of a dentist.
Right now, Jones said, the opportunity is especially good. There are more practicing dentists in their 60s now than ever before — including Jones, who’s 62 — and many might be interested in moving to a slower pace. Young female dentists might also be part of that pool, Jones said, noting that the average woman in dentistry moves to a part-time practice just five years after graduation.
The challenge, he said, would be to create a group practice that would still allow its dentists the autonomy they prize. But he said he thinks it can be done. He’s looking forward to wrestling with it, in any event.
“I always like having something new on the horizon,” Jones said. “There’s a certain nostalgia that saddens me about leaving, but I really am looking forward to a new challenge.”
Jones has practiced dentistry for 37 years. He came to Emporia in 1977 after working in northwest Oklahoma for seven years after graduation.
“A town down there was very actively seeking a dentist, so they enticed me to go down there,” he said. “When you’re young, straight out of school and don’t care where you’re going, it’s nice to have a place that needs dentistry.”
Another dentist brought him to Emporia and he found himself staying. The practice has remained successful, Jones said. In fact, 2006 was its best year.
“I can basically say (the move) was not for economic reasons,” he said. ‘The practice was doing wonderfully.”
In an ad that ran in The Gazette recently, Jones thanked Emporia for its long-time support.
“It has been my true privilege to be a part of this community and to have served and learned from its many opportunities,” he wrote. “Thanks to all.”