From Concrete Slab To Oral Surgery, Local Dentist Builds A Practice

By Kaaren Valenta

When David Nowacki moved to Newtown in 1985 during his senior year of high school, he didn’t have inkling that he would one day open a dental practice here.

At the time, he had mused about medicine as one of several possible careers. But while earning a degree in graphic design at the University of Connecticut, and working summers in construction, he began to think about dentistry, realizing that it was a field that combined many of his interests and abilities.

“Dentistry is a creative, technical career,” he said. “I really enjoy it. I like working with my hands.”

Dr Nowacki has opened his office in Newtown at 10 Queen Street, adjacent to the Big Y shopping Center. He bought the building that formerly housed a chiropractor’s office and the law office of George Wakely and constructed a new 1,600-square-foot addition for his dental practice. He is now renovating the original building for his wife, Dr Laura Nowacki, and Dr Richard Auerbach, whose practice, Mt Pleasant Pediatrics, currently is located at 143 Mt Pleasant Road.

Dr David Nowacki is a full-service family dentist, offering a complete range of services from preventative care to restorations, root canals, and oral surgery, in a friendly, relaxed environment. He earned his doctor of medical dentistry (DMD) degree at UConn in 1995, and did a yearlong residency at St Francis Hospital in Hartford.

 “I’ve always wanted to practice in a small town where my family and I could be part of the community,” Dr Nowacki, 35, said. “My wife has been practicing in Newtown for three years. She brought in Rich Auerbach, and they bought [Dr Humberto Bauta’s] practice this year when he retired.”

David Nowacki met Rich Auerbach at a picnic at orientation day at UConn. He met Laura when she was in her second year of the UConn pediatric program. Both were rowers in their undergraduate days and started again at the Simsbury Boat Club. They also commuted together to school from Newtown.

“I was living with my parents on Gelding Hill and Laura had rented a home in Sandy Hook,” Dr Nowacki explained. “She was working as a physician’s assistant at Norwalk Hospital and Danbury Hospital, so Newtown was about halfway between work and school.”

The couple got engaged during the third year of school and married in the fall of their fourth year. They lived in Farmington while she began a four-year residency at Hartford Hospital, including a year as chief resident. Meanwhile, David Nowacki completed his residency and began working for dental practices in Simsbury and Plainville. Their daughter, Micaela, was born in February 1997.

“We moved back with my parents, Martha and Donald Nowacki, that year and my wife commuted back to Hartford for eight or nine months to finish her residency,” Dr Nowacki said. “I started building our house in 1998 on weekends on land that was subdivided from my parents’ property. The house is made of concrete and was featured in an article in The Bee in 1999. We’re living in it but it’s far from finished.”

That’s partly because Dr Nowacki now is spending his weekends helping to build a house for his brother adjacent to his on Bennett’s Bridge Road. Their homes are connected to their parents’ property by an elegant fieldstone bridge that Dr Nowacki helped build several years ago.

But Dr Nowacki also found that he had to take over the work on the building on Queen Street after he purchased it in September 2001.

“The contractor just wasn’t making progress,” Dr Nowacki explained. “So I took over last December, poured the slab and framed the floors. I had a framing crew put the rest up.”

Because he decided not to buy an existing practice, Dr Nowacki has an office that is filled with brand new, technologically up-to-date dental chairs and equipment, such as digital x-rays.

“Dental x-rays use a very minimal dose of radiation, but the dose of digital x-rays is about one-tenth of that,” he explained. “More significantly, I can digitize the x-rays and put them into the computer and blow up the size so it is better for the patients to see.”

Dr Nowacki treats both adults and children.

“I like children. I have a lot of patience so I got most of the children in the practice where I formerly worked,” he said.

The Nowackis now have four children of their own. Besides Micaela, who will begin kindergarten this year, there is Jonathan, who was born in 1999 with Down syndrome –– “he’s doing great,” Dr Nowacki said –– and Ben, who was born in 2001, and Sarah, born last March.

“Sarah goes with her mother to work,” Dr Nowacki said. “ My wife works Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and I’m open Monday through Thursday. Laura’s mother also is coming from Colorado to help us.”

Dr Nowacki’s staff also came with him to Newtown. They include Linda Busse, the office manager, who lives in Southington; Eileen Nicoletti, the hygienist, from Bristol, who was with the former practice for 27 years, and Katie Swain, the dental assistant, who lives in Middletown.

“He’s a great dentist and terrific to work for,” Ms Busse said.

Dr Nowacki’s office can be reached at 426-2361.