Meet Our Team in Fanwood NJ
Who You'll Actually See When You Walk In
When you look up Meet Our Team in Fanwood NJ, you are usually trying to figure out one thing before you book: who are these people, and will they be kind to me. That is a fair question, and we would rather answer it in plain language than with a paragraph of adjectives. Dental Sanctuary of Fanwood is a female-owned neighborhood practice on South Avenue, led by Dr. Tanvi Patel and Dr. Priya Patel, with a small team that stays put.
The word sanctuary is in our name on purpose. A lot of people carry old memories into a dental chair, and those memories do not go away because someone hands you sunglasses and a warm blanket (though we do that too). What tends to help is seeing a familiar face at the front desk, having a doctor who already knows your history, and being told what is happening before it happens. That is what our team is built to do.
We see families from Fanwood, Westfield, Scotch Plains, Plainfield, Cranford, Clark, and the rest of Union County. Kids in for sealants, parents in for a crown, grandparents in for implant follow-ups, and a fair number of adults who have not been to a dentist in a long time and want to start over quietly. All of that runs through the same team, in the same rooms, on the same day.
Dr. Tanvi Patel and Dr. Priya Patel, the Two Dentists Who Lead the Practice
Dr. Tanvi Patel is the owner of Dental Sanctuary of Fanwood. She studied biomedical sciences at Rutgers University and earned her Doctor of Dental Medicine degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. In the operatory she is unhurried and specific, the kind of dentist who will pause mid-explanation to make sure you are actually following along. Outside the office she dances, hikes, travels, and stays involved in the community, which is part of why so many patients here are also her neighbors.
Dr. Priya Patel, DMD, earned her degree from the Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry at Temple University, where she was a Kornberg Scholarship recipient. She spends a lot of her visits asking questions and listening to the answers before she picks up an instrument. Patients tell us she is easy to talk to about the parts of dentistry that are hard to talk about: cost, anxiety, a mouth that has been avoided for years, a treatment plan that got started somewhere else and never finished.
Between the two of them, you can get most of what a family needs under one roof: cleanings and exams, fillings, crowns and bridges, cosmetic work, implants, orthodontics, and periodontics. That means fewer referrals across town, and it means the doctor who plans your treatment is usually the doctor who does it.
The Hygienists and Front-Desk Staff Who Run the Rest of the Day
A dental practice is not just the dentists. Most of your time in the chair is with a hygienist, and most of your questions about scheduling and insurance are answered by the front desk. We keep that team small on purpose so the people who greet you know your name and the hygienist who cleaned your teeth last spring is the one cleaning them this fall.
Our hygienists handle preventive care from start to finish: the cleaning itself, digital x-rays when they are due, oral cancer screening, fluoride when it is appropriate, and honest coaching on what is going well at home and what is not. If you raise your hand because something is sore or sensitive, we stop. That is not a policy we advertise; it is just how the day is built.
At the front desk, you will get straight answers about what your visit will cost before you sit down. If you have PPO dental insurance, we will file with your plan and walk through the numbers with you. If you are paying out of pocket, we will tell you that too, in plain figures, without a sales pitch attached.
How the Team Works Together on a Typical Visit
A first visit here usually starts with paperwork you filled out at home, a short conversation about what has been going on with your teeth, and a look at any records from a previous dentist. From there, the hygienist takes over for imaging and cleaning, and Dr. Tanvi or Dr. Priya comes in for the exam. If something needs attention, you will hear about it in that same visit, not in a phone call two weeks later.
For bigger treatments (a crown, an implant, orthodontics, a set of veneers), we plan the work in stages and talk through the sequence before anything starts. If waiting six months makes more sense, we will tell you that too. If a treatment can be done in one appointment instead of three, we will say that as well. The goal is that you leave with a clear picture of what is next, not a stack of pamphlets.
Children are welcome, and we try to make their appointments feel like their own thing rather than a smaller version of an adult visit. Sealants, fluoride, gentle first cleanings, and a lot of narration about what the instruments do and why. Parents are welcome in the room. Most kids come out fine; some come out asking when they can come back, which still surprises us in a good way.
Why the Same Team Every Visit Actually Matters
Continuity is one of those things that sounds like a marketing claim until you have lived through the opposite. If you have ever had to re-explain your history to a new hygienist every six months, or been handed off between three dentists inside one treatment plan, you already know the difference. Here, the doctor who saw you last year is the doctor who sees you this year, and the notes in your chart are their notes.
That continuity is also what makes the calm part possible. When your dentist already knows you grind at night, or that you had a hard time with numbing on the lower left, or that your daughter does better with the smaller bite block, nobody has to rediscover it. The visit moves at your pace because the team remembers your pace.
If you want to read more about the doctors and how the practice is set up, our Meet Our Doctors in Fanwood NJ page goes deeper on their backgrounds. You can also see the full range of care on our Preventive Dentistry, Cosmetic Dentistry, and Dental Implants pages, or start from the top at our Dentist in Fanwood NJ homepage.