Everyone employed at the Aponia Dental Centre strives to provide every patient with the aesthetic maximum when resolving their dental issues. A beautiful smile is primarily a healthy smile, but the aesthetic side must never be overlooked. That is the balance.
Today’s dental innovations provide the opportunity to achieve wonderful aesthetic results, while the new working techniques we apply at the clinic and the materials we have at our disposal enable us to raise aesthetics to the level of perfection – says Dr Tešić with pride.
There are many dental clinics in Belgrade, but due to some miracle both locals and foreigners know about the Aponia Dental Centre. Is that really a miracle or a matter of something else?
– I believe it is about the quality of work, which is our absolute imperative and is recognised by our patients. When you also endure for many years, as is the case with our clinic, and high quality is what you’re recognisable for, despite many challenges, then you really have the feeling that you are on the right track, in the right place and have the right role. I believe in hard and dedicated work. I also believe in miracles, of course. One of these is the cognition that I’ve grown to love my job ever more over the course of the years. That feeling is miraculous and represents a rare privilege. I don’t like routine, and that inspires me and motivates me to always be even better. That is also the case for the whole team with whom I’m fortunate enough to collaborate. Patients feel that. They value that simple dimension of humanity. They value the fact that we talk and listen to them… Fear and ignorance are uncomfortable enemies, but that’s why we’re here, to overcome them together.
Can you briefly explain what it is that sets you apart from the competition?
– Love for the work, as clichéd as that sounds. When you love your job, you are honest in what you do, dedicated and conscious of your responsibilities, but also the trust that others have placed in you. That’s how one naturally establishes fantastic collaboration. I also believe in teamwork, in my colleagues and assistants, in brilliant technicians and associates, and I’ m happy that we somehow found you in that idea of each of us giving our all.
Thirdly, but very importantly: we don’t want any intervention to hurt our patients. Hence the name that we chose – Aponia means “ absence of pain” in ancient Greek.
The health of our teeth should be our number one priority, but we certainly should never forget how important it is for teeth to also be beautiful. How can that balance be achieved?
– I define myself as an aesthete in all spheres of life. That is often strenuous, but in my work that has given me the great advantage of seeing the “bigger picture”, as well as taking care of every detail, in order to achieve the optimal aesthetic result. Without wanting to generalise or upset my male colleagues, I believe that we women are a little more sensitive to the category of beauty, that we attach more importance and pay more attention to it, so everyone at the clinic strives to provide every patient with the aesthetic maximum when resolving their dental issues.
The slogan of our clinic is “harmony of aesthetics and health” and we really endeavour for that to be the case. A beautiful smile is primarily a healthy smile, but the aesthetic side must never be overlooked. That is the balance.
Today’s dental innovations provide the opportunity to achieve wonderful aesthetic results, while the new working techniques we apply at the clinic and the materials we have at our disposal enable us to raise aesthetics to the level of perfection.
Dentistry is developing at an incredible speed, which means it isn’t easy to keep pace with the development of technology, techniques, materials, procedures etc. But you and your colleagues from Aponia succeed nonetheless. Are you constantly honing your skills and learning?
– I’m deeply convinced that’s the only way to advance, regardless of the job you do. So, either work properly or don’t work at all. Dentistry is advancing, to our great satisfaction, like many other branches of medicine. Innovations, such as All-on-Four (all teeth supported on four dental implants), cosmetic crowns, dental implants, PRF blood components in dentistry etc., have led to revolutionary advances in resolving even the most complex cases. When the complexity of the intervention requires, we sedate patients so they don’t feel even the slightest discomfort, as well as giving them intravenous vitamin infusions aimed at ensuring their quickest possible recovery.
I’m very proud that we apply all of these new working technologies at our clinic, and we will continue that practise.
There is no insoluble dental problem, just new challenges for us doctors, which I think is great. Every true doctor feels jubilation and joy with every new working technique that enables a beautiful and quality life for patients.
Aponia Dental Centre can boast of having a large number of satisfied foreign patients. Where do most of your international patients come from? How much lower are dental costs in Serbia than in, for example, Italy, Germany, France etc.?
– Patients mostly come to us on the basis of recommendation, regardless of the country they come from, and that is the most beautiful element. When someone brings their friends or parents to you, there’s no greater proof of their trust and gratitude.
When it comes to countries, our foreign patients mostly come from Italy and Switzerland, but also from the other Western European countries, where dental services are really excessively expensive, particularly when it comes to complete oral rehabilitation, the All-on-Four concept, PRF, circular bridges or implants.
Here they have an opportunity to make savings, not only in term of huge monetary savings, but also in the time invested in dental rehabilitation, which isn’t a fact to be overlooked. The price differences are huge, while the quality is unquestionable. Serbia is recognised as an excellent European school of dentistry, so it is totally understandable that so much interest exists among foreign patients.
Aponia Dental Centre is one of the first clinics to hold a certificate on the quality of services that is used to promote dental tourism, which is issued by the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Serbia. We are glad that this kind of support exists and that this huge potential has been recognised and acknowledged.
While we’re already on the subject of health tourism, can your foreign patients rely on you completely? Are they freed of concerns regarding transportation, accommodation and how to spend their free time between visits to the clinic?
– Precisely. They don’t have to concern themselves with those things. It is up to them to choose the easiest way for them to arrive, then they are awaited and accommodated in apartments in the vicinity of the clinic. We speak Italian and English at the clinic, so language isn’t a barrier, and for other languages we hire translators. We are at the disposal of our foreign patients throughout the entire duration of their stay in Belgrade and are here to provide any kind of assistance. We have understanding for the fact that they come to resolve long-standing, sometimes decades-long problems, with their teeth, so we try to go out of our way to meet their needs.