The video above is an introduction from our team. If you are new to La Costa Dental Excellence and trying to decide whether this is the right dental practice for you and your family, the question you are really asking is not “what does this office do?” It is “what is this office actually like to walk into, and is this the kind of relationship I want with a dentist?” That is the question the welcome video tries to answer, and the rest of this page tries to answer it more directly.
We Picture a World Where Dental Visits Feel Like Visiting Family
That sentence is one we have said to each other inside this practice for years before we ever wrote it down. La Costa Dental Excellence in Carlsbad is a multi-generational family-owned practice. Many of our patients have been with us for ten, fifteen, twenty, even thirty years, and a lot of them now bring their children, who in turn bring their children. The point of telling you this is not that long-term patients are an achievement. The point is that the way the practice runs is built around the kind of relationship that lasts for decades, not the kind that gets you in and out in 35 minutes. If that is the kind of dental practice you are looking for, we want you to know what to expect.
A Multi-Generational Family Practice
Dr. Stephen Dankworth and Dr. Kimberly Corrigan-Dankworth co-founded La Costa Dental Excellence in 1984. Their daughter, Dr. Piper Dankworth, is the third dentist in the practice. Three dentists from the same family, in the same office, is not a structure you find often. For patients, what it tends to mean is continuity. The clinical approach that Dr. Stephen and Dr. Kimberly built since 1984 continues today across all three dentists, and the shared training is part of what gives the work a consistent feel from appointment to appointment.
Patient Relationships That Span Decades
Some of the people in our chairs first came to us as children and now bring their own children for cleanings. Some patients have moved out of California and still fly back for their dental work because they did not want to start over with a new practice. Our team has been together long enough that the warmth you see in the welcome video is not a culture initiative. It is the side effect of working alongside the same colleagues, and treating the same families, for years.
Patient names are withheld to protect privacy. The following are real experiences shared by La Costa Dental Excellence patients.
“The moment I stepped in, I knew I loved the way everybody was around here.”
Care That Asks the Right Questions Before Naming a Procedure
The clinical philosophy that runs through every appointment at La Costa Dental Excellence is that the conversation about what to do should always come after the conversation about who you are. We collect comprehensive records before recommending treatment. We look at the way you bite, the way you chew, the way your jaw moves, your gum health, the long arc of your dental history, and what you actually want your smile to feel and look like. Then we tell you what we would recommend, and why, and what the alternative would look like.
The practice’s training shows up in this part. Dr. Stephen and Dr. Piper are graduates of the Kois Center, one of the most rigorous evidence-based advanced dental education programs in the world. Dr. Stephen is a member of the American Academy of Osseointegration. La Costa Dental Excellence is also one of the original Crown Council member practices and a pioneer of sedation dentistry in North San Diego County, which is a long way of saying that anxious patients who have avoided dental care for years are familiar territory here, not exceptions.
“They offered crowns that nobody would ever see, yet they look flawless. That’s the kind of attention to detail that means the world to me.”
What to Expect at Your First Visit
Your first appointment at La Costa Dental Excellence is a conversation, an exam, and a plan. The conversation comes first: what brought you in, what your concerns are, what you want to be different about your dental care from what you may have experienced before. The exam is comprehensive, not rushed; we look at the whole mouth and not just the chief complaint. The plan is one we walk through with you in plain language, with the recommendation, the reasoning behind it, and any reasonable alternatives laid out side by side. You leave knowing what we would do next, why, and what your options are. The next step is yours.
Meet the Dankworth Team
Dr. Stephen Dankworth, DDS, is the practice co-founder. He earned his doctorate at the University of the Pacific, has been practicing dentistry in Carlsbad and San Marcos for more than four decades, is Kois Center trained, is a member of the American Academy of Osseointegration, and received the Crown Council Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding dentistry and charitable work. His clinical work spans cosmetic smile enhancement, restorative reconstruction, dental implants from surgery to final restoration, and gentle sedation dentistry.
Dr. Kimberly Corrigan-Dankworth, DDS, co-founded the practice with Dr. Stephen and has been practicing cosmetic and reconstructive dentistry in Carlsbad since 1984. She also earned her doctorate at the University of the Pacific. Patients and other dentists describe her veneer and crown work as artistry, and her case-planning is known for prioritizing the long arc of a patient’s oral health rather than single-procedure transactions.
Dr. Piper Dankworth, DDS, is a graduate of the University of Utah School of Dentistry, where she was recognized at graduation for excellence in oral surgery, implantology, and patient-centered treatment planning. She has completed the Kois Center curriculum, the California Implant Institute, the Wellness Dentistry Network, and DOCS Education sedation training, and has logged more than 300 hours of advanced continuing education. Her clinical focus includes wellness dentistry and the oral-systemic health connection, implantology and oral surgery, and family dentistry. She also serves on dental missions abroad as part of her ongoing community work.
Schedule a New Patient Visit in Carlsbad
You deserve a dental practice where your first visit is the start of a long relationship rather than the beginning of a billing cycle. If you would like to see what that looks like in person, schedule a new patient visit with the Dankworth team at La Costa Dental Excellence. We are at 7730 Rancho Santa Fe Rd, #106, Carlsbad, CA. Call (760) 633-3033 to book your appointment. To see results from our cosmetic patients, visit our smile gallery, or read what other Carlsbad patients have said about their experience on our testimonials page.
