May Chang Dentistry
May Chang, DDS:
Practice Profile Page

Dr. Chang has been our family dentist for almost 20 years from the time our 3 boys were toddlers till today now that they are full-grown adults.  She and her staff offer the highest quality of care with great attention to the individual’s needs.  We drive a long distance to her office but it is well worth the trouble.  She is awesome!

After recently moving to NE Portland from Milwaukie, I needed a new dentist but procrastinated for some time because of my dental-phobic issues…I really wanted someone who would just let me get my teeth cleaned and leave me alone, but figured that wouldn’t happen given the delayed maintenance work that I knew would need to be done. I finally settled on Dr. May Chang due to her positive recommendations and made an initial appt. I think that the staff could see me coming a mile away – another one of THOSE patients who hate going to the dentist and want to refuse everything and has no pain tolerance whatsoever in their mouths… Still, they were unfailingly pleasant, even when I cried during dental probing and again during the full-mouth x-rays (which are so painful in a small mouth!). Once Dr. Chang announced the long list of things that needed to be done (including fixing cracked/crumbing fillings, fixing a cracked molar, etc.), I was just a basket case. But I bravely made 3 subsequent appts to get the work done over while insurance deductible is met for the year. The first of those appointments (to plane my upper molars with deep tissue pockets) turned out to be quite a traumatic experience as I was reminded, yet again, that i don’t cope well with dental injections. I was crying, trembling, with my rational brain completely off-line – what a mess. They were able to get me numb and do the work, but then suggested that 1) my next appt is preceded by a pre-med for relaxation and 2) we combine future appts as possible to minimize the need for injections. They didn’t want to see me so upset and just make it all worse for me. So this morning I had round #2, pre-medded, and what a lovely difference. I actually dozed most of the time, with their headphones on listening to music, really not caring much about what they were doing in my mouth. Three hours flew by, and I was smiling on the way out of the door. Although I will always be dental-phobic, Dr Chang and her staff are trying as hard as they can to get my mouth back into health shape without further traumatizing me, making my fear worse. I think we’ve got a good start. She has been so patient with me, working hard to balance her need to do good dental work with my need not to be further traumatized. I think we’ll work it out, and she gets 5 stars for the effort that she and her staff are putting forth.

Dr Chang and her team take great care of me and my family. She is one of the few Dentists that have perfected the art and science of Dentistry to such a high level. Her work inspires dentists world wide. My experience is as a patient, dentist, and as a faculty dentist at OHSU school of Dentistry.

For a dentist, doctor, or any other professional your judgement should not be based on what I or anybody else in the Internet peanut gallery has to say. Instead, speak with other dentists in Portland. Time and time again they will tell you that May Chang is the best in the city. I unfortunately had some teeth issues and was referred to a number of specialists around town. Each praised the quality of May’s work, her professionalism, and her skill. I’ve been going to her forever. Friendly, accommodating, and above all….she is the best in her field.

I’ve been going to Dr. Chang for 10 years, initially at the advice of my partner, who’d already been seeing her for much longer. Over this period of time she has replaced a lot of previous work from a decade of so earlier. Among other fixes, I got some gold inlays in some molars, which are so beautiful I still admire them secretly in the bathroom mirror. With the help of the thorough and consistent teaching of home care I get from the Fabulous Phong — the hygienist — I expect them to last for my remaining 40 or so years on the planet. I’ve heard that there are only one or two dentists left in town who know how to do gold. Apparently it’s a dying art, because everybody opts for the cheaper porcelain fillings — which are not really cheaper, since they have a limited lifespan. Besides doing excellent dental work, Dr. Chang is so compassionate, and never makes me feel bad for being such a pain wimp that I can’t even stand the needle that you get to prevent the pain. Her assistant is totally knowledgeable and ON IT, anticipating everything Mae Chang is doing, and she too is extremely kind and sensitive about what the patient is feeling, plus she is highly skilled at understanding what a patient is saying in spite of what their mouth is full of. Pam has a whole bag of tricks for making the patient feel as comfortable as possible during a procedure. And then there’s Debra (Deborah?), the wonderfully welcoming, amiable, and astute receptionist, who can speak, understand, and translate the impossible language of insurance, billing, and the like. In short, I have never experienced a single less-than-wonderful staff member at Dr. Chang’s office. Quality attracts quality, and Dr. Chang knows how to pick ’em. And the extremely low turnover proves they’re not just pretending to like what they do. Who doesn’t hate getting dental work? But I really look forward to seeing the people that go with it!

I recently had to get new insurance and my number one requirement for dental was that Dr. May Chang was in network. For the last five years I’ve seen Dr. Chang, and Phuong has cleaned my teeth 2x a year. They are excellent and I am grateful for their expertise and care.