20 Years Broken, One Day Rebuilt
How a husband-and-wife team is opening dental care to North County patients who couldn’t get it before
Ask any Carlsbad business owner and they’ll say the same thing: whether it’s a company, an idea or a project, nothing gets built without work. Carlsbad resident Caleb Christon knows that feeling, except his project was his own smile. For two decades, his dental care felt like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: by the time one section was finished, another needed work. A filling here, a cracked tooth there, and the cycle never seemed to end. At Ranunculus Dental, Dr. Safina LeClair, a dentist, works side by side with her husband, Bronson LeClair, MD, a board-certified anesthesiologist, a pairing rarely found in a dental office. Under full general anesthesia, Caleb’s restoration was tackled all at once instead of one piece at a time. Six crowns later, with comfortable financing keeping the cost manageable, the endless paint job is finally done. Sometimes the hardest builds just need the right crew.
“A lot of people think sedation is just a way to make a visit a little more pleasant. That’s a misunderstanding,” Caleb said. “This is hospital-level anesthesia. I had no recall and no sense of time in the chair. There’s great news in knowing that, with Dr. Bronson, there’s a trauma-free way to fix your mouth.”
“Caleb didn’t need another patch,” Dr. Safina said. “He needed a plan, and a team that could carry it out start to finish.”
The team behind the rebuild
“We kept meeting patients who had given up on the dentist, not because they didn’t care, but because the care they needed didn’t exist for them,” Dr. Safina said. “We wanted to build the place we wished had been there all along.”
That need is real. Patients with special needs, severe dental anxiety or extensive treatment needs often require deep sedation to receive complex care safely, yet few practices can provide it, leaving many North County families to wait months, travel far or go without treatment entirely. Hospital operating rooms, the usual alternative, are getting harder to book: a 2021 American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry policy brief found pediatric dentists’ access to hospital operating rooms had been cut back or eliminated in about two-thirds of states. In California, a 2020 report for the state’s Medi-Cal Dental Advisory Committee found some dentists reported waits of six to nine months for dental care under general anesthesia.
“My job is to make sure the scariest part of someone’s day becomes the part they don’t even remember,” Dr. Bronson said. “When a patient wakes up and asks, ‘Is it over already?’, that’s the best feedback I can get.”
A partnership built on trust
Working together as a married couple, Dr. Safina and Dr. Bronson say the partnership shapes how patients feel from the moment they walk in.
“Patients can tell when a team truly trusts each other,” Dr. Safina said. “We’ve been finishing each other’s sentences for years, and now we get to finish each other’s cases.”
“She’s the artist and I’m the safety net,” Dr. Bronson added. “Together, we make sure no one has to be brave alone.”
For North County families who have spent years putting off care, that combination is changing what’s possible. Or, as the practice’s motto puts it: Mix. Mingle. Smile!
About Ranunculus Dental
Ranunculus Dental is home to a husband-and-wife team, Dr. Safina LeClair and Bronson LeClair, MD, focused on cosmetic, restorative and sedation dentistry, welcoming patients ages 7 and up from every background and walk of life.
Contact Us Today
Ranunculus Dental
2630 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, CA 92008
Phone: 760-434-1761
Website: www.ranunculusdental.com