How things have changed!

Looking over Westmount with views to the east, north and west from the sixth floor on Victoria Avenue, patients having their teeth taken care are treated to the easy sound of classical jazz and a rewarding experience. After 33 years at the Decelles Medical building, now owned by St. Justine Hospital, Dr. Allan Coopersmith moved his practice to Westmount for a fresh start.

“I love working with my hands and I love the science,” he confessed.

Now, there are many dentists in Westmount, but Coppersmith's passion for his work and his love for technology make his story unique and help explain why a visit to his office is like none other.

“In our family, health care is like a family way of life,” said Coopersmith, whose twin brother and mother are physicians and his late father was, like him, a dentist.

His brother, Henry, is now the medical director at the Westmount Square Medical Clinic.

“When I was about four years old I found a dental drill under my pillow and my brother had a stethoscope,” he joked. “It was just something that seemed natural.”

A graduate of McGill University and a teacher of cosmetic dentistry there for 20 years, Coopersmith shared a hallway with his family, where they all practiced together until recently when they were forced to look elsewhere after their lease expired.

“It was the end of an era when they decided not to renew that lease,” he said. “For me to leave that area ... I was reluctant because I thought that my patients would not want to follow me if I went too far.”

However, Coopersmith quickly found out after conducting a survey that his long-time patients were thrilled to follow him to Westmount. And after a year of planning and six months of renovations, he re-opened the doors to a life-long practice and in the process reinvigorated his love of dentistry. “I have a history here and hopefully a future,” he said.

“What’s impressive is what you don’t see, that’s what’s behind the walls,” he said of his ultra-modern office, adding he wanted to make it a Zen-like environment, but “the Westmount landscape speaks for itself... Every day you come in and it’s something new, it’s like a new picture on the wall.”

But despite all the modern technology and incredible views at his disposal, he attributes the backbone to his successful career has been all about the people.

The customer service begins and ends with his secretary Angela Dicarlo, who he says “runs the show,” has been with him for 16 years and knows every patient on a first-name basis. “She knows every patient by name without call display, we don’t even need call display,” he said laughing.

The one person Coopersmith wishes could see how well his practice has done and how much the profession has progressed in the past decade alone, is his late father, who inspired him to choose his profession and always urged hard work after working almost 50 years as a dentist.

“My late dad used to say when it came to exams he believed in 100 per cent luck, but then he said the more you studied the more luck you seemed to have,” he said. “I wish he could come back just for a second and take a look over here... he was very innovative at the time and I guess some of that rubbed off on me.”

The father of three admits that the medicine bug might not carry on with his children, but he’s keeping his hopes up.

“I still have a 14-year-old, you know, [so] I have a chance,” he said, but admitted the most important thing he wants his kids to pursue are their passions, whatever they might be.