Dr. Joe Newell (of Center City Philadelphia and Huntingdon Valley) has provided more thoughtful, thorough and painless dental care than any other dentist I have ever had. He has taken much more care to explain procedures and options, which is his natural talent as a U of PA Dental School instructor. After reading Dr. Newell's articles about the advantages of gold as a non-toxic bio-compatible tooth restoration option, I switched over to gold fillings for back teeth. Gold caps and crowns turned out to be more affordable than I had expected, and Dr. Newell is the local expert in gold dental work in Philadelphia. I feel I am making a wiser investment in my teeth that will last my lifetime instead of setting myself up to deal with multiple replacements as I age (that is, with the popular white dental materials that don't last nearly as long as gold). The reason I sought a way at this time to recommend Dr. Newell to others is that he really steered me right yet again with a tooth that unexpectedly cracked and became infected. After a brief look, he sent me to an endodontist specialist to see whether a root canal could save the tooth, but warned me that the crack looked too deep. The endodontist recommended the root canal after special tests, but turned out he was wrong about the tooth being saveable ( just as Dr. Newell cautioned). Dr. Newell took over treatment in the correct direction (extraction and implant) by a twist of bureaucratic dental plan glitches. Only later did I find out that if the endodontist had proceeded with the root canal as scheduled, he would have charged me anyway for root canal (1/2 price) even if aborted at the start by admitting that the crack was too deep to likely succeed! I feel I dodged a bullet ... and am relieved and confident in the treatment course by Dr. Joe Newell. P.S. To my amazement, there was no pain whatsoever when Dr. Newell pulled the tooth! read more