Dentists come to Logansport to fulfill dream of family practice

Mar. 26—For Esi and Travis Parker, the new year of 2021 meant the start of a new life in Logansport.

The two moved to Indiana just before Christmas and started as the new owners of Goris Dental Clinic in January.

The couple brings with them experience from working in a big city, Dallas, and working in a small town, LaCrosse in Wisconsin.

But Logansport is more of what they wanted to settle into.

"Esi and I were looking for a small town in the Midwest," Travis said. "We wanted that feeling of knowing everyone."

He grew up in Hazen, North Dakota, and likes the idea of a small town, although up north is too cold, he said.

Esi is from Brooklyn in New York City, but they both wanted a private family practice instead of a corporate-style one, working in a place where they'd watch patients' kids grow up alongside their own kids.

"We met Jack Goris, and he had the same practice philosophy that we did," Travis said.

Goris is a second generation dentist, having bought the practice in 1990 from his father, Dale Goris, after being a dentist in Lafayette since 1982.

It's been a family practice for a long time, and patients have asked if the couple is related to the Goris family.

The two are also community minded, giving in a broad sense.

She has participated in Team Smile, which educated youth about oral healthcare and participates in Feed My Starving Children, Give Kids a Smile and Indian Health Services Dental Externship.

She's also provided free dental care for veterans.

His volunteer work includes donating his dental skills in Haiti and on the Oklahoma Native American reservation.

The couple met as dental students at Midwestern University in Downers Grove, outside Chicago.

Since then, their lives have been a whirlwind of activity.

They married two days before graduation and then moved to Dallas for their first jobs.

Those jobs weren't a good match for them.

"It wasn't the family feel we were looking for," Travis said.

Esi said that it was too busy with too many dentists and too much competition.

"It wasn't the quality of work that we wanted to do," she said.

From there they went to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, but that didn't seem like home.

They felt ready to go out on their own when they found the Goris practice and felt it was a perfect fit.

Although they've always worked in the same towns, this has been the first time they've worked together in the same office.

"We both decided this would be a great investment for us," Travis said.

It allows them to focus on their patients.

"We understand that no one wants to come to the dentist," she said.

They make their patients feel as comfortable as possible and the visit as easy as possible.

"We don't think of you as a number," he said.

He treats each patient as he would his mother or brother.

Cass County also was a place they can see themselves settling down, and they're deciding whether to build or buy in the area.

"Where we buy a practice is where we buy a house," she said.

They also already have a start on their own family.

Esi is seven months pregnant with their first child.

The couple doesn't plan to expand the practice beyond the two of them.

Travis concentrates on the broad field of general dentistry, and Esi specializes in emergency care, cosmetic procedures, crowns, Invisalign (braces), implants, laser dentistry, root canals, and same-day dentistry.

Except for wisdom tooth extraction, "we offer everything," she said.

So people will not have to go to Lafayette for specialty work.

Goris will still work in the practice for six months, two days a week, concentrating on braces he's started already.

Patients will also recognize the old staff.

They know the business and have been helpful for the Parkers settling in to work.

"The transition has been great, better than we thought," she said. "We've been nothing but happy in this office."

Since coming to Logansport, "we felt very welcome since day one with patients," Esi added.

The Parkers will make some differences that will enhance the experience for the patients.

That includes technology.

They plan to include 3D X-rays, same day crowns, scanners instead of traditional impressions and noise cancelling headphones.

However, they won't be hiring more dentists.

They want to keep the family dentistry feel, he said.

Esi added, "Between Travis and me, I think we're more than enough to handle things here."

They have also been attracting new patients.

She speaks fluent Spanish, and in Texas took over for a Spanish-speaking dentist.

When the couple bought the practice, they didn't know that Logansport has a large Spanish-speaking population.

"Since we've been here, we've been getting a lot of Spanish speaking patients," she said.

They tell her that not many professionals, medical or legal, can speak Spanish.

She can also speak Albanian and lived in Albania for a while.

Reach James D. Wolf Jr. at james.wolf@pharostribune.com or 574-732-5117

Twitter @JamesDWolfJr