Our general dental team — including our hygienists, Dr. Zeyad Hammad, Dr. Will Xie, and Dr. Ahmed Hammad — provides children's cleanings, examinations, fillings, simple extractions, sealants, and fluoride treatments. We take a child-friendly approach: short first visits, plain-language explanation, patient pacing, and a focus on building positive associations with dental visits.
Dr. Sean Beattie visits Suncoast once monthly as our pediatric dental specialist. Pediatric specialists complete additional training beyond general dentistry, focused on children's dental development, behaviour management, and the specific needs of complex pediatric cases. Common reasons we schedule a child with Dr. Beattie: very young children needing significant work, children with behavioural conditions or special needs, children with complex medical histories that affect dental care, and pediatric trauma cases.
For cases where awake treatment isn't viable — children whose anxiety, age, or medical complexity makes routine dental treatment impossible — we have on-site general anesthesia available. GA is delivered by an anesthesiologist from London Health Sciences Centre, which means hospital-level safety standards without a hospital admission. We're the only practice in the area with the RCDSO-approved GA permit, and pediatric GA cases are one of the situations where it makes the biggest difference. We also accept pediatric referrals from surrounding general dental offices when a child needs specialty input or on-site GA.
