Meet Your Neighbor profile of Palm Beach dentist Dr. Mitchell Josephs
Faran Fagen | Special to The Palm Beach Post Dr. Mitchell Josephs wants you to…
| Special to The Palm Beach Post
Dr. Mitchell Josephs wants you to know that dentists can be funny and have other interests in addition to teeth.
“Movies and TV have portrayed dentists as weirdo nerds or psychos like Steve Martin in ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’” Josephs said. “Some of us are quite cool. I know dentist body builders, pilots, surfers, musicians and actors.”
A new book by Josephs, a longtime Palm Beach Implant and Reconstructive Dentist, is getting plenty of bites across the country.
Titled “More Tooth Talk! What Educated Patients Need to Know About 21st Century Dental Treatment,” the book is a sequel to his first book, “Tooth Talk!”
It’s a compilation of 16 years of writing his weekly “Ask the Dentist” column in the Palm Beach Post Accent section. Josephs is the first and only Implant, Cosmetic and General dentist on Staff at JFK medical center since the hospital was built. He once took a tooth out of a patient in the operating room while the patient was getting a rectal biopsy.
Josephs, 57, has lived in West Palm Beach since 1992, and has practiced on the island of Palm Beach since then. He grew up in Long Island, N.Y., and Manhattan.
Josephs has been practicing dentistry for three decades and has found that people are intrigued by all the things that go on inside their mouths day-to-day, during a toothache and especially in the dental chair. “More Tooth Talk!” is a literal oral history of the most interesting cases he has seen in Palm Beach, each with insight that will aid oral health as well.
“A smile is the best thing you can wear, so it’s important to take proper care of your teeth,” said Josephs. “We all know that seeing your dentist regularly, brushing and flossing your teeth daily will keep your teeth healthy, and ‘More Tooth Talk!’ offers real-life stories plus tips and tricks to keeping a fresh, clean and healthy smile.”
Josephs’ local charitable work includes Jewish Family Services of Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach Synagogue, and donations to Casa Shalom, an underprivileged school in Guatemala.
His wife of 29 years, Aileen, an immigration attorney, heads this last effort. Their son, Dr. Jonathan Josephs, is 26 and doing his dental residency program at Columbia Presbyterian.
“More Tooth Talk!” is available for purchase on Amazon and other book retailers. To learn more about Dr. Mitchell Josephs , visit palmbeachdentist.com.
Q&A
Who is your hero? Several. Music: Neil Young. Sports: the late Ayerton Senna, Formula 1 driver who was killed in 1994 at Imola Italy. Actor: Sasha Baron Cohen. Author: Malcom Gladwell.
What is your favorite movie? “Apocalypse Now.”
What are your hobbies? Car collector, racer in training at PBIR (Moroso Racetrack), and stand-up comedy. I play my guitars, mostly heavy metal instrumentals (I admit, I am stuck in the 80s; God bless and RIP Eddie Van Halen).
What do you do to get away or take a break? I play my guitars, do my auto hobby, and coffee. I run, swim and lifts weights. I also write a lot — my weekly column in the Palm Beach Post asks the experts. I love traveling to Italy, especially the Motor Valley, of Modena.
What’s your favorite author/book and why? I read a lot of books on behavioral economics; the science of why we buy and who we buy from.
If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be? George Washington. I want to settle the myth of his wooden teeth; I believe they are hippopotamus teeth. I want to do a full exam.
What is the best advice you ever received? Don’t take advice from people less successful than you are. Listen to mentors who are at the top of their fields; not your brother-in-law’s hairdresser’s cousin. I was always told by my parents: When you play tennis, play with someone a little better than you so you get better.
What is your favorite childhood memory? When at age 11 my camp bus broke down on the George Washington Bridge when coming home on a 100-degree day in August. Delirious with heat stroke I thought I saw my dad enter the bus at the front. Turns out he was driving by and saw a stopped bus and took a chance and found me and took me home.
