Thank You Dr. Gary Wiest!

SMART would like to recognize and thank Dr. Gary Wiest this month. He joined SMART in August 2010 as a representative from the Utah Dental Association (UDA). As the secretary of the UDA, Gary has been instrumental in helping SMART develop relationships with the UDA and the Dental Association in Utah County. Since joining SMART, Gary has helped tailor SMART’s interventions to target dentists in the area. He helped review and critique SMART’s physician presentation and made suggestions as to how the presentation could be more applicable to dentists. He has also agreed to be the trainer for our current provider training, and he will be training the Provo Dental Society members in the coming months.

In the past couple of months he has helped the Utah Dental Association organize the printing of 800 posters dentists will receive over the next year outlining principles dentists can follow to prevent prescription drug abuse among their patients. Along with this, he has also written articles and has set the goal to continue to write articles in the UDA’s monthly newsletter about how dentists can prevent Rx abuse.

Gary grew up in Provo, served an LDS mission in Scotland, graduated from BYU, and attended dental school at Washington University in St. Louis. He came back to Provo and has been practicing here for 26 years. He’s married and has 4 children (2 boys and 2 girls), they are all married and he has 4 grandbabies and one on the way in just a few weeks.

Gary enjoys being a dentist and attending dental education seminars. When he isn’t working, he enjoys photography, snow skiing, and biking.

Thank you Gary for being a part of SMART!