Dr. Williams is an endodontist, a specialist in root canals.  And root canals, as everyone knows, are—pardon the pun—the root of all evil, the most feared dental procedure in the book.  That’s a perception Dr. Williams would like to change. 

“With the technology we have today,” he says, “root canal procedures are virtually painless. And the procedure itself stops pain.  It puts an end to the suffering caused by an infected or diseased tooth.”  He cites a recent survey showing that a majority of patients who had undergone root canal treatment used positive language to describe the procedure.

The fear of root canals, Dr. Williams believes, stems from the early days when anesthesia was more primitive and the procedure itself more invasive.  “Unfortunately, that fear has been kept alive by all the jokes and comic references to root canals,” he says.  “The saddest part of this is that it causes people to put off treatment.  By trying to avoid imaginary pain they wind up causing themselves real pain.”  He points out that digital x-ray technology and modern operating microscopes render the procedure almost painless.  “Most patients who come in fearful of the procedure wind up shaking their heads at how foolish they were to feel that way.”

A summa cum laude graduate of Southern Utah University, Dr. Williams spent many years in the U.S. Army, only recently returning to Utah to join Dr. Dan Bethers in the practice of endodontics in a new state-of-the-art facility in Building E at 1224 S. River Road in St. George. 

Endodontics requires an additional two to three years of study and training after dental school.  Williams received his through the U.S. Army Medical Department’s Endodontic Residency Training Program after graduating magna cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, in 2003.  That same year, he was appointed a captain in the U.S. Army, and in 2005, upon completion of his endodontics residency, he became Chief of Endodontics at Fort Riley, Kansas.

His commitment to the field is demonstrated by the many lectures he has been invited to give to other endodontic providers, as well as the research he has conducted in the field, research for which he was awarded a 3rd place Major General Joseph L Bernier Research Award in 2005.