Northern Virginia Health & Life Magazine: November 2009
"Spotlight On David Butts, DDS"

David Butts, DDS

Engineering and art: The two specialties may seem to square off against each other from opposite sides of the spectrum, but for David Butts, DDS, they have not only come together quite nicely, they have been common threads that have supported the fabric of his life. “With dentistry,” he says, “you have to be technical, but you also have to be an artist. There are specifics and technique, but there is also a ‘feel’ to dentistry and an ability to know what looks right. It is a craft.”

For Dr. Butts, those same sensibilities translate beyond the office. He enjoys both the athleticism and aesthetics of hiking through the Blue Ridge and Berkshire mountains, and through Acadia National Park in Maine. Golf, which he has enjoyed since he was 13 years old, “requires a lot of technical skill and a lot of feel with the hands,” he says. He plays tennis, too, and he enjoys listening to classical and jazz music. Dr. Butts is also a skilled photographer: “Especially with digital photography, there is a serious technical aspect in addition to the obvious visual and artistic elements. I have a camera in my backpack whenever I go hiking.”

Throughout his life, Dr. Butts has been surrounded by other people who are technically or artistically gifted. His father has a graduate degree in engineering, as well as a degree in naval architecture; his son is currently a doctoral candidate in the engineering program at MIT. His sister is an artist with a Master’s degree in education with a focus on art therapy, and his daughter, a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut, has begun a career in advertising. His wife is a special education teacher in a Fairfax County elementary school.

Early on, Dr. Butts learned to appreciate the value of education. Having grown up in Morris County, New Jersey, he enrolled at Williams College in Massachusetts. Although he was a chemistry major, he took numerous art history courses, leading to a lifelong interest in the visual arts. “Williams had a profound influence on my life and interests; my liberal arts education informs almost every decision I make,” he says. “For example, I am better able to weigh a dental situation as a component of a patient’s overall situation.”

Following his graduation from Williams College, Dr. Butts attended the Georgetown University School of Dentistry. There, he says, “Our instructors told us, ‘We’re going to give you a good education, but you need to continue your education because technology is going to change very quickly.’ ” It’s a lesson he took to heart; he regularly pursues continuing education courses to sharpen his skills and broaden his knowledge base. He is, for instance, a longtime member of a prominent local implant study club. This is likely one of the reasons he was selected by his peers as a Top Dentist in Washingtonian Magazine earlier this year. His inclusion in the magazine “was a distinct honor,” he says, “and it felt really good. It was very validating—it made me feel like I must be doing things the right way over the past 31 years.”

The right way indeed; many of Dr. Butts’s patients have been coming to him for more than 20 years, and they routinely refer other patients to him. And though he does not yet foresee a time when he won’t be practicing dentistry, he would like one day to engage in new pursuits. “Someday I would love to learn piano and learn to paint,” he says. “It’s more of the technical, more of the art. Those are my long-range interests.”