Shepherd Dental's new owner, Patrima Chandler, stands in front of her practice's new sign with dental practice founder Brian Palank. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — “I’ve been here 43 years. I know everybody — everybody’s cousin and their mother, and everybody else,” said Brian Palank, D.D.S., of his dental practice in Shepherdstown, located at 37 Maddex Drive.

Though he has always loved his work, Palank began considering selling his practice and entering semi-retirement, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. With a little extra time on his hands, Palank hoped to be able to spend more time traveling and with his family.

“I knew finding the right buyer would take some time. I really wasn’t ready two years ago, to be done, but I knew it would take some time to get it all worked out,” Palank said, noting he was not interested in full-time retirement. “Honestly, I’m still not ready to be done!”

When Palank met Patrima Chandler, D.D.S. in February, he began to feel at peace with his decision to sell the practice. Chandler was not only seeking an established dental practice to purchase, but was also seeking a mentor to help her ease into running the practice and getting to know her new community. This thoughtful approach to dentistry made Palank feel confident that Chandler would be an easy person to work with, as he continued to work at the practice a couple days a week, and an excellent replacement for him, in the long run.

“I didn’t know much about Shepherdstown, before I heard about the practice being on sale. The broker told me there was a practice available in West Virginia, and I looked at it and found that it was 40 minutes from my house,” Chandler said, noting that when the lease for her, her husband’s and toddler’s home in Purcellville, Va. is up, they will be moving to Shepherdstown. “I told my husband, ‘Let’s go and check out the town!’ So, even before I met with Dr. Palank, I got to know the town — that’s when I got really excited about the practice.”

Shepherd Dental is located at 37 Maddex Drive. Tabitha Johnston

On May 16, the purchase officially went through, and Chandler officially named the practice Shepherd Dental.

“Being here over the past months has been awesome! I love the staff, I love Dr. Palank, I love the town,” Chandler said. “There are no complaints!”

The two dentists, while possessing the same philosophy of practice, come from vastly different backgrounds. Palank graduated from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry 44 years ago and spent the year between that and opening his Shepherdstown practice in a one-year contractual position at the Martinsburg Veterans Affairs Center. Chandler was born and raised in Mumbai, India, where she trained to be a dentist. She came to the U.S. a decade ago, to earn a master’s of business administration at Drexel University. Chandler then had to complete two years of an advanced standing program in Buffalo, N.Y. to be relicensed to practice in the United States.

While Chandler believes the practice’s current location would allow her to expand the number of patients being able to be served at one time, she has no immediate plans to make any changes to the space.

“For now, I want to keep it as it is. Even though there has been a transition, I don’t want the patients to come in and be like, ‘This isn’t the place I used to come to,'” Chandler said. “I still want to have the same staff welcoming them and Dr. Palank seeing them. I don’t want a big transition for patients.”

While he may have stepped back from work a little bit, Palank said he looks forward to cleaning and caring for the teeth of local residents for many years to come.

“One thing I didn’t want to do was bail on my patients and bail on my staff, and walk away from a moderately successful business,” Palank said. “I love seeing my patients! I love being with them. I love the fact that they know that they can count on me!

“This town has been so good to me. I want to keep working as long as I feel productive and as long as I feel like I’m part of the community and of my patients,” Palank said. “I don’t ever want to come to work thinking it’s just a job.”