Our Founder
Dr. Catherine Muldoon
CATHERINE COSMETIC
Hi future members,
I look forward to welcoming you to the experience of a lifetime. I have experienced first-hand how having confidence in your smile can truly change the trajectory of your life, and that is something I want to share with each and every one of you.
My journey started as an awkward middle schooler, I was really self-conscious about my smile. I had bunny teeth. It was the worst, I was never really self-conscious about it until the typical middle school teasing came. Then on a routine visit to the dentist that I absolutely dreaded, they discovered that in addition I was also missing some of my adult teeth.
After back and forth between my parents who insisted that I see the best of the best, I ended up as a patient of Drs. Goldstein, Garber, and Salama. At the time, I didn’t realize what an impact this place would have on me, but after looking back it really laid the entire foundation that has shaped the past 20+ years of my life.
For a couple years I went into that office every month for my orthodontic wire changes. Sometimes being late, I sat and watched the looping channel that was in their waiting room and read through their materials that showed the dramatic transformations of people’s smiles. On the tv, I was amazed that simply changing someone’s teeth would change their entire face. But what I was more impacted by was my own personal transformation. Each month I saw small changes in my teeth, but at the end of my treatment, my entire demeanor had changed. I was much more confident in myself.
It was then that I decided to become an orthodontist, so my mom encouraged me to ask for summer job when I was finished, so I did. After writing an official resume and doing an official interview with the office manager at the ripe age of 13, the office generously gave me a summer job pulling and filing charts for the day and performing additional odd jobs around the office.
This opportunity soon turned into a part-time job throughout high school. After the receptionist went on maternity leave, I filled in at their front desk checking patients in and answering phones and confirming appointments. Then when a position opened to be a hygiene assistant I quickly jumped at the opportunity and began developing and mounting x-rays.
Being around a true culture of excellence while learning the small nuances of what makes great esthetics, and seeing what a luxurious experience can be, it truly shaped how I view an ideal dental experience.
After graduating high school, I moved up to New York. I studied pre-dental and Anthropology while I continued to work part-time in the orthodontic and restorative dental offices of Drs. Arvystas and Isler. My valuable experience there allowed me to be a bit more hands-on and to see how both specialties can work hand-in-hand to compliment each other.
I graduated magna cum-laude from New York University in 2007 and before choosing to leave the city that I loved so much to pursue my dream school of University of Pennsylvania, my early mentors’ alma mater, I found a practice in Queens that allowed me to continue to live in New York my final summer which also shaped my dental “upbringing.”
Each day I travelled the subway to Queens, I realized what an entirely different world it was than Manhattan. It was rare that a person there could speak any English, which I appreciated because it allowed me to practice my Spanish I had been forced to read and write in school. In addition, the 7 practices where I assisted were also very different. They were all Medicaid-based, high volume practices. I loved the fast-pace of the practice and I enjoyed bringing the small nuances of the luxury experience to the offices. The offices themselves were not luxurious, but I felt that I was able to bring the customer service regardless of the environment. Being that there were 7 offices, I appreciated that so many people were getting care.
Since that summer, I had a whole new outlook on dentistry, and had been torn between having a solo large multi-disciplinary practice like my early mentors and having multiple locations to help more people.
During dental school I was vigorously pursuing becoming an orthodontist, so I worked to get top-grades and volunteered in the orthodontics clinic there. But it was during my second year, when we began doing hands-on work, that I really excelled. I am not sure if it is natural ability (my mom says I get my hand-skills from my dad who was a master jeweler a profession that turns out to not be too dissimilar to dentistry) or if it was my prior exposure to esthetics, I think it was both, but I really picked-up quickly. After the second year and having the top grade in the class, I was asked to be a tutor for the under-classman. I similarly excelled in clinic, where I finished my points early, and I was fortunate to be able to help start-up the honors clinic with Dr. Markus Blatz.
In my last year of dental school, I heavily weighed my prior decision to go into orthodontics exclusively because I didn’t want to squander my natural talents in restorative dentistry, and I decided to go into private practice. I also heavily weighted what type of practice to pursue, one location multiple disciplines versus multiple locations. And I found one that seemed to have both, coincidentally also 7 locations and also multiple disciplines, I took a job there at Konikoff Dentistry.
For 7 years in that practice, I got great clinical experience. I was also very fortunate to be located blocks from the Dawson Academy, where I was able to expand my post-doctoral comprehensive clinical knowledge. I also like to say that my experience there gave me some business experience from the school of OJT (that stands for On-Job-Training). I watched the Konikoff practice grow in size, locations, and expanded specialties while also becoming Dental Care Alliance affiliate, a dental servicing organization.
Ever since the beginning of my dental journey, I have wanted to marry multi-disciplinary and a high-end luxury experience for the patient and multiply it. While working a very busy schedule, maxed out on what my own two-hands could do, I had this vision of utilizing the new technology available in the dental market to be able to multiply my hands and share that convenience with my clients.
For the past year I have been traveling around the world, literally around it, twice, learning as much as I can about digital dentistry and trying to figure out how to make this grand vision come to reality. After multiple trial and error sessions, delving into other industries like jewelry to see how the masters have utilized technology to help them with their craft, and after collaborative discussions with subject matter experts and like-minded enthusiasts my idea has grown and evolved, and I couldn’t be more excited.
This vision is both innovative and transformational. My goal is be able to provide a world-class experience, allowing my clients to see first-hand how changes in their smile can change their own self-confidence and the trajectory of their own life. My own smile transformation gave me the confidence to go from being a self-conscious bunny-toothed-middle-schooler to a woman who had the confidence to compete on the Miss USA stage and pursue the jobs and education that I have.
I have enjoyed transformation in my own smile and self first-hand, but that feeling pales in comparison to the feeling of helping others feel the same way. Not only do I see how when you smile at someone, they can read that universal language from your face and feel that connection, but even more so, the joy of being able to physically help someone smile with more confidence is completely unparalleled.
My vision is also to provide a platform to partner with others who value cosmetics to help them utilize their abilities to give confidence through giving smiles so that we can all experience the feeling of getting a smile AND giving a smile together. I invite you all to join me in my #giveasmilegetasmile revolution.
Inviting you with all my love,
Catherine (aka Dr. Muldoon, Catherine Cosmetic)