Eller to Schrager

Craig Schrager

With Dr. Mark Zila’s recent announcement that he’s hanging up the dental drill, it appears there will be a dental office consolidation here in Mammoth.

One of the offices that will soldier on is Craig Schrager’s Mammoth Dental office on Old Mammoth Rd. next to Mammoth Creek Park.

In addition to picking up Carol Eller, a Zila hygienist who’s been working locally for 17 years, Schrager has also added new equipment

Similiar to Sapphire Plus Lesion Detection Oral Cancer Screening System in Dr. Byron Sansom’s office, Schrager has something that does the same thing in a lot fewer words: a velscope.

Schrager says his device has two FDA approvals. “My wife’s was a physician and he had tongue cancer. Obviously, we care about it [oral cancer].”

He’s also on top of gum disease. “Research has shown a correlation between gum and heart disease, and there’s been increasing publicity about it over the past five years.”

Lasers, said Schrager, are now used as an alternative [versus surgery] to treating gum disease, or as adjunct to surgery.

Schrager also uses a laser for gum therapy. In explaining why laser treatment has become so popular, Schrager says simply, “No pain, fast-healing and immediate relief.”

Schrager, who received a bachelor’s degree in physics from USC before attending dental school at UCLA, has been practicing in Mammoth for over 26 years.

How did he get here? “I was coming to Mammoth to go skiing and backpacking and found out there was this dentist on Main Street, Woody Bobb, who wanted to leave. I bought out his practice in 1984.”

Though the medical board requires 50 hours of continuing education every two years, Schrager generally does double that.

He’s also acquired a new skill set of late, that of  Level 1 starter referee at swim meets.

Father of two and married for 16 years to wife Tina, Schrager lists his specialties as wisdom teeth, implants, gum surgery and root canals.