For a change, the Daily News recently featured a positive front-page story, profiling Deputy Police Commissioner Patricia Giorgio-Fox.
I didn’t need a biographical article to know that Commissioner Giorgio-Fox is a bright and dedicated public servant, although I have never met her. If you know her parents, it couldn’t be any other way. I decided that her dad, a retired dentist, deserves his own profile.
I was searching for a dentist in 1963 when a friend recommended Dr. Giorgio. His office was on 15th Street between Jackson and Snyder. Dr. Giorgio was different, even for those times. His office was no frills, simplicity personified. If it didn’t have a practical use, it wasn’t in Dr. Giorgio’s office.
He answered his own phone, scrupulously kept to appointments and expected you to do the same. The dentist’s father would sometimes come in while you were in the chair, usually carrying a bag of groceries. The waiting room was stocked with back copies of Time and Newsweek. Dr. Giorgio is a devotee of the news.
He worked on you in his office to the sounds of talk radio. These were the days before right-wing zealots hijacked those shows. Dr. Giorgio is a thoughtful man, and I loved to discuss with him the issues of the day or the latest trials and tribulations of the Phillies. As my mouth was wadded with cotton, these discussions were decidedly one-sided. Dr. Giorgio offered insightful comments while I answered in muffled tones. There are many people even today who would like to stuff my mouth with cotton while debating the issues.
Dr. Giorgio believed that if you brushed your teeth regularly, you didn’t need your dentist to do it every three months. If I remember correctly, he felt the abrasiveness of the professional cleaning could wear down the enamel on your teeth if done too often. He also did not like to X-ray teeth unless it was absolutely necessary. X-rays are useful, he felt, but they also transmit harmful rays, and often uncover tiny cavities that need not be filled.
What all of this meant was, if you didn’t come to Dr. Giorgio with a dental problem, you usually received a clean bill of health. And the clean bill of health came free. Free? That’s right.
Dr. Giorgio would say, "Everything’s fine." You would respond, "What do I owe you?" His answer was, "Nothing." Free checkups, and they continued to be free for the 25 or so years he was our dentist.
If you did have a problem, you’d find that Dr. Giorgio’s fee was not only reasonable, it was downright cheap. His patients paid a fraction of the cost charged by other dentists. A patient, incredulous at continually paying little or nothing every time he visited Dr. Giorgio, asked him one time, "Doc, you gotta know what other dentists are charging. What gives?" Dr. Giorgio seemed almost perplexed that he would be asked such a question. "I’ve got my kids in college, a nice home and a nice car," he replied. "What else could I want?"
I would tell friends that I never worried about my lack of good dental coverage because with the kind of prices Dr. Giorgio charged, I probably would never have met the deductible anyway.
My wife still tells the story about one of the few times we owed Dr. Giorgio money from a previous visit. He had this card-file system. When you paid your bill, he would place your card in the paid file. Well, it seems that on this particular occasion, Dr. Giorgio had somehow put our card by mistake in the paid file. When my wife reminded him that we had an unpaid balance, he smiled and answered, "Merry Christmas."
I know this all sounds too good to be true. Some people are almost too good to be true, but thankfully every once in a while a good person truly comes along, and we are astounded and honored by his or her presence.
Dr. Giorgio is a man with whom we entrusted the care of our teeth, and in our community he has been so much more.
Like daughter, like father.
