Garry Miller, DDS

Dr. Miller grew up in Washington, DC and has practiced periodontics in the DC area for decades. He serves as an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine — a role he has held for more than 20 years alongside his private practice work — teaching the next generation of periodontists how to plan and execute the cases he sees daily.

His clinical focus is comprehensive treatment planning across the full scope of periodontal and implant care. That includes the surgical management of advanced periodontal disease, regenerative grafting for patients who have lost bone and tissue to disease, soft tissue grafting for recession, implant placement when the foundation requires specialist attention, and the kinds of multi-procedure cases where a senior eye on the whole sequence matters.

Patients often come to Dr. Miller after a general dentist has told them their teeth cannot be saved, or after another opinion has felt rushed or impersonal. He is known for spending the time to actually explain what is happening — what the gum and bone underneath look like, why a specific tooth is at risk, what the realistic options are, and what each option actually involves. He has the calm of a doctor who has been doing this long enough that the decision tree is internalized.

His teaching career at UPenn has kept him on the edge of the periodontal literature for decades. He treats every case as an opportunity to apply current evidence, and he is comfortable explaining the evidence base for his recommendations to patients who want to understand the reasoning behind their treatment.

Dr. Miller takes referrals from general dentists across the DC area and is particularly experienced with complex cases — terminal dentition planning, full-arch case sequencing, peri-implantitis on existing implants, and cases that have failed prior treatment elsewhere. He coordinates restorative work directly with referring offices and sends consult summaries back so the entire treatment arc is documented.

Outside the practice, Dr. Miller is deeply connected to the DC community. As a native Washingtonian, his patient base reflects decades of family-line relationships — patients whose parents he treated who now bring their own children. That continuity matters to him.