An Old Friend Becomes a New Colleague

Richard W. Panek, DDS, could have scoured the globe for a new oral surgeon for the Center for Oral Surgery and Dental Implants (COSDI) and not found a better-qualified candidate than the kid who grew up next door.

Grand Rapids resident Mark Grinzinger, DDS, MD, 32, who joined the practice this past summer, was Dr. Panek’s next-door neighbor in Rockford for years. As a sophomore at Rockford High he “job-shadowed” Dr. Panek for a day—and quickly dropped ideas of becoming a pilot to aim at an oral surgery career instead.

“He was a really smart kid from a great family,” says Dr. Panek. “I could tell he had good hands. He liked building models—not just plastic ones you assemble, but airplanes made with balsa wood and paper.”

A 2011 Michigan State graduate, Dr. Grinzinger finished at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry (where Justin M. Pisano, DDS, another member of the COSDI team, was a classmate and friend) in 2015. Then came more training, with an MD at Wayne State’s medical school followed by a residency in oral and maxillofacial surgery in Detroit’s Ascension St. John Hospital system.

Dr. Grinzinger will practice full scope oral surgical procedures, see patients at our Rockford and Grand rapids locations, and be on staff at Spectrum Hospital.

Dr. Grinzinger, who will marry fiancée Andrea Adams in October, lauds the “family feeling” he finds at COSDI. He plans to welcome his patients like old friends and neighbors. In many cases, that’s exactly what they’ll be.