Dr. Doug Palaganas, a Long Island native, was raised in Syosset, NY, where he graduated from Syosset High School in 1994. Dr. Doug then moved on to receive his BS in Biology from Cornell University in 1998. During the year following graduation, he took a faculty position just south of Buffalo at the Gow School, a private boarding school for boys with dyslexia, many of whom also had ADD/ADHD. This was an experience that gave Dr. Doug a daily, hands-on education dealing with challenged children, a skill which would serve him well in treating all types of patients later as an orthodontist.

Dr. Doug moved back to Long Island to attend the School of Dental Medicine at Stony Brook University, where he graduated in 2003 ranked first in his class and became a member of Omicron Kappa Upsilon, the National Dental Honor Society. Dr. Doug then spent the next three years in Stony Brook’s post-graduate orthodontic residency program, where he received his specialty certificate in 2006 and became a certified Invisalign® provider. Dr. Doug then joined a practice in Wantagh and became a partner in 2010 before leaving to start his own practice in Rockville Centre in late 2013.

Dr. Doug always had a vision for a “patient-centered” practice, as opposed to a “business-centered” practice, and opening Dr. Doug Orthodontics PLLC was the only way Dr. Doug’s vision could become a reality. Dr. Doug believes a practice should feel primarily like a practice, not like a business. Every patient of Dr. Doug’s deserves his personal attention, and is not just another mouth on an assembly line, like many offices these days.

Dr. Doug views continuing education as an opportunity rather than a requirement and routinely doubles the annual CE requirement. He regularly attends national and regional meetings and has lectured on various topics in orthodontics at multiple local study clubs.

In 2007, Dr. Doug married his wife, Jennifer, a periodontist whom he met in dental school. They welcomed their daughter, Olivia Grace, to their family in 2009, and their son, Christian Robert, in 2012.