Our Why: The Story Behind Prickly Pear Dental Care
As we approach the opening of Prickly Pear Dental Care—hopefully just a few short weeks from now—we’ve been reflecting a lot on the journey that has brought us here. Much of that reflection has centered on why we decided to embark on this path in the first place, and on how that “why” has shaped the decisions that we’ve made—and will continue to make—along the way.
We moved to El Paso in 2019, after spending just six months or so in a smaller West Texas city. During those months, we visited El Paso twice on road trips and fell in love almost immediately—with the friendly, welcoming, unpretentious culture; with the Franklin Mountains rising right out of the heart of the city; with the Spanglish drifting through stores and restaurants; with the lights of Juárez shimmering across the border at night. Within just a few months of moving here, we realized more fully that we’d made the right choice. The binational and bicultural nature of this place fit us perfectly, and we knew that this was where we wanted to build a life and raise a family—a safe, hardworking, down-to-earth city where our kids could stay connected to both sides of their heritage.
With that in mind, and after years of experience as both a dentist and eventually the director of entire dental clinics, Dr. Flores felt ready to pursue a long-held dream: opening her own dental practice. We also knew that we wanted to approach this as a team, just as we’ve handled most things in our lives for many years now. I (Jim) would take on management of the non-clinical aspects of the practice, while Dr. Flores would focus her energy on what she loves most: caring for patients with skill, compassion, and integrity.
We spent nearly a year exploring the possibility of buying an existing practice. We visited several in El Paso and, not finding any option that felt right for us, extended our search into southern New Mexico and eventually as far north as Santa Fe. We met wonderful doctors who clearly cared deeply for their patients, but none of the offices felt like ours. We realized that we were taking this process personally—not in a bad way, but in the sense that our practice needed to be a reflection of our own vision, not anyone else’s. To stay true to that, we would have to build our office ourselves.
So we did.
It has now been over a year since we found what would become our office space, and many months since construction began in earnest. When we walked in for the first time, the floors were still dirt. We’ve built this office almost literally from the ground up. And because we view this project as an extension of ourselves, we’ve chosen to manage many parts of it in-house. We designed and maintain our own website. We run our own social media. No interior designer chose any of the décor that you’ll see in our office. For us, the process is both an art and a science—and if the art weren’t our own, we just wouldn’t feel that we’d gone about it the right way.
The past month or so has pushed us into logistical overdrive. We’re managing the final stages of construction, receiving mountains of equipment, coordinating with reps and consultants, hiring staff, and making decisions about everything from software and HR systems to internet service and payroll providers. As things get busier—just as we were warned they would—we’ve found it helpful to pause and reconnect with our “why,” rather than getting lost in the “how.”
We want to create a place where people from all walks of life receive honest, empathetic, expert dental care—and where no one ever feels rushed or pressured into treatment that isn’t in their best interest. We want to celebrate El Paso for the special city it is: perhaps isolated, perhaps not the most cosmopolitan, but resilient, hardworking, warm, and loving. We want to create a place where English and Spanish stand equally, where patients can speak either (or both!) without hesitation and still feel fully understood and respected. We want to build a workplace where our team feels supported, comfortable, and inspired to grow. We want our space to feel professional and clinical, yet also peaceful, intentional, and even uplifting. And, finally, we want our practice to feel like a genuine expression of ourselves—our personalities, our partnership, and our belief that every single person on earth can take small but meaningful steps to make this world a better place.
We know that these are lofty goals for a dental office. It’s safe to say that they are certainly not the typical goals—but that’s sort of the point. Prickly Pear Dental Care was never meant to be typical. We’re about a month away from opening, deep in the trenches, working harder and experiencing more stress than perhaps we ever have before. But we know that it will all be worth it, and we cannot wait to open our doors and share our vision with the community we’ve grown to love.
—Jim and Dr. Flores