Dr. James Harrington, DDS

Dr. James Harrington has practiced oral surgery in Long Beach since 1998. In 2013 his own practice on Atlantic Avenue joined Molly and became Molly Long Beach, and many of the dentists who referred to him then still do. He earned his DDS at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry and completed his oral and maxillofacial surgery residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a few miles from the office where he still works.

His focus is the everyday work of oral surgery done carefully: wisdom teeth, difficult extractions, and preserving bone so a patient has good options later. When a tooth has to come out and an implant may follow, he often places a socket graft at the same visit, which helps keep the shape of the jawbone while it heals. He also grafts bone ahead of implants when a tooth has been missing for some time. He has written for Molly’s blog on dry socket, one of the most common questions he gets.

Dr. Harrington is a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Patients describe him as calm and plain-spoken, the kind of surgeon who tells you how long something will take and then finishes on time. He has treated three generations of some Long Beach families, and younger surgeons at Molly often ask him to look at a tricky X-ray.