I built DentiBuddy to make
clinic work feel lighter.

What inspired me

DentiBuddy started with someone close to me. My best friend is a dentist, and I wanted to find a way to make everyday clinic work a little easier for her and her team.

That got me thinking about a common problem: when a braces patient misses an adjustment, who follows up? And how much time does that take away from everything else happening in the clinic?

The problem I wanted to solve

Missing an adjustment doesn't just leave an empty appointment slot. Someone has to notice the patient is overdue, reach out, wait for a reply, and help find a new schedule. It can turn into a lot of small tasks for an already busy team.

I wanted to make those follow-ups easier while still giving patients a simple way to book their next visit.

How I approached it

I started by thinking through the whole experience, from the moment a patient signs up for reminders to the day they book their next appointment.

What should happen if they book early? What if they miss their adjustment? What if they cancel? I worked through those questions before deciding how the app should behave.

The idea was simple: send reminders when they're helpful, stop them when the patient has booked, and let clinic staff step in when a person is needed.

I use AI to help build the app, but I decide how the pieces should work together, review the results, and make sure the experience makes sense for the people using it.

The details that matter

A reminder sounds simple until real life gets involved. I spent a lot of time thinking about the situations that aren't obvious in a first demo.

What if someone reschedules or cancels?

The reminders should follow the patient's latest plans, not keep acting as though the original booking is still there.

What if something goes wrong with a message?

Clinic staff should be able to see that it needs attention instead of assuming every reminder was delivered.

What if a patient stops treatment?

The app shouldn't quietly start reminding them again. The clinic needs to decide when it's appropriate to restart.

How do we protect patient information?

Each clinic should only see its own patients, and sensitive information needs to be handled carefully.

These may be small details from the outside, but they're the difference between something that looks good in a demo and something a clinic can rely on.

What DentiBuddy does

DentiBuddy brings the important steps together, so clinic staff don't have to keep switching between lists, messages, and appointment schedules.

These features are currently being tested before clinics begin using the full product.

What I learned

Building DentiBuddy has reminded me that the hardest part of software isn't always writing the code. It's asking the right questions and noticing what could go wrong before it becomes someone else's problem.

I've enjoyed taking a messy, repetitive process and slowly turning it into something clearer and easier to use. That's the kind of engineering work I want to keep doing.

Good software should make life easier for the people who use it, not give them one more thing to manage.