Meet Dr. Esther Vice Hanson
Meet Dr. Esther Vice Hanson

Esther Vice Hanson, DDS - Durham Location

You might say Dr. Vice Hanson was born into dentistry, as she indeed was sitting chairside with her mother before she was even born. When she was 6, her mother, Dr. Dinah Vice, graduated dental school. Dr. Vice Hanson remembers many days since then visiting the office and watching her mother work. Dr. Vice Hanson grew up in Chapel Hill and received her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She quickly followed this achievement with a master’s in Biochemical and Cellular Biology from East Carolina University. She has since graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry. One of her most significant academic achievements was being nominated by her faculty as an alumni member to the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Dental Society. This honor was awarded to only nine graduating seniors from her class.

When Dr. Hanson graduated in 2007, she took seriously her commitment to serve the community as a whole–also reaching those who were under-resourced. In 2014, she created Hope For a Smile, a 501c3 non-profit, to reach more people. Through Hope For a Smile, Dr. Hanson has gifted her love and talent for dentistry to many people who would have otherwise not had the opportunity to get dental care at that time.   For over a decade Dr. Hanson has been serving the people of Durham and the surrounding areas.  

“It has been a privilege and honor to serve my patients every day. Thank you to all the individuals who have allowed me to care for them over the years.” — Esther Vice Hanson

“After dental school in 2007 I went in with mom and went full fledged and full power ahead as mom would normally go. We did CE, Continuing Education, on implantology. It wasn't just like placing the implant, it was the whole surgical idea, surgical site and how to preserve that, placing the implant, all the way up to just patient management afterwards and before. That was about over 200 hours over a two year period where we just were constantly going in and hearing from the greatest minds all over the world that came in. It gave me a full understanding of that whole concept. This was all lecture, we did some hands on of course but this was just a understanding of what we wanted to get into. Also just on my own since then I've done little bits and details here and there in different categories, endodontics, you know that's root canals, or crown work, or really mostly medicine over all with the oral sedation and really understanding that to make sure we take good care of our patients when they're sedated with us. I've done so much Continuing Education on just understanding how to take the best care of our patient in a whole health aspect. That's the biggest thing I've done recently is just understanding their whole health and how to integrate that into dentistry.”