Some careers take people around the world. Others bring them home.
Dr. Heidi Novak's did both.
An Ann Arbor native, Novak grew up on the city’s west side, attending Abbot, Forsythe, Pioneer High School, and the University of Michigan dental school before joining the military. Though returning home was always part of her plan, she says she never imagined it would happen this way: taking over the very practice she first visited as a teenager.
“It’s so surreal,” she says. “It took me 21 years to get to where I want to be: back home, serving my community.”
To find her way back home, that journey first took her far from Ann Arbor.
After graduating from U-M, Novak spent six years serving as a Navy dental officer aboard the USS Mesa Verde, caring for 1,500 sailors and Marines deployed far from home.
It wasn't where she expected to learn some of the most important lessons of her career, but somewhere between deployments, long days at sea, and caring for service members under extraordinary circumstances, Novak began to understand that dentistry wasn't really about teeth.
It was about people.
“Being in the military, deploying to a foreign country, and living on a floating war machine puts life into perspective,” she says. “My patients were people, with real lives and real problems.”
Unexpectedly, the ship’s dental office became something more than a clinic: an oasis. A quiet place where sailors could escape, even briefly, from the pressures of deployment.
That’s a feeling she’s carried home with her.
“I want to provide that for my community,” she says. “Especially for parents and caretakers.”
That perspective now informs how she approaches orthodontics — less as a cosmetic service, and more as a long-term investment in health.
“Orthodontics takes time,” she says. “It’s not just gluing braces on teeth or handing out aligners.”
For Novak, the process reflects her own path: four years of undergraduate study, four years of dental school, and years of specialized orthodontic training. The time matters, she says, because the results do.
And when it comes to children, timing can be everything.
The American Association of Orthodontists recommends children have their first orthodontic evaluation around age seven. While many won’t need early treatment, Dr. Novak says those early check-ins can reveal important developmental patterns.
“Some issues need to be corrected sooner rather than later,” she says. “If a child misses a specific window for treatment, it can make things much harder in the future.”
The long view matters.
Beyond aesthetics, properly aligned teeth are easier to clean, less prone to wear, and often healthier over a lifetime. Novak sees the proof of that every week, often in adults who wish they’d addressed issues sooner.
“Straight teeth last longer,” she says simply.
And increasingly, adults are listening.
From patients whose teeth shifted after skipping retainers to those experiencing years of wear, adult orthodontic care has become a growing part of her practice. For many, she says, the most common response at the end of treatment is the same: I wish I’d done this sooner.
But for Novak, Burns Park Orthodontics is about more than clinical outcomes. It’s about continuity.
Long before she owned the practice, she shadowed there as a high school senior. Its previous owner, Dr. Ludia Kim, had treated her sister. Some things inside the office haven’t changed since then — including the beloved wooden animals wearing braces, hidden throughout the space for kids to discover.
“They’ve been here for three generations of orthodontists,” Novak says. “Parents who came here as kids still remember them.”
For Novak, those small details matter. They create the kind of memories that last.
“If I’m seeing kids every six weeks during one of the most important developmental stages of their lives, I want them to know my office is a safe space,” she says.
That’s what she wants to build here: not just straighter smiles, but trust. Familiarity. A place where patients are greeted by a person, not a tablet. Where parents can walk back with their kids. Where the orthodontist still sees you every time.
Because in the end, the thing Novak hopes patients remember years from now isn't just how their smile changed.
It's how they felt while they were there.
To learn more visit burnsparkortho.com