When I ask Dr. Perry Opin to “start from the beginning,” his eyes widen and he reclines slightly in his chair. He looks at me with an ironic smile as he clasps his hands together in front of him.
“When I was twelve I knew I wanted to be an orthodontist.”
We are sitting in his office at his Broad Street practice, which he shares with his son, Dr. Gary Opin. On all walls are floor-to-ceiling credentials that read like a career highlight reel: there are framed letters from the federal government, certifications no one else in Connecticut holds, and photographs of a young Dr. Opin surrounded by colleagues who, as he’ll tell you with a mix of pride and wistfulness, are mostly gone now. He gestures toward the photo almost every time a name comes up. “He passed. He passed.” A pause. “There are very few of us alive.”
After 60 years, Dr. Perry Opin is one of the oldest full-time practicing orthodontists in the United States.
A Calling, Not a Career
Dr. Opin’s father was an ear, nose, and throat specialist practicing out of the Bronx. His mother was an attorney who stopped practicing when she married. She had opinions about her son’s future: “She was fighting with me. She said, ‘I want you to be a physician like your father.’” Young Perry held firm: “I said no, I want to be an orthodontist.”
He attended college in three years, earned his degree, and was accepted to NYU Dental School, where he graduated in the top five of a class of 177. From there, a two-year military commitment took him to Fort Benning and thrust him, unexpectedly, into orthodontic practice before he’d even gone to graduate school.
The post’s orthodontists had just completed their service and left, and a colonel needed someone to fill the gap. “He called me into his office, and said, ‘You’re going to do orthodontics.’ I said, ‘I haven’t been to school yet.’ He said, ‘You’re going to be an orthodontist.’” Perry’s answer: “Yes, sir.”
He would go on to train under some of the most distinguished figures in the field, including Robert Strang – the first orthodontist in the state of Connecticut – who wrote several foundational texts and was, in Dr. Opin’s estimation, “very, very smart. Very, very old. Almost as old as I am.”
He had every intention of staying in the military. He loved the life. But when the Army wanted him in Vietnam before he could finish his schooling, he made his choice. “I said, it’s been a pleasure, it’s been my great life. I thank you.” And with that, Dr. Opin was on his way to Connecticut.
Finding Milford
The story of how Dr. Opin landed in Milford is, like most of his stories, circuitous and told with pleasure. He was on the wrong highway and stopped to ask for directions in West Haven. He drove up the Post Road and took one look around at the activity, the Sound, the housing stock, and the families who had settled in town. “It was my kind of people,” he says simply. He called his wife and told her he had found his place. That was 1968.
The practice opened on Broad Street – not in its current building, but close enough that you can see the old one from the new. The current location has been home for more than 26 years, and was recently remodeled after an incident involving a runaway car that came through the waiting room. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and the new waiting room – which sits inside a turret of the Victorian-style building – is fresh, welcoming, and replete with natural light.
A Practice Built on People
Seventeen thousand patients and counting. That is the number Dr. Opin offers when the topic turns to the scope of his work. It is a staggering figure – the product of 60 years of treating families, children, and in many cases, second and third generations.
Karen Money, a Milford resident and elementary school teacher who has been coming to the practice for 50 years, stopped in during our interview for a routine appointment. She was in fourth grade when her mother first brought her into the original office across the street. Dr. Opin treated her three children – now 29, 25, and 20 – and she still comes back. “He’s the best,” she says, putting her arm around him. “I’d do anything for him.”
His staff reflects the same loyalty. Four of his seven full-time chairside employees have been with him for over 20 years. One has been there, by her own account, seven years in, seven off, and seven back. One of his staff makes him lunch every day. “She is amazing,” he says, with the sincerity of a man who means it. “Don’t tell her – she hates it when I tell her.”
The Standard-Bearer
Dr. Opin has been awarded the American Association of Orthodontics highest honor, The Brophy Award. He has also received the College of Diplomates of the American Board of Orthodontics Foundation Award, a recognition given out only eight times in the organization’s 35-year history. And he was awarded the American Board of Orthodontics Shepard Award, one of their highest honors.
He holds a certification in craniofacial orthodontics, a credential he earned at the Cooper Clinic in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – the first craniofacial treatment clinic in the United States, founded in 1937. For years, he provided much of the orthodontic work for Yale’s Craniofacial Team, the only practitioner in the region with a formal degree in the specialty. A framed letter from the federal government hangs on the wall of his office; it dates to 1969 and represents his formal recognition in the field.
“I am humbled by the recognition given to me by my colleagues,” he says. “But I still have feet of clay.”
The Innovator
Ask Dr. Opin about technology and he lights up differently – not with nostalgia but with the forward-leaning energy of someone who is still, genuinely, excited about what’s next.
For decades, he has practiced using self-ligating braces – a system in which a small clip, rather than a tie, holds the wire in place. “You open the clip, put the wire in, close the clip, you’re done,” he explains, holding up a model so small you have to lean in to see it. The design is cleaner, faster, and allows for the colored bands that his younger patients love.
More recently, the practice adopted custom bracket formation – a three-dimensional approach in which the face of each bracket is designed to fit the specific surface of each individual patient’s tooth. The process begins with a digital scan of the patient’s mouth, which is sent to a laboratory; the lab returns a proposed bracket placement via digital rendering; Dr. Gary Opin reviews and adjusts those positions, and the finished product arrives in a custom tray that fits precisely over the teeth. “It’s much more accurate,” he says. “And sometimes it’s scary how fast it goes.” Cases that might ordinarily take 24 to 30 months can, in the right circumstances, finish significantly earlier.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
When asked why he continues – why, after six decades, he hasn’t handed the practice off to Gary entirely and gone to restore more antique cars (one of his many hobbies outside the office) – Dr. Opin’s answer is the same one he has always given. “My son is the reason I’ve been able to work in orthodontics as long as I have. We share diagnostic and treatment plans for every patient. Patients love him and his soft demeanor. He is the perfect son.”
About the work itself, Dr. Opin is clear about its draw: “I love what I do for two major reasons.” He counts them off. “One, you get to meet people you would have never met. Two, when you get done, everybody loves you. And you didn’t cut them. They didn’t bleed. There’s no hurt involved.”
He pauses, looks around at the operatory, at the models on the shelves, at the photograph of Robert Strang and his young orthodontic classmates of who were, for a moment, all alive at once.
“I am glad to say I love it,” he says. “I’ve truly been so lucky.”
“When I was twelve I knew I wanted to be an orthodontist.”
Dr. Perry Opin practices orthodontics alongside his son, Dr. Gary Opin, at their office, Opin Wide! Orthodontics, located at 266 S Broad Street. He has been serving the Milford community since 1968.