In 1961, two dentists, Dr. Charles Armstrong and Dr. John Watson, broke ground for an office at Third Avenue and Walnut Avenue in San Diego. That is the account Park West Dental Group gave of its own beginnings on an “About Us” page the Internet Archive saved in 2018. The page said the two doctors cared for “many families and their families” before handing the practice to a younger dentist. It also said that over the years, many generations of families had come through the office.
The address is still 315 Walnut Avenue, the phone number is still (619) 297-2954, and the office is still a dental practice. Since November 2017, the State of California has listed it as “Park West Dental Group, Office of Quan Ma and Tom Bierman.” Its current owners are two dentists who came to San Diego from the East Coast. Their practice website reads in part like a volunteer résumé: a cleft-care clinic in Ensenada, a student-run free clinic at UC San Diego, mission trips to Central America and the Caribbean. Their predecessor’s record pointed the same way. This is the story of one Uptown address across three generations of owners, and of a habit of service that seems to have come along with the building.
This feature was written from public records, archived web pages, the practice’s own published materials and other public sources. Dentist News Today did not interview Dr. Ma, Dr. Bierman or their staff, and coverage is never paid.
Three blocks from the park
The 300 block of Walnut Avenue sits in the city’s Uptown planning area, which the city divides into five neighborhoods: Mission Hills, Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, Park West and University Heights. Bankers Hill is also known as Park West and was once called Florence Heights. Its name comes from its old reputation as a home for affluent families. Many of its houses date to the late 19th century, and early-20th-century architects including Irving Gill, William Hebbard, Richard Requa and Hazel Waterman designed homes there. Balboa Park forms its eastern edge, and from Third Avenue the park’s western boundary at Sixth Avenue is three blocks away.
Hillcrest, the neighborhood just to the north, was a mesa covered in chaparral until real estate development began in 1910. It was largely built out by 1920 and is known today as the center of San Diego’s LGBTQ community and for its locally owned businesses. The Hillcrest sign over University Avenue was photographed in 2003 by the roadside-architecture photographer John Margolies, whose archive is now in the Library of Congress.
The Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts about 34,800 residents in ZIP code 92103. The median age is about 41 and the median household income is roughly $102,600. Nearly 65 percent of households rent, and about 27 percent of workers work from home.
The torch, documented
The practice’s archived pages give unusual detail about how the office changed hands. Dr. Peter Shaw earned a biology degree from Cornell and graduated from the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine with high honors in 1979, according to his archived biography. He started practicing in San Diego in 1981 as a part-time associate of Dr. Charles B. Armstrong while teaching full-time at Loma Linda University’s dental school. He became Armstrong’s partner in 1985 and sole owner in 1989. (The practice’s history page gives 1982 as the year the original doctors “passed the torch,” a small difference from his biography.) His biography said he had taught dentistry since graduating and later ran his own courses in the United States and abroad. It also described him as an advisor and founder of the Rotary Thousand Smiles Foundation, and said he retired from clinical dentistry at the start of 2017.
The 2018 website listed a bridge generation as well. Dr. Stephen Tornay, a native San Diegan with a DDS from Emory University (1985), had joined in 2008 and listed advanced training at the Dawson Institute, the Kois Center, Spear Education and the Pankey Institute. Dr. George Crow, a board-certified periodontist, completed a general practice residency at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and periodontics training at the Naval Postgraduate Dental School in Bethesda. The same site already introduced Ma and Bierman as the dentists carrying the practice forward.
State records fix the date. The Dental Board issued fictitious-name permit No. 13867, “Park West Dental Group, Office of Quan Ma and Tom Bierman,” on November 8, 2017, as a partnership at 315 Walnut Avenue. It is current through March 2028, and both dentists also hold active office permits for the address. One testimonial on the practice’s current homepage comes from a patient who says they have been coming to Park West since 1966.
“The doctors truly believe in service over self and they try to live that as much as possible.” Community Outreach page, Park West Dental Group (archived 2018)
Two friends from the East Coast
Dr. Quan Ma, DMD, grew up in Pennsylvania, went to Gettysburg College and earned his DMD at Temple University in Philadelphia in 2007, according to the practice. He started his career in the Washington, D.C., area. His 2018 biography said he took about 800 hours of continuing-education classes there, including comprehensive courses at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the University of Oregon. California issued his license, No. 62908, in August 2013. He belongs to the ADA, the CDA, the San Diego County Dental Society, the Academy of General Dentistry and the Academy of Sports Dentistry. His current biography says he provides dental injury coverage for San Diego FC, the Major League Soccer club that plays at Snapdragon Stadium in Mission Valley, about 3.75 miles from the office in a straight line.
Dr. Thomas Bierman, DDS, grew up in Iowa and, according to his archived biography, graduated from the University of Iowa College of Dentistry. He then went to the Washington, D.C., area and worked for what the practice called the largest dental group practice in the region, where he took hundreds of hours of continuing education and went on dental mission trips to Central America and the Caribbean. California licensed him in September 2013. The practice calls Ma his good friend, and the pair also run a second office, San Diego Dental Studio, on Flanders Drive in San Diego.
A third dentist, Dr. Samara Alghazali, DMD, grew up in Jordan. She earned a biology degree at San Diego State University and a master’s in molecular medicine, then her DMD at Roseman University College of Dental Medicine. Both owners’ licenses are current and active with no public disciplinary actions.
Service over self
The practice’s community page names its volunteer work outright. It lists Rotary’s Thousand Smiles clinic and a children’s dental program in Ensenada, plus an annual toy drive for an Ensenada orphanage. It names service trips to the Dominican Republic with the Temple University and University of Florida dental schools, and Vida Volunteer Travel trips to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The 2018 version added free-clinic days in Fredericksburg, Woodbridge and Manassas, Virginia, from the doctors’ East Coast years. In San Diego it lists Share the Care, Team Smile, the Salvation Army Door of Hope, an Urban Street Angels program for homeless youth, and outreach for the San Diego Coastal Rotary Club, which Ma joined.
Thousand Smiles is the oldest thread. Rotarians founded it in 1985, and it holds clinics in Ensenada, Baja California, where volunteer surgeons, dentists, hygienists and dental students donate their time. Rotary District 5340 estimates the foundation has served more than 20,000 dental patients and 2,000 surgical patients, and says all dental services at the clinic are free. The foundation acquired a dedicated facility in Ensenada in 2002. Today Ma’s biography lists the clinic among his regular volunteer work. In 2018 the practice’s site described Shaw, the man who handed him the practice, as one of its founders.
The other long-running commitment is closer to home. According to the 2018 site, both Ma and Bierman took volunteer appointments as clinical instructors in UC San Diego’s Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, working in the Pre-Dental Society’s student-run free dental clinic. The free dental clinics are part of the UC San Diego Student-Run Free Clinic Project, whose first site opened in January 1997 at a Pacific Beach church. A 2021 UC San Diego Today story said its dental arm had grown to four sites, in Lemon Grove, at Veterans Village off Pacific Highway, in Pacific Beach and downtown. It serves families without health coverage, veterans and other underserved patients. Ma’s 2018 biography described the role as a chance to help future dentists learn while caring for low-income patients in San Diego.
Why continuity is getting rarer
National data help explain why a lineage like this one is worth noting. The American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute reports that 72.5 percent of U.S. dentists owned their practices in 2023, down from 84.7 percent in 2005. A 2025 HPI brief found that dentists who graduated after 2010 are becoming owners later in their careers than earlier generations did. Ma and Bierman bought into an established office as partners, and they kept both its name and its address. The name was not a brand they invented. It came from the neighborhood.
What patients get
Park West Dental Group describes itself as a general, cosmetic and implant practice. Its website lists cleanings, fillings, root canals, crowns, bridges and dentures, gum-disease treatment, TMJ treatment, whitening, veneers, Invisalign and dental implants. The practice says the team goes over costs and payment options before treatment begins. It works with employer direct-reimbursement plans and offers Cherry financing, and its office manager handles benefit questions.
Questions patients ask
What are the office hours?
The contact page lists Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and closed Saturday and Sunday. The phone number is (619) 297-2954.
Does the office take insurance or Medi-Cal?
The practice does not publish a list of insurance plans or say whether it takes Medi-Cal Dental. It says its office manager can explain benefits and that it works with direct-reimbursement plans and Cherry financing.
Where exactly is it?
The office is at 315 Walnut Ave., San Diego, CA 92103, in Uptown between Hillcrest and Bankers Hill, three blocks west of Balboa Park’s Sixth Avenue edge.
Does the office treat sports injuries or jaw pain?
TMJ treatment is on the service list. Dr. Ma is a member of the Academy of Sports Dentistry and, according to the practice, provides dental injury coverage for San Diego FC.
Sources
- About Us (practice history), archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Dr. Peter Shaw, archived March 24, 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Dr. Stephen Tornay, archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Dr. George Crow, archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Dr. Thomas Bierman, archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Dr. Quan Ma, archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Community Outreach, archived 2018, Park West Dental Group via Internet Archive
- Park West Dental Group, Park West Dental Group
- Dr. Quan Ma, Park West Dental Group
- Dr. Thomas Bierman, Park West Dental Group
- Dr. Samara Alghazali, Park West Dental Group
- Community Outreach, Park West Dental Group
- Contact, Park West Dental Group
- Financing Options, Park West Dental Group
- Permit details: Park West Dental Group, Office of Quan Ma and Tom Bierman (FNP 13867), Dental Board of California / Department of Consumer Affairs, checked Nov 9, 2026
- License details: Ma, Quan T (Dentist 62908), Dental Board of California / Department of Consumer Affairs
- License details: Bierman, Thomas Frank (Dentist 62967), Dental Board of California / Department of Consumer Affairs, checked Nov 9, 2026
- NPI 1417152430: Quan Ma, CMS NPI Registry
- NPI 1508095746: Thomas Bierman, CMS NPI Registry
- A Brief History of Thousand Smiles, Rotary District 5340
- UC San Diego Student-Run Free Clinic Project, Wikipedia
- Student-run free dental clinic flourishes under leadership of Irwin Silverstein, UC San Diego Today, March 18, 2021
- Hillcrest, San Diego, Wikipedia
- Bankers Hill, San Diego, Wikipedia
- Hillcrest Arch, San Diego, California (John Margolies Roadside America archive), Library of Congress
- Dental Practice Research, American Dental Association Health Policy Institute
- HPI: Younger dentists still become practice owners, just later in careers, ADA News, June 17, 2025
- ZCTA 92103 profile (ACS 2020–2024 5-year), Census Reporter / U.S. Census Bureau
- Census Geocoder: 315 Walnut Ave, San Diego, CA 92103, U.S. Census Bureau
- OpenStreetMap (coordinates used for straight-line distances), OpenStreetMap contributors
