ON A Friday evening, when most people are racing through traffic and tapping their steering wheels with impatience, Dr. Michael Vaughan was driving home with a different feeling entirely. The week had been full, the kind that leaves a person tired but satisfied that good work had been achieved.
For more than three decades, Vaughan has built a career around that sense of purpose. He graduated from dental school in 1991 and gravitated early toward anesthesiology rotations, drawn to the way sedation could transform a frightening experience into a manageable one.
Now, he spends four days a week in Nashville, and one day each week in Lebanon, providing sedation dentistry for patients living with trauma histories, post-traumatic stress disorder, and complex dental phobias. For many, stepping into a dental office triggers panic before the exam chair ever reclines. Vaughan understands that better than most.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF DENTISTRY
The roots of dental fear run deep in the profession’s history. Dentistry, he said, has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. There was a time when some dentists rushed procedures, overlooked the patient’s discomfort, or pushed through treatment even when the anesthesia hadn’t fully taken hold. Those memories linger in the collective imagination, passed down through family stories and reinforced by a single bad childhood experience.
Vaughan’s approach rests on a different foundation — patience, consent, and adapting to the individual needs of the person sitting in front of him. Sedation, whether through light oral medication or moderate IV anesthesia, is a tool he uses to create a sense of safety. It slows the heart rate, quiets panic, and allows patients who might otherwise avoid the dentist entirely to receive care without distress.
His guiding principle is simple — the dentist adapts to the patient, not the other way around. That mindset has shaped his work since residency. During his training at Vanderbilt, he met Dr. Theresa Larkins, whose approach to care left an impression on him. Their friendship lasted more than 30 years. When she retired, he stepped into her facility, continuing the work she shaped and preserving the calming environment she designed. The office even won a design award under Larkins’ leadership for its intuitive, patient-first layout, something Vaughan said contributes to the uniquely welcoming atmosphere.
LIFE AT HOME
Vaughan lives in Mt. Juliet with his wife, Carla, and their three adopted children, the oldest of whom is 13. The household is lively in the way families with preteen and teenage energy tend to be — full of practices, games, music rehearsals, and constant transportation logistics. Football, basketball, and band concerts fill up evenings and weekends.
He and Carla met years before this chapter of life took shape. In 1999, they served together on a medical mission trip to Brazil. They stayed friends long after the trip ended, building a connection that grew before they married in 2011. Those mission trips shaped more than just their relationship; they helped define Vaughan’s understanding of service. He has led medical missions in Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, and inner-city Nashville through Generation Changers Church, bringing practical dental care to communities that often go without.
Despite the full schedule, he prefers a quieter personal life. He enjoys, as he put it, “flying under the radar,” savoring long walks and hikes in local state parks where he can step out of the noise of daily demands.
A TEAM THAT WORKS LIKE A FAMILY
Not solely focused on sedation, Vaughan works closely with Jenny Tran to provide comprehensive family dental care. Together, they treat patients across ages and stages of life, from routine cleanings to more advanced procedures.
Serenity Dental, he said, has become one of the best places he has ever worked. Much of that is due to the legacy left by Dr. Larkins, who built the space with intentionality and warmth. Patients sense it when they walk in. Staff members feel it every day.
Nearly 35 years after graduating from dental school, Vaughan has become the kind of clinician who sees beyond the procedure. Dentistry could have simply been his profession. Instead, it has become a way to stand beside people when they need gentleness most.
His life today is not flashy or loud. It is made up of clinic days, drives home through Tennessee light, evenings at ball games, mission memories, and weekend hikes on shaded trails. It is a life shaped by faith, family, and the quiet belief that people deserve care that meets them where they are.
And for the patients who rely on him — those who once feared the dental chair, or who thought sedation dentistry wasn’t meant for them — Dr. Michael Vaughan is proof that compassion matters. That healing doesn’t always begin with a procedure. Sometimes it starts with a dentist who listens. GN
