Mellow is the theme at the downtown Bangkok Dental Spa, where nervous patients can choose from three waiting areas offering soft seating, indirect lighting and Thai traditional motifs.

During the treatment, a foot massage eases anxiety and is followed by a short neck and head massage when the dental work is complete to restore calm.

About a year ago, Dr Watchareewon 'Lily' Porncharoen was in the middle of a long and complex procedure on a patient from Hawaii who suddenly felt he could not close his jaws.

Dr Lily, who had been practising dentistry for close to 20 years, told her assistant to massage the man's neck and face.

The assistant said: 'How can I massage him? I'm a dental assistant.'

So Dr Lily did it herself, and in seconds the man's muscles relaxed and all was well.

Dr Lily, who was trained in Thailand but is well-travelled and something of a connoisseur of spas, opened the Bangkok Dental Spa with an investment of 25 million baht (just over S$1 million).

The spa has five dental treatment rooms and two massage rooms designed by a patient/friend who designs luxury resorts for a living.

Most of her patients are foreigners and she gets regular calls from overseas from people planning a trip to Bangkok.

A simple teeth-cleaning procedure costs 1,500 baht - with the foot massage thrown in. Her visitors' book is filled with glowing comments and promises to return.

According to Dr Lily, a good massage releases endorphins and blunts the release of stress hormones in patients.

'Nervous patients are hard to work with,' she told The Straits Times.

The constant gentle-but-firm rhythm of the foot massage coupled with soothing piped music has a calming effect to offset noisy and jarring activity inside a patient's mouth.

Dr Lily plans to expand her business to Phuket, Chiang Mai and Koh Samui, but beyond expanding the business she is especially passionate and proud of one thing - being a professional Thai woman in a generally male-dominated society, proving she can provide state-of-the-art international standard service.

'Asian women have been stereotyped as too passive and under-achieving, and perceived to be better workers than leaders,' she said.

'But there is enough room to succeed. You need hard work and guts tempered with humility, and you have to always keep up with technical developments.

'We have our own roots, our own tradition. The US and Europe can't compare with Asia when it comes to hospitality.

'They may be better than us in technology but technology is not the most important thing.

'What's very important is humility.'