New Dentist Spotlight

Why dentistry?
Dentistry provides the perfect combination of science, teaching and artistry! Plus, it is a profession dedicated to serving and helping others! I also enjoy collaborating with and learning from other professionals to promote overall health and wellness for patients. My favorite part about being a dentist are the relationships I’m able to make with patients and their families. Every child is unique and I’m always fascinated with their individual stories and interests!

What have you been doing outside of dentistry to stay well / healthy / sane?
Outside of dentistry I enjoy reading, yoga, trying new restaurants, and spending quality time with family and friends. I also enjoy long walks around our neighborhood in the city and watching all the cute dogs on their morning strolls. If I’m lucky, I find a friendly one (or two) to pet!

What is your “normal” day in the office? How do you practice and what is your focus?
You can find me planning and performing comprehensive treatment for children often with compromised or special health care needs at either the hospital’s outpatient clinic in Lincoln Park or operating room downtown. I also take emergency call, so trips to the hospital’s 24/7 Dunkin’ Donuts are a must for a refreshing iced tea and sweet treat following a spontaneous trauma case! 

What is your “ideal" day in the office? 
My “ideal” day at the office consists of interactions with confident and cheerful patients who at one point may have been nervous to be cared for by a dentist. I also enjoy case discussions and learning from our knowledgeable and supportive attending dentists. Healthy smiles, lots of laughter, and coffee dates with co-residents and staff also make for an “ideal” day at the office! 

In terms of CE, what have you found to be of most value in your career?
Being a recent graduate, I’m fairly new to the wondrous world of CE. But as a resident with a busy schedule, I appreciate courses that are recorded and free of cost for later viewing. Recently, my favorite time to listen to dental podcasts and CE have been in the mornings while sipping hot tea and getting ready for work! 

What do you look forward to in the coming year - In dentistry? Outside of dentistry?
I’m excited and grateful for the learning opportunities of pediatric residency where it’s my goal to absorb as much as I can to provide top quality care to all the patients I meet. I’m also grateful to once again serve on the New Dentist Committee. Over the years, I’ve met so many mentors through my involvement with ISDS. Without them I wouldn’t have the excitement for organized dentistry that I do today. I’d like to say thank you to these mentors and the ISDS Foundation for all of the help and support. Their contributions have made such a positive impact on my journey to becoming a pediatric dentist!  

Outside of dentistry, I’m hoping to catch a performance of the Nutcracker at Joffrey Ballet this Christmas season and visit the Chicago Art Institute. 

Why dentistry?
The reason I chose dentistry as a profession is because of the experience I had being a patient in the dental chair. When I was just 11 years old, I was hit in the mouth with a baseball the day after getting my braces placed. My parents, not knowing what to do, brought me to my orthodontist. My orthodontist called an oral surgeon and before I knew it, I had an oral surgeon, orthodontist, and family dentist working on me at 9 o’clock at night. Shadowing different dentists and seeing other specialties throughout the years solidified my passion of pursuing dentistry. 

What have you been doing outside of dentistry to stay well / healthy / sane?
During school, I have found a lot of happiness in spending time with my three siblings, parents and girlfriend. Usually this time revolves around eating great food and having a drink. I also spend a lot of time following the White Sox and Packers. 

What is your “normal” day in the office? How do you practice and what is your focus?
My normal day at school is wake up and take the “L” to school where I arrive around 8:00 AM. I spend some time taking a look at what I have during the day for each patient and check emails. We usually see 1-2 patients in the morning then 1-2 patients in the afternoon. During lunch, I often eat at the college with friends and share stories about we were doing that day or week. At about 4:30 PM when the patients have left, I do any lab work and homework that needs to be done. I try to sneak a work out in and then come home to make dinner. If all goes well, I am done early and can watch some Netflix before bed!

What is your “ideal" day in the office? 
My ideal day at school is when all the patients for the day show up. It is always a good feeling when things go your way in school, and it feels like the work you are doing is accumulating to success. My ideal day at the office in the future would be having enough time between patients to catch up and see how everything is going for them. In addition, every patient would leave the office feeling better than they did coming in. 

What do you look forward to in the coming year - In dentistry? Outside of dentistry?
In dentistry, I am looking forward to feeling my skills get better every day at school. I am excited to continue learning and see myself grow as a student dentist. Outside of dentistry, I am excited to see things continue to get back to normal and people, hopefully, continue to be healthy and happy. 

Why dentistry?
I grew up watching my dad practice dentistry, and even though I didn’t have any strong desire to fix teeth as a kid, I recognized that dentistry provided the opportunity to have a great lifestyle. It seemed like he had pretty good hours, was always able to take time off and go on vacation as a family, and he was a respected member of our community. In hindsight, I’m not sure how he did such a good job hiding the stressful parts of dentistry from us! I always knew I had a job opportunity in the family business, so even though I briefly considered exploring other passions in college, I decided that dentistry would likely provide me with the best quality of life. 5 years in and I’m confident I made the right decision!

What have you been doing outside of dentistry to stay well / healthy / sane?
I try to travel as much as possible. I love being able to research a destination that excites me, put together an itinerary, and then explore it in person with my husband and whoever else is lucky enough to get an invite! Covid has put a damper on my international traveling, but we’ve still managed to do a lot of exploring even since then. We love visiting our national parks and I’m glad to see that more people are discovering that we have these amazing world-class destinations within our borders. 

When I’m not traveling, I play a lot of video games. I find they really help me relax after a tough day and do a great job distracting my mind from “replaying” whatever happened that day that’s bothering me. Last year I got back into World of Warcraft and I’ve really appreciated getting that social interaction from playing together with a group of people when we had so many other social opportunities restricted.

What is your “normal” day in the office? How do you practice and what is your focus?
My typical day at the office consists of two or three high production procedures (same day crowns, endo, implants), interspersed with fillings, extractions, denture visits, emergency exams, and new patient exams. I usually have 2-3 hygiene columns (more like 2 now since the great labor shortage began). We utilize hygienists as assistants that are also trained as expanded function assistants, which really helps our productivity. They numb most of the patients and place a significant number of our restorations (more than half). 

I don’t usually take a break in the middle of the day, but that’s more because I do mostly afternoons/evenings or just half day mornings. My longest day is 7 hours straight, most of my working days are more like 5 hours of patient care.

What is your “ideal" day in the office?
My ideal day at the office would be one where every patient accepts and follows through on our treatment recommendations without pushback, everyone on our team is embodying our core values, and we stay on or ahead of schedule! 

In terms of CE, what have you found to be of most value in your career?
As far as specific procedures, probably my favorite thing is to do a same day smile makeover with my Cerec. I think doing #7-#10 crowns/veneers chairside is one of the most dramatic reveals in dentistry and I love the instant gratification for the patient we can do in just a few hours. It’s one of the only procedures that patients can get a sense of joy from dentistry, instead of just hoping that it’s quick and relatively painless. 

What do you look forward to in the coming year - In dentistry? Outside of dentistry?
I’ve taken pretty much every course offered by Gordon Christensen I took a good endo course with Cliff Ruddle that helped me get comfortable with molar endo. I’m a sucker for financial management advice, I love reading the McGill-Hill newsletter and listening to their speakers. 

We recently started an expansion of our practice building (adding a few operatories and more office space), so I’m excited to see that project become reality. Long term we’d love to add an associate to help with our patient load - if anyone reading this is interested in an awesome job opportunity let me know!

On the personal front, I spent the last year coming up with plans to build a house so hopefully that takes shape within the next year as well. Lots of building going on in my life!