Not Just a Dentist: A New Grad’s Journey Into Oral Health Leadership and Dentistry’s Hidden Frontiers
Entering dental school, I pictured myself graduating and doing smile makeovers, holding a handpiece daily, and one day owning a thriving private practice. I never imagined I’d be scrubbed into an operating room, treating medically complex patients under general anesthesia shoulder-to-shoulder with Otolaryngologists, Oncologists, Microvascular surgeons, Plastic surgeons, Cardiothoracic teams, Anesthesiologists, and many other medical specialists. I didn’t expect to walk into nursing homes to care for our aging adults or to sit on a hospital task force with a team of nurses, physicians, and speech language pathologists helping develop an oral care protocol to prevent hospital-acquired pneumonia. I certainly didn’t expect to be teaching so soon—yet that’s where this journey has taken me.
In just a few short years from graduating dental school, completing a General Practice Residency (GPR) and Hospital Dentistry Fellowship, I’ve practiced in elegant private practices, hospital emergency rooms and OR’s, skilled nursing facilities, private homes, and academic halls. My days have ranged from routine exams, fillings and crowns to critical care consults, extractions, as well as teaching and consulting. Along the way, I’ve discovered something far more important than any procedure: the full scope and power of our dental degree.
To the new or soon-to-be dental graduate, I want to say this: you don’t have to specialize to do special things. Your degree is more versatile than you may realize. Hospital dentistry, OR cases, teaching, public health consulting, advocacy, community outreach, even interdisciplinary collaboration with medicine—these are not out-of-reach goals. They are very real, often underserved paths where dentists are deeply needed.
What opened these doors for me was a willingness to say “yes” to unfamiliar opportunities and a passion for seeing oral health as part of something bigger. Through hospital work, I saw firsthand how many of our medical colleagues have little to no training in oral health—despite working with patients whose outcomes are directly affected by it. While institutions increasingly recognize the importance of oral care, few have the knowledge or resources to act on it—and even fewer dentists are stepping into those roles. At Stanford Hospital, I had the opportunity to consult on developing oral care protocols as part of an interdisciplinary effort to prevent complications like ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in the ICU. I now teach part-time at my alma mater, University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry, which allows me to not only give back but help shape the future of our profession by preparing students to think beyond the operatory. Every time I care for a patient in a skilled nursing facility or discuss oral-systemic health with medical colleagues, I’m reminded that dentistry has no ceiling—only the ones we accept.
To my more experienced colleagues reading this: your work and wisdom have laid the foundation for all of us. But I also believe your legacy can grow even deeper. Your knowledge is needed not just at the chairside, but in classrooms, community initiatives, hospital committees, research teams, and leadership roles. Teaching one day a week, mentoring a younger colleague, helping shape oral health policy—these are not career changes, they’re extensions of your existing impact.
What if retirement didn’t mean stepping away, but stepping forward in a different way? What if we all began to ask, “What else can my dental degree do?”
The truth is, dentistry today needs both bold new energy and seasoned guidance. Our profession sits at a crossroads with broader healthcare, and we have the power—and the responsibility—to lead. Whether it’s preventing aspiration pneumonia in hospitals, integrating oral care into special care facilities, or educating the next wave of dentists, we all have a part to play.
Let this be an invitation—to explore, to mentor, to push the boundaries of what it means to be a dentist, an oral physician and an oral healthcare leader. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve found immense purpose in walking paths I didn’t even know existed when I received my diploma. I’ve found immense fulfillment in stepping into spaces where oral healthcare is often overlooked. As a mentor once told me, “There are gaps in society that few people want to fill. Fill one of those and you have truly reaped the value of your education.”
So, whether you’re just beginning your career or decades in, I ask you to reflect: What else can your dental degree do?
