Lasting Impressions | Fall 2015

12 © NSU LASTING IMPRESSIONS Student Impressions Like many children, Daniella Godoy didn’t like brushing or flossing her teeth, and she still winces when thinking about her pediatric dentist. But growing up in a “dental home” in Venezuela, she didn’t have much say in the matter. Both her parents were dentists, and some of her earliest mem- ories revolve around teeth. “My dad’s a maxillofacial prosthodontist, and whenever he would put presentations together for lectures, I would sit with him and he would practice with me—a 5- or 6-year-old little girl seeing these cases. It always amazed me how you could change somebody’s life just by putting a smile on their face,” said Godoy, whose mother, Mairelina Godoy, D.D.S., is a retired dentist who practiced more than 16 years in Venezuela and is now on the staff at NSU’s College of Dental Medicine, coordinating the extra- mural rotations for the fourth-year dental students. Her father, Antonio Godoy, D.D.S., is a professor at the college. From an early age, Godoy knew she would follow her parents into the field. As she put it, “I never considered another option. I knew dentistry was what I wanted.” She immigrated to the United States at age 17, attend- ing Erie Community College in Buffalo and then the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Dental Lab Science. She decided to continue her dental education at NSU’s College of Dental Medicine to be near her parents, who moved to Florida in 2007. But the CDM impressed her on its own. “I fell in love with the facilities. The faculty Dental Care Has Never Been Far from Daniella Godoy’s Family Life BY JOHN THOMASON