Lasting Impressions | Fall 2015

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 39 Working at the CDM for 10 years, Premovic says she now understands why her first supervisor described dis- pensing as the core of the predoctoral clinic. That “little cubicle,” as Premovic calls the dispensing area, houses all the materials that the students need to perform their daily procedures on patients. And, Premovic gets to know the students as they visit on a regular basis to col- lect what they need. “You make connections. We become like a family,” she said. “They come to the window and they may cry, or they have had a hard day, or they may tell me the crown didn’t fit. You are a shoulder to cry on. I feel like ‘mom’ to them.” For the students who are just learning, Premovic is the one who often helps them figure out just what it is they need. “Sometimes they come and say they need that green cement thing,” Premovic said with a chuckle. “I tell them, ‘Let’s start from the beginning. What exactly are you doing?’ Then I get them what they need.” LEARNING ON THE JOB Everything she knows about dental materials and dispensing has been learned on the job. Premovic was new to the field of dentistry when she took the job at NSU. “I learned everything the hard way,” she said. “I am still learning every day.” Today, Premovic knows every inch of her dispensing area and rarely comes across a request she cannot answer. “I am very resourceful. I find my way,” she said. That has been true her whole life. Premovic grew up on a farm in what was then Yugoslavia. She remembers it as a beautiful country where she enjoyed a wonderful family life and a good education. Still, when she came to the United States for a visit in 1989, she never left. “I had one visa, got a second visa, and then an extension. Then I decided to stay,” she said. She soon met and married Mike, now her husband. They have been married 25 years and have two children, Bojana, 22, and Danilo, 19. Premovic says she cherishes her family and is thankful that she could stay home while her children were growing up. When her children were older, Premovic decided to take a dental assistant training course. She received a certificate and then scoured the newspapers for a job. “I just decided I was to going to work. It was one of those mad moments, I guess,” she laughed. She applied for the job at the NSU dental clinic and, in 2005, started her work in dispensing. Since then, Premovic has made it her job to improve dispensing and help create a system that functions better and faster for faculty members and students. While things have continually changed throughout the years, the one constant is Premovic’s dedication to the students and the CDM. Sharon Siegel, D.D.S., M.S., professor and chair of the CDM Department of Prosthodontics, has worked closely with Premovic during the past decade and says both the faculty and students are lucky to have her. “We couldn’t do our jobs without her,” Siegel said. “She has NSU CDM’s best interests at heart in everything she does. I don’t know a more dedicated, conscientious employee. She makes sure all the materials are up to date,’’ Siegel added. “If she doesn’t understand something, she takes the time to visit faculty members to ask questions and make sure we get exactly what we need. Plus, she is always smiling and has a great attitude. The students love her and the faculty loves her.” Premovic is humble, Siegel added. “She does all this from a place of conscientiousness and has an ethic of hard work, not because she wants kudos or awards. She truly takes pride in her job and in doing well for the university.” For Premovic, some of the highlights of the past 10 years have come at times when she was able to offer something more than dental materials. She remembered running into a first-year student who was feeling very stressed. “He said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I told him, ‘You can definitely do this. You are here for a reason. You’ve already conquered a lot just by getting into this school. You can totally do this.’ ” The student went on to finish all four years, plus a spe- cialty in endodontics. “Those are the important moments for me,” Premovic said. u “She has NSU CDM’s best interests at heart in everything she does. I don’t know a more dedicated, conscientious employee.” —Sharon Siegel, D.D.S., M.S.