Lasting Impressions | Fall 2016

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 19 interpreter smiled and said, ‘I think she is married.’ ” Later, the two talked in the bu et line. “We took a photo with her and her friend,” he said. But he gured that was the end of their story. “Later, the interpreter told me, ‘I have good news and bad news.’ ” “What’s the good news?” Ben Johnson asked. “I was mistaken. She’s not married,” the interpreter replied. “What’s the bad news?” Ben Johnson asked. “It’s the last day of the confer- ence,” the interpreter responded. Not to be deterred, Ben Johnson arranged to be seated next to his future wife at the conference’s closing night dinner dance. eir initial conversation was mainly “nouns and verbs” because of language di culties, but the two shared life stories and interests—his, hunting and shing, and hers, ballroom dancing. When they rst married, graduate school was not on the agenda, Ben Johnson said. e couple traveled, and Eugenia Johnson became acclimated to life in Tulsa. But happy as she was, she missed her profession, mainly because she had been well established in her birth country and had worked hard to attain success. “Many in my family were teachers and engineers. It was very prestigious to be a doctor,” Eugenia Johnson said, explaining that in Soviet Russia, the better the profession, the more pres- tige a orded you and your family. “I wanted to be either a teacher or a doctor. I applied to medical school and dental school,” she said. A er earning 100 percent on one portion of the exam, she quali ed to immediately go into the Russian dental program. “I was over the moon,” she said. “I know I am a lucky person, but I worked hard. Russian school is free, but you pay for tutors. A er you graduate, you have to work for the government for a couple of years. I was selected to work in a nice Russian Academy of Science clinic. en you had to choose di erent clinics or open your own clinic.” She and a colleague opened a clinic that they ran for about eight years before she moved to the United States. “I was a successful dentist in Moscow. I was quite ambitious and wanted to continue in the United States. I applied to several schools, and one of the schools was Nova Southeastern University’s College of Dental Medicine,” said Johnson, adding that meeting several CDM professors helped her make her selection. Despite her many years of profes- sional experience, starting over again was daunting. “It wasn’t a smooth road,” she said. “I wasn’t a young student. Being a foreigner and in a di erent school, it was a cultural and emotional shock. It was quite challeng- ing using a foreign language to express myself, because I had to give presenta- tions in English.” She said her Russian school and NSU educational experiences resem- bled one another in most ways but one. “It was very similar, but with a signi cant di erence: I didn’t use a microscope in Russia. It was truly the most noticeable in uence working with a microscope. It was like the American dream.” During the two-year CDM program, Johnson performed research under Adam Lloyd, B.D.S., M.S., who is now chair of the Department of Endodon- tics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Ben and Eugenia Johnson live in Oklahoma. Ben and Eugenia Johnson share an active life that includes travel.