Lasting Impressions | Fall 2016

ese behavioral necessities can have a major e ect on children’s future lives as patients. Saltz doesn’t normally get to see children during Give Kids A Smile, but his lone patient last year stands out in this respect. “He was very nervous at the beginning of his visit,” Saltz recalled. “He was crying when he rst arrived with his brother. When I saw that his brother was pretty calm and relaxed, I had the brother go through the procedure rst. We used the ‘tell, show, do’ technique, and he saw that his brother went through it ne. I encouraged him to ‘Be the hero for your brother that I know you can be.’ By the end of the procedure, his little brother jumped in the chair and was all ready to go,” Saltz said. “His mom asked him at the end of the appointment, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And he said, ‘I want to be a dentist,’ ” Saltz added. “To get a child to go from completely anxious in the chair, clinging to his mom, to now trying on my loupes at the end of the appointment because he thought it was so cool is impres- sive. You’re not only engaging with kids on a treatment basis; you have the power to shape their whole livelihood.” Give Kids A Smile also in uences the dental students’ futures. Saltz hopes to launch a practice in periodontics, a eld he said “bridges the gap between oral health and medicine.” As for Puri, a native of Denmark who moved to the United States to attend college, her experience with Give Kids A Smile has had a signi cant impact on her career plans. “I enjoy the behavioral portion of it but also the educational aspect,” she said. “ ese children are scared, and I want to be able to have an impact on them. In one of our clinics, I was working with a patient who was autistic. He was hesitant to do anything at all. We were able to pass over that barrier for him, and it was an amazing opportu- nity. e biggest part for me was when his mother started crying because he had never been so good at the dentist before. It got me really emotional. I knew then that this is what I wanted to do.” NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 43 For more information about Give Kids A Smile , or to make an appointment, call (407) 391-KIDS. Give Kids A Smile , launched nationally by the American Dental Association in 2003, is one of the world’s largest oral health charitable programs. Annually, it provides dental care to more than 350,000 children from low-income families across the country. Opposite page: At far left, Dean Linda C. Niessen with Alberto Noguera, D.D.S., and dental student Robert Johnson; center, John Aylmer, D.M.D., with one of the medical students (wearing a vest showing detachable internal organs to help teach kids about health and wellness); and, left, dental students Adam Saltz and Divya Puri plan the 2017 Give Kids A Smile Day.