NSU CDM Lasting Impressions Spring 2019

NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | 31 Miami Children’s Hospital shortly after she graduated from Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Opa-Locka, Florida. “I like to work with my hands, and I get to work with different people,” she said. “I’m changing people’s lives—their smiles— and it also has to do with health.” After Mendigutia receives her D.M.D. in May, she plans to practice in her parents’ office, New Family Dentistry in Hialeah, Florida. “My day care was my dad’s dental office,” she said with a laugh. A childhood witnessing how dentists respond to their patients motivated her to major in psychol- ogy in addition to microbiology/immunology as she earned her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Miami. NON-SCARE TACTICS “There is a huge people aspect to this job,” Mendigu- tia said. “For a lot of people, the dentist’s chair is a very scary place.” She wanted to better understand what makes people afraid and strategize ways to help patients overcome it, she said. “I was thinking, once you understand the source, you could reduce the fear and make the dentist’s office a happier place to be,” said Mendigutia, adding she might pursue a residency in pediatric dentistry in the future. Ideally, she wants to immediately desensitize new patients before the treatment begins. She brings in her young patients, sits them in the chair, and asks them to simply open their mouths. Her ease with patients, particularly children, im- pressed Judith Chin, D.D.S., M.S., the program director of the CDM’s Department of Pediatric Dentistry. Chin recalled watching Mendigutia transform an anxious patient into a laughing and smiling one who was giving the dental student high-fives by the end. “Very few people have that ability naturally,” Chin said. “But it seems to be one of her many gifts.” Mendigutia has been bringing that gift to Give Kids A Smile since the first year she was involved. “Some [children] come in scared, but they leave happy, and we leave with a full heart,” she said. That’s something you can say “ahhhh” to. u FAST FACTS STEPHANIE MENDIGUTIA Class of 2019 president Fourth-year D.M.D. student Fourth-year GKAS volunteer First-generation Cuban American B.S. from the University of Miami CDM Dean Linda C. Niessen and Stephanie Mendigutia take a break during Give Kids A Smile in 2019.