ASDOH students encourage junior high students pursuing future dental careers
Posted: May 11, 2016
Eighth-grade student Samantha Angulo hopes to become a dentist one day. So when her Language Arts teacher Jennifer Esposito at Liberty Elementary School gave students a class assignment to write a persuasive letter to a business, organization, or institution of interest, Angulo decided to write to ATSU-ASDOH Dean Jack Dillenberg. Liberty Elementary School-The Center for Agriscience Education in Buckeye, Arizona, is a Title 1 school with high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families. After receiving the letter, Dr. Dillenberg had Yvette Thornton, RDH, BS, and Heather Johnson, RDH, MEd, co-directors for ATSU-ASDOH’s Dentistry in the Community program, contact Esposito and the school’s principal Jennifer Gray to set up a presentation for the eighth-grade class. Kyle Henry, D4 and Arlene “Kia” Moore, D3, participated in the presentation and spoke about dental careers to 75 students. Thornton and Johnson presented the relationship between saliva and pH, through a science experiment completed by the students. They discussed dental decay, oral hygiene, and basic nutrition using science to understand the importance of pH levels in the oral cavity. In Angulo’s letter to Dr. Dillenberg she wrote (in part), “Your amazing college is well-known for its goal to have every graduate from ASDOH become an awesome leader and role model. One reason that I know ASDOH is going to be where I want to attend dental school in 2020 is because you really care about your graduates by getting them ready to be community health leaders.” “Samantha is a wonderful example of a young person pursuing her dream,” said Dr. Dillenberg. “I look forward to her becoming a future ambassador for ASDOH.”