A dentist from Russia, I permanently immigrated to the USA after completing a full year of dental practice in my native Russia. While in dental school, I had the great privilege of serving in a surgical externship program at our University’s Hospital Medical Center branch (09/2011-09/2012). Since I arrived in America, I have been doing everything that I can to prepare myself for your rigorous program, as my goal is to distinguish myself for excellence in America as I did in Russia. I have settled in San Francisco, and I am diligently studying for the National Board Dental Exam (NBDE) Part 2. I cannot imagine being any happier in my new community, and I hope very much to be accepted to your competitive program so that I might resume my career here in America and work very hard to make my maximum contribution to our profession and my newly adopted community. While I am willing, able, and ready to relocate anywhere in the USA for dental school, I plan to return to the San Francisco area to establish my practice after earning the degree.
The Bay Area has one of the principal concentrations of Russian speakers in America, with more arriving all the time. Many Russian-speaking immigrants, especially from the Ukraine—increasingly, due to current political turmoil—have few economic resources to pay for dental care. I feel strongly that dental, like medical care, optimally should take place in one’s native language to facilitate communication. Thus, my central professional dream is to open my own dental clinic in San Francisco that would cater primarily to Russian speakers. Furthermore, I see it as my civic and human duty to charge on a sliding scale, treating my patients at a cost that they can afford to pay.
My long-term goal is to become a doctor of dental surgery with a practice in the Bay Area (C.A.)and do volunteer work. I look forward to someday starting my own non-profit organization and mission for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. I feel that I am a strong candidate for your program for three principal reasons: my character and drive, my academic preparation, and my professional/volunteer experience. I am especially interested in Periodontics and Implant Dentistry. It is in this area where I hope to make my mark in dentistry concerning research and publication as well as practice, writing about what needs to be done in my native Russia to help my country make more significant progress in the area of implants in particular.
During my third year of dental school, I started volunteering for two dental offices as a general dentist assistant. I was also very much involved with a government program to perform dental examinations and hygiene procedures in homes for the elderly. The administration of our Medical Academy sponsored our group of students to visit and treat elderly patients in nursing homes. We collected information and surveys of elderly patients, based upon which we would draw up treatment plans and carry out hygienic procedures. For some particular patients, many of whom I think about to this day, those chronic cases with emergency issues, I was struck by how many of them were all alone, with no one left in their lives to even care about them, much less help them. This experience has been perhaps the most salient of all in the determination of who I am or have become, even more so than when I was in Russia. I see many homeless people in San Francisco, and I visit with some of them. I find them to be brilliant and engaging people, many of whom need dental treatment. Nothing provides me with greater pleasure than planning for how to incorporate homeless people into my own clinic, and thinking creatively about ways in which I can get homeless people themselves to participate, spreading the word about oral hygiene and ways to prevent dental decay. I would also like to develop my own NGO after completing our program, networking in the Bay Area to help care for our homeless residents.
I am confident that the education and experience that I have so far will enable me to excel in your program. My finest hours were spent fulfilling my internship at our Hospital Medical Center branch. On many occasions, I had the privilege of treating indigent patients for whom we provided a stage-by-stage treatment plan that generally involved either the removal or treatment of teeth along with the production of bridges, crowns, and dentures on an unrestricted basis. The operating room was the center of my world then, working closely with a group of oral surgeons on various implant procedures, including placements, sinus lifting, bone grafting, alveoloplasty, maxillary osteotomy, and correcting cleft lip and palate, etc.
With your help, I can return to my greatest joy and do everything in my power to assist those who need me most in the Bay Area.
I thank you for considering my application to your distinguished program.