TORRANCE TRIBUNE August 27, 2015 Page 7 TerriAnn in Torrance Dental Assisting, A Whole New World By TerriAnn Ferren Photos by TerriAnn Ferren Every six months, I visit my dentist, Christopher Dalis, DDS, and he cleans, checks, and takes x-rays of my teeth if needed, and his dental assistant provides a much more important part of the visit than ever before. The difference in visiting the dentist from when I was small, until now, is huge. Little, if any, pain is ever part of the visit and the entire experience seems pretty much routine. That hasn’t always been true. My father-in-law, Calvin Ferren, who passed away in May, was a dentist. He told me that dentistry had really come light-years since he graduated from USC Dental School and started practicing many moons ago. And that would seem to make sense if we compare the entire medical field’s advancements from say, the early 60s, let alone to long ago. Remedies for the earliest and most common oral complaint, the toothache, goes back as far as we know, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, “To the Euphrates Valley in 500 BC where a parasitic worm was said to be the cause [of toothaches].” Eww. Program Chair and Director of the Dental Program of Westwood College Alexia Wood (Allie) has been guiding the dental assistant program, located here in the South Bay, since January, but her expertise began long ago in the field of dentistry. Allie knew at an early age, she couldn’t handle blood ‘outside the body’ but was sure she she wanted to do something within the healthcare business. She told me she loves working with people, and dentistry gives her the opportunity for long standing relationships with patients, which she loves. Allie went to dental assistant school, graduated, and entered the field of dental assisting in 1982, working in Manhattan Beach for a local dentist, and has been a state RDA (Registered Dental Assistant) since 1985. Allie married her husband Keith 17 years ago, and because he was a military man, they moved around a lot. Allie continued her education no matter where her husband was stationed, and along the way received her associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degree. But how did Allie enter the field of teaching? “I was just going to stay in the field [doing dental assisting] and it wasn’t until I got to North Carolina in 2001 that I looked into education. I actually met a dean in a coffee shop and she asked, ‘Why don’t you write me an outline?’. And I wrote this thousand-hour program and she said ‘We have this old dental assisting program, and we might bring this out of mothballs.’ I ended up writing a DANB (Dental Assistant National Board) – Pathway. At that time they had a Pathway Division for schools – and I wrote ‘Pathway Three’– a thousand hour program - and she implemented it and I taught there for several years. It was really great. That is how I launched into education.” It is obvious Allie was at the right place at the right time. She began teaching in North Carolina at Craven Community College and later continued teaching in Colorado for several different schools. When Keith retired from the military, they moved back to California. Traveling around with her husband provided Allie with very well rounded experience teaching dental assisting. She even worked for the Department of Defense for nearly five years in Camp Pendleton and Coronado Island. Allie told me things have changed vastly in the military - soldiers are not sent to war with bad teeth - everything is fixed before troops are shipped out. Allie has been in the education division of dental assisting for 14 years, but has never left the practice of dental assisting. She tries to ‘chair side’ several times a month, donating her time in several local offices, and local charities in the area. Allie explained to me that the role of a dental assistant is vital to the dentist, and they really are the doctor’s right hand. She told me, “It is like a marriage and a family and - a rewarding career. I honestly came into this career at a very young age and have no regrets. It has opened up opportunity, education, and teaching, and allowed me to move up to top management and be a director, work with the state, and design a program.” Allie learned how to write curriculum, and has worked with the local state accrediting boards in Colorado, North Carolina, and California. “How cool is that? I tell our students, ‘you are not just investing in yourself and your future, you’re really investing in several other opportunities - that you are going to have skill sets that can take you in this profession in different directions, or portions of the industry’, which is really kind of nice,” explained Allie. Allie told me she recently took her dental assistant students from the college to the Little Lamb Child Care Center where the students taught the four to six year olds how to properly brush their teeth. “I don’t know who had more fun,” said Allie smiling broadly. She also said that anyone who would like a demonstration by the students only needs to contact her at 310.525.2377 or at awood02@westwood.edu and she will set up a visit. “We love doing community service and I myself look for events,” added Allie. Allie loves her job and relishes taking the journey with patients through their dental work to the end - when they are happy with their results, especially when she assists with a cleft lip or cleft palate. Many dentists offer their time and talent, along with Allie, to help the less serviced not only among us here in the South Bay, but in other countries. She also reminded me that you don’t have to wait two weeks for a crown anymore; you can get “It is obvious Allie was at the right place at the right time. She began teaching in North Carolina at Craven Community College and later continued teaching in Colorado for several different schools.” See TerriAnn, page 8 Allie Wood, Program Chair and Director of the Dental program at Westwood College. High Tech Dental Bay.
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