It was my career goal to become a dental hygienist, but the game of life had other things in store for me. Long waiting lists for dental hygiene programs were common in the 1970s, and I needed to start my career. I attended dental assisting college, and by a twist of fate, was able to get a job with a young dentist who was very motivated to teach me everything there was to know about patient education and four-handed dentistry. He currently teaches for Nova Southeastern University Dental School and I am so thankful to have had him as my first mentor. Mentor No. 2 was a periodontist who hired me to run an intensive five-appointment plaque control program that his patients were required to complete prior to his performing the four quadrants of scaling and root planing. We worked together as a team and saw amazing transformations in the mouths of our patients as a result of performing excellent plaque removal on a daily basis prior to any treatment. This practice was located in Coral Gables, Florida, and we had an international clientele. A high percentage of our patients were smokers. I worked one-on-one with these individuals and learned to motivate them to stop smoking and start flossing by encouraging and personalizing the treatment using empathy and patient-led motivation. My mentor was involved in the early stages of developing the Pankey Institute and the great Dr. Lindsey D. Pankey’s practice was one of our referring dental offices. The concept of comprehensive, compassionate, patient-centered dentistry was all around me during the years I spent in Coral Gables.
Sherri at celebration of senior apartment building she helped go smoke free
Life took a strange turn and we headed north to Cincinnati, Ohio, and I discovered that I was living five minutes from a dental hygiene program. Once again I was faced with a wait list, but this time I worked hard on prerequisites, was accepted--and after many years of juggling family, health issues, and parent illnesses--I became a dental hygienist in 1995 at the age of 42. The moment I stood on that stage and took the dental hygiene oath, I knew that I was going to be able to impact my patients' lives because I finally had those three letters after my name that I had dreamed of for decades. I graduated at the top of my class and I was the college’s honor student of the year.
