Born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, in 1985, I was raised in a medical family, my father a doctor and my mother helping to operate a perinatal center. I was groomed and inspired to become a healthcare professional from early childhood. My dad, a surgeon, will always be my greatest inspiration; he is a dedicated surgeon and an extraordinarily kind human being; his central joy in life was service, saving, and improving lives. Dad would often receive a call in the middle of the night, and he would hurry away to the hospital for an emergency operation. While I possess many qualities that help make for a top-notch dentist, I take the most incredible pride in my compassion, which I attribute primarily to his example.
My parents also provided me excellent educational opportunities to become fully fluent in French, Ukraine, English, and my native Russian. I hope to use my advanced multilingual dentistry skills and continue practicing on some level in all my languages. This is what I love most about America, the sheer diversity.
By my pre-teen years, I was reading widely about oral health and studying cases out of sheer curiosity, what happens with untreated, chronic sources of inflammation or infection in the oral cavity, for example, how this can lead to severe complications such as sepsis, especially if the immune system is in any way compromised. As a result, by the time I was in high school, I had my sights set on dentistry as my calling. My central focus on the effective treatment of dental diseases coupled with preventative measures has paved the way nicely for my special, lifetime relationship with Endodontists and my passion for preventing infection from spreading to the bloodstream. This is especially crucial for patients with AIDS, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, the types of at-risk patients that look forward to focusing on in the future.
I consider dentistry to be an art form. I try to visit museums and art galleries wherever I travel, always stimulating my imagination and creativity. I grew up in the beautiful city of Saint Petersburg, where people appreciate art and value its preservation. After graduating in Dentistry from one of the oldest and most prestigious medical institutions in Russia, the Pavlov First Medical University, in 2008, I completed one year of internship in a dental clinic funded by the city in the area of general dentistry, where I practiced almost all types of dental procedures, mainly attending to patients from humble backgrounds and circumstances. After completing my internship, I started working in another city dental clinic – housed in a historic mansion - where I also mentored an intern from 2009 to 2010 and networked with dental education programs. I continued to advance my education in Endodontics, Operative Dentistry, and Oral Hygiene while working full-time as a dentist from 2008 to 2016 - until I moved to the USA. My eight years of dental experience give me confidence that I will excel here in America, where I have also spent two years working as a dental assistant from 2016 to 2018.
Aware of how fiercely competitive DDS/DMD programs are in the US, I hope my linguistic abilities will be looked upon with favor, gifts bestowed upon me by my demographic circumstances and family history. I spent every summer from 1 to 15 in Western Ukraine. In addition to my native language of Russian, I am also a near-native speaker of Ukrainian, a language spoken increasingly frequently in the USA. I studied K-12 in a French school system, where I also studied English. Thus, I am fully fluent in French as well as English. I am certified as an interpreter of medical literature from French to Russian. I keenly look forward to a very multilingual practice of Dentistry. My time spent as a volunteer from 2016 through 2018 at the Allegro Dental Clinic in San Francisco was among my highest moment; this experience has left me hungry to return to the practice of dentistry here in the USA.
My heart is also in research. In dental school, I assisted a professor in internal diseases, studying chronic myeloblastic leucosis in the oral mucosa. Serving as a Hematology and Cancer Center research assistant was a great revelation. We faced enormous challenges with patients struggling with pain aggravated by fatigue and huge problems with oral mucosa. We supervised and examined patients, recording data concerning how oral mucosa reacts to various treatments. Especially as a dentist who has chosen Endodontology as my specialty, I look forward to lifelong learning in recovery from chronic sources of infection.
Thank you for considering my application.
Russian Immigrant International Dentist
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