On May 20, 2013, our daughter, Lisa graduated from New Jersey Dental School. It was one of my proudest moments as a father and as a dentist to have had the honor to place her graduation hood, officially welcoming her into my profession of 35 years.
Whenever I meet another dentist, or father for that matter, and tell them that my daughter will be graduating from dental school and joining my practice in Mountainside, I always get the same reaction. Their jaws drop, they look off in the distance, and they say, “You’re so lucky. Out of all of my children, I could not find one who wanted to follow in my footsteps”.
Lisa has loved dentistry since she was 3 years old and accompanying Donna and me to the office when we had to see an emergency patient. She decided to choose dentistry for a career, after spending a summer during high school assisting me with my patients. Throughout college, I would continually question her to make sure she was choosing Dentistry for all the right reasons, and I would say…….”So tell me why you want to be a dentist”? She’d say, “Daddy, do I have to say it again?” I’d say, “yes”, and she’d say, “OK. I like art. I like science. And I like helping people. What better profession could I choose”?
Well, I could never have given a better answer. Lisa will be advancing her skills in a Restorative Residency Program at Newark Beth Israel Hospital before joining Wortzel Integrative Dental Care in August of 2014.