September 2007 | MH

Paired (and prepared)for success

Enjoying one’s career starts with  finding people-doctors, patients, and peers - who share your passion.    by Thais Carter

 photo: michael voltattorni

“I don’t think that school can fully prepare you for real life,” says Angela Steffy, RDH. “You’re given two to three hours to work on a patient, but in a real practice, you have just 45 minutes to an hour.” So, despite the wonderful professors she worked with throughout her time at Harcum College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., Ms. Steffy was looking for a little on-the-job learning that could help her—quite literally—get up to speed.

Initially, Ms. Steffy found that type of atmosphere in a corporate practice. “ I worked with 10 different doctors, and everyone focused on something different. I learned a lot,” she remembers. While there, she also connected with her first real mentor, Ellie Politz-Butto, the hygiene manager. “She’d been a hygienist for 23 years, but even after all that time, she still had an energy and a passion for her job.”

LADIES FIRST

When the time came for Ms. Steffy to move on to another practice—she wanted something closer to home, more personal, and more flexible—she knew that the environment best suited to her would be one committed to learning, providing optimal care, and trust amongst staff members. She found all those things in the practice of Dr. Michelle Cantwell, a prosthodontist. “This is her first private practice since leaving the Navy, so I’m her first hygienist,” Ms. Steffy explains. “We’re a small group of women, a small office, but we have similar goals for the dental profession and we learn a lot from one another.”

While Ms. Steffy enjoys working with a female dentist, the things she appreciates most about Dr. Cantwell go beyond X and Y chromosomes. “I love working with her because she’s so ethical in her treatment planning. She’s someone I can be open with and I think it’s so important to have solid communication,” Ms. Steffy says. “Whenever Dr. Cantwell thinks about adding a new member to the team, we all get to talk with them and her before she makes the final decision. That’s rare in other offices.”

MAKING IT PERSONAL

One of Ms. Steffy’s most memorable patients is a man by the name of Ben, one of her first appointments at Dr. Cantwell’s office. He developed a rare type of salivary gland cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma, and through the process of surgery and radiation, lost most of his maxilla. “I hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect working in a prosthodontist’s office,” Ms. Steffy admits. “At first, it is a little startling, but with the care we provide, we believe we’re really making a difference in patients’ lives.” For example, Dr. Cantwell and the practice’s lab technician created a new obturator for Ben, which has given him renewed confidence in his appearance. “After all those hours in the chair, he’s become family to our practice,” she says.

Having built a strong relationship with Ben, Ms. Steffy was both shocked and saddened to find out that he was diagnosed with lung cancer; doctors discovered the tumor during an appendectomy. The news hit her especially hard because her Aunt Bonnie had passed away just a year before, also from lung cancer. Between Ben’s story and her aunt’s (a non-smoker), Ms. Steffy and her family have made lung cancer awareness a cause that they work for in a variety of ways, including volunteer work and organizing benefits. “It’s such an underfunded and misunderstood disease,” she says. “For example, everyone just assumes that my aunt was a smoker, but this is not just a smoker’s disease. And with Ben, he’s lucky that they diagnosed it when they did, since preventive technology, such as mammograms for breast cancer, isn’t really available for lung cancer. With breast cancer you see pink ribbons everywhere. I feel that white ribbons are just as important.

Help us choose future mentors! Have you or a dental hygienist you know made a difference in a patient's life or achieved outstanding career goals? Send your suggestions to tcarter@advanstar.com.