Full Circle
Combining caring with fun, dental student Anna Ceniceros makes children’s first clinic visits a breeze
By Leonard Martinez
A sticker and a friendly smile are simple things that can lead to a lifetime of good oral hygiene.
They can even provide the motivation for a first-grader to become a dentist.
The Hunt School of Dental Medicine’s Neighborhood Smiles Day in late October offered dental exams for elementary school students in the underserved 79905 neighborhood to make sure their smiles were healthy and bright.
Second-year dental student Anna Ceniceros is a prime example of the life-altering impact a positive first dental visit can make.
Like the students from Zavala Elementary School who attended Neighborhood Smiles Day at the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic, Ceniceros went to the dentist for the first time at age 7 on a field trip with her elementary school in Clarendon, Texas, a Pandhandle town with a population of just over 2,000. Her parents, Maria and Jose Ceniceros have encouraged her every step of her journey. They were migrant farmworkers, and she watched them work hard her entire life.
The first in her family to visit a dentist, Ceniceros remembered trembling at the thought of cavities. She didn’t know what they were at the time, but she was petrified of having them.
Her dentist put her at ease by complimenting her smile, and she was thrilled to learn she was cavity-free. At the end of her visit, she received a sticker of a puppy holding a toothbrush. She rushed home and put it on her bathroom mirror for her family to see.
For years, the sticker looked back at her while she brushed her teeth, feeding the admiration she had for dental medicine. And it remains on the mirror to this day.
“It was such a full-circle moment for me and really impacted me in terms of accomplishing my dream,” Ceniceros said. “It feels so surreal to help those in need and it’s so cool to think that I used to be in the same shoes and now am on my way to being the dentist.”
Caring for the children at Neighborhood Smiles Day brought back memories of Ceniceros’ own first visit to the dentist.
The sticker Anna Ceniceros received during her first dentist visit, remains on her parents bathroom mirror.
“I had no idea what to expect,” she said. “At Neighborhood Smiles Day, I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to make my patient feel comfortable and have such a pleasant visit because you just never know the impact it could have on a kid.”
Ceniceros hopes she made an impact on the children, even if it was a small step.
“After my first visit to the dentist I would teach my family everything I learned,” she said. “So, I hope the kids I helped ended up sharing hygiene tips with their family members, as well.”
These first formative clinic visits are invaluable to making sure children have quality dental care and are good patients who return annually for checkups. Young children are more vulnerable to poor oral health since they are in the process of losing baby teeth and growing permanent adult teeth. Unfortunately, many Texas children as young as 3 experience poor oral health due to a lack of access to dental providers. As a result, 43% of Texas children ages 3-5 have experienced tooth decay compared to 28% nationally.
To pass on good oral hygiene habits, Ceniceros and her Hunt School of Dental Medicine classmates use kindness as a cornerstone at our unique dental clinic on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Just as Ceniceros was the first in her family to see a dentist, she was the first to attend college and, now, dental school. She saw a lot of herself in her young patients.
"I’m so grateful to be here in this position to serve my community,” Ceniceros said “I know what it is like to be in an area underserved, so it means the world to be able to contribute. Every day I am able to help my patients, I’m just so honored for the opportunity to do so.”
In a full-circle moment, while offering a smile that beamed through her facemask, she handed children stickers featuring a toothbrush-wielding dinosaur named "Teeth Rex," the new mascot of the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic. Each sticker almost guaranteed to be placed somewhere, with potential to be an inspirational muse.
Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic
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Zavala Elementary students celebrate Neighborhood Smiles Day outside the Paso del Norte Health Foundation Building, home to the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic. The foundation gifted $11 million to help launch the dental school and clinic at TTUHSC El Paso.
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Meet "Teeth Rex," the newly revealed mascot of the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic.