My name is Lillie Pitman and I am a third year dental student in Arizona and I absolutely love it.  It’s hard to identify myself as anything but a dental student these days.

A little bit about me: I grew up in Northern California (yeah Nor-Cal!) and was introduced to dentistry at an early age.  My mom was an assistant for a Periodontist and I was always intrigued by her stories about surgery.  A periodontist is someone who specializes in treating the supporting structures of the teeth (ie: the gingiva, bone, etc…) and the diseases and conditions that affect them.

I started working for the same periodontist when I was 13 years old, as a front office helper, doing filing and answering phones, scheduling appointments and running errands.

Once I started high school, I worked after school; I helped in the lab with sterilization, cleaned operatories and helped the front office ladies with whatever they needed.  Up to that point, I never saw dentistry as a future career.  When I started college, I was planning to pursue a degree in social work, because I loved doing community work and helping people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It was right around that time when the periodontist trained me as his surgical assistant.  After interacting with the patients, helping with tissue grafts, bone regeneration, implant placement and osseous surgeries, I fell in love with perio and knew that it was the field for me.  As a little girl I remember loving to watch surgeries on the Discovery channel, so I think perio was just in the stars for me! Â

I am thankful for my mentor Dr. Cole for helping me get to where I am today and opening my eyes to the possibilty of being a periodontist.  I never envisioned myself becoming a dentist…no one in my family had ever graduated college and I am going to be the first doctor in my family.  I am thankful everyday for the opportunities I have by following a career in dentistry.

I am now trying to find a perio program that is a good fit for me.   I’ll be applying for residency in a year from now.  I am interested in clinical periodontology as well as public health dentistry and am not sure what my career will look like yet.

So that is me in a nutshell and I hope I can be of assistance to you as you follow your dreams.