As part of my Honors capstone work this year, I planned an independent field trip to visit an orthodontist’s office. My Honors curriculum path for the year is the Honors May Project Extension, in which I work to get a headstart on my senior May Project experience. Because I’m looking at a career in dentistry, I wanted to connect with an orthodontist to understand more about that field.
Ms. Guillory, the Honors Program Director, helped me to connect with an alumna of the Academy of the Sacred Heart, Dr. Diana Bozner, who owns Camellia Orthodontics with offices in Lafayette and Opelousas. Dr. Bozner agreed to host me at her Lafayette office for an interview.
To prepare my interview questions, I used academic articles. Earlier in the year, students in the Honors Program went on a field trip in order to find three scholarly sources, and I used all of those sources in crafting my questions for Dr. Bozner. Along with the research questions, I also made a few of my own questions for topics that I was curious about. These questions included topics such as the day-to-day life of an orthodontist, what the patients are like, what kind of innovations have happened in the field, and more.
In order to meet with the orthodontist, I was granted permission to take my own independent field trip. Luckily, the day of the interview with Dr. Bozner was the same day as my own dentist appointment, so I didn’t have to miss twice as much as school. The drive to Dr. Bozner’s office was a bit hectic, as Lafayette traffic tends to be that way. I made sure to wear my formal uniform in order to represent the school properly. As I walked into the office, the receptionist was very kind to me. I proceeded to wait in the orthodontist’s office while the orthodontist prepared to talk to me.
The room that I waited in was a very comfy room. There were a few chairs, a table, many teeth diagrams, and a few orthodontics posters. When the orthodontist walked into the office, we started the interview. First I asked the three research questions that I had prepared. The first question was how there seemed to be a problem with the flow of patients and consultants in many dental colleges. Dr. Bozner agreed that the lack of patients and consultants is a notable problem in many dental programs, but she was very fortunate in that the dental school she attended, LSU School of Dentistry in New Orleans, had no issue with either of these problems. I believe that I now have a strong option for dental school once I have finished getting the necessary biology degrees in my initial years in college.
The next question I asked was about the large environmental problem caused by discarded waste in dental institutions and practices. She said that many medical settings have issues with this and that a large amount of care is put into disposing of the waste properly. Dr. Bozner explained to me that a large amount of medical waste needs to go through multiple processes before it can be ethically disposed of. The last research question I asked was about the increased digitization in dentistry’s future. Her answer was that advances in this area are both plentiful and exciting because these advances create efficient and accurate forms of treatment that were not available before. A big example of this is putting in crowns. She also mentioned new types of braces that are being developed and used such as Invisalign and behind-teeth braces.
After she answered my three research questions, I asked much more casual questions about what being an orthodontist is like. One thing she said that relieves me is that most patients are not too rowdy. Since orthodontics is a largely optional process, most patients are far more agreeable since they had a choice in whether they wanted treatment or not.
Once my interview was over, I thanked the staff and left. The visit was very informative and successful. The traffic was not that bad when driving back, and I got myself some good lunch, which was a nice perk of my independent Honors field trip. Despite the fact that I had gone to two dental institutions in one day, I decided to get a garlic bacon cheeseburger. It was very good, and it was worth the damage to my oral health and the hours that it probably took off of my lifespan.