Elizabeth Gertchev

As a dental ambassador, my role is to help connect students and alumni, and facilitate events like the Florida National Dental Convention and Dental Fall Weekend. We serve to represent UFCD and overall help create spirit at events.

Working as a dental assistant for 3 years significantly developed my understanding of dentistry and fueled my passion for the career. In this role, I assisted with crown, bridge, and veneer preps and deliveries; fillings; extractions; and more. Additionally, being the sole dental assistant on certain days taught me to work under pressure and taught me the skill of efficiency. Beyond chairside assisting, I really developed patient skills, as I sometimes had more time to talk to the patient than the dentist. I learned the value of getting to know patients as if they were friends and family, and I learned how to ease patient anxiety.

As the fundraising chair of the founding class, I helped create a Volunteers Around the World (VAW) chapter at my university. This role was very gratifying, as I helped raise money for underserved communities with limited access to dental and medical care. I led fundraisers like bake sales and partnered with local restaurants. The money we raised had gone to fund service trips as well as to purchase supplies. Being a part of the founding class taught me a lot about staying dedicated to your initiative, despite challenges that arise when creating something new.

My role as a student ambassador developed me into a collaborative leader. As an ambassador, I mentored younger pre-professional students and helped guide their journey. I specifically worked with pre-dental students and I helped create a plan with them and served as their point of contact for any questions. Additionally, during the end of my junior year and senior year I was able to help my faculty team with selecting incoming students for the dual admission program by participating in the interview process and providing my feedback. I also helped mentor students by doing mock interviews and providing helpful tips and tricks. In this role I was also able to implement my idea for a once-a-month 'social hour.' I had noticed there were many students who had unanswered questions, so the 'social hour' was a place that students can drop by and various faculy would be there to help provide answers.

Being on the board greatly developed my leadership skills, as I represented the honors college student body of over 500 students. As a student board member, I collaborated with the dean of the honors college to implement improvements based on student feedback. Some of these improvements included initiating concepts for honors events, suggesting changes for honors courses, and designing scholarship prompts. On certain Fridays, I would be on the student panel for honors college information sessions. Here, I shared my experience and provided advice to incoming college freshmen.

During my spring break sophomore year, I visited Guatemala as a dental intern. My team partnered with local dentists, and we traveled to a small town called San Pedro La Laguna, about 3 hours away from the capital. We set up a clinic in their town and provided dental care through cleanings, fillings, and extractions. I was able to assist the dentists during the procedures, and I gained a global view of dentistry. This experience further helped me recognize the dental disparities that exist and, more importantly, my desire to help provide a solution.