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My name is Dr. Jordan Brown (Instagram @drjordanbrown), and I grew up as a gawky, and shy kid with teeth two sizes too big for my face. My classmates maliciously teased me about my “SpongeBob teeth,” and consequently, I began to habitually blanket my smile with my hands when laughing. I didn’t know it then, but this lackluster period of my adolescence was the inspiration that fueled my motivation to become a dentist.
Fast-forward several years, and my smile had undergone an extensive orthodontic transformation. My newfound smile helped replace a previously despondent identity with a charismatic persona. For the first time in my life, I proudly displayed my teeth to the world. My metamorphosis awarded me the self-confidence I needed to speak to other people. I became a dentist to grant that same transformative image of self-confidence to others.
I was a humble kid with a dream, but I didn’t know the steps required to become a dentist; I desperately needed a mentor. No one in my family was a dentist, so I was navigating untraveled roads. To aid in my transition to college, I enrolled in an intensive summer program designed to prepare high school graduates for the rigorous science courses of post-secondary education. Midway through the program, I was struggling to understand fundamental concepts, and I was embarrassingly far behind. My demeanor was saturated with self-doubt, and I questioned my ability to take future advanced courses like biochemistry and physiology. I didn’t believe I was smart enough to become a dentist.
Along the way, I found generous mentors like Dr. Todd Ester at the University of Michigan, and he mentored me through dental school. At this time, Instagram just started to gain popularity, but dentists on the platform were uncommon. When I began dental school, I remembered the difficulty of finding mentors, so I started publicly sharing my experience as a dental student to assist others with similar aspirations. I began by coaching others on the dental school selection process, the application cycle, and navigating the other myriad of issues plaguing the dental community.
The largest concern for nearly all dental students and new dentists is the rising cost of tuition, increasingly high student loan interest rates and financial uncertainty. Student loans are like dental plaque: both debilitating and nearly everyone has some. From this perspective, I created an educational eBook series called Plaque Masters Academy to teach students how I financed my professional education via the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program (NHSC SP). The NHSC SP is a federally funded program, which awards full scholarships to students pursuing dentistry, medicine, physician assistant or nurse practitioner training. This scholarship program was created in response to healthcare deserts, which left thousands of people with the inability to access healthcare services. The aim of this first eBook was to provide guidance and understanding into the scholarship program and how it can alleviate financial concerns. I do believe it is the best non-military scholarship for dental school because you choose the location where you fulfill your commitment. They have qualifying clinics in major areas like Atlanta, Tampa, Los Angeles, etc.
