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As stated by the signs, Barrow is 3,246 miles from Will Rogers' birthplace in Oklahoma, and about 4,800 miles from Port Au Prince, Haiti. |
Rugged and remote, Alaska offered Rosellini something else the city couldn't.
"I wanted to get away from everyone thinking of me as the fragile little heart patient," she says. "After my second year of dental school, I had heart surgery for a congenital defect, and the surgery was botched. So I had to have open heart surgery during my third year. I took nine weeks off to recover, and I just needed to get away."
She learned of the Alaska opportunity in the unlikeliest of ways. "My fiance was in Europe, and he met a woman who runs a dental clinic in Barrow," she says. With guidance from UTDB Clinical Education Director Stephen Jessee, D.D.S., Rosellini signed on to work for a month during the Alaskan summer. Similar opportunities are posted on the Indian Health Service Web site, www.ihs.gov, and Jessee can advise students about what to expect at certain locations, based on reports from others who have served.
In Barrow, Rosellini worked at a dental clinic based in Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital. The dental clinic has eight operatories with four dentists on duty and specialists who fly in at regular intervals. Although the hospital and clinic are public health facilities, Rosellini said they are state-of-the-art. "Everything is digital. You don't always see that in public health," she says.
When she returns to Alaska in 2009, Rosellini won't be going alone. She and fiance Jim Ombrello are planning an October wedding. He's a licensed physical therapist and plans to practice in Barrow, too. Their new jobs come with a furnished house and all utilities paid except Internet and cable. They will get lots of paid vacation and plan to use their free time traveling and seeking adventure, such as climbing Mount McKinley.
Just as it was light 24 hours a day when she was there in summer, for a few weeks it will be dark 24 hours a day when Rosellini and her new husband arrive in January. Even so, she can't wait to get back to Alaska. Weather permitting, she'll be riding snowmobiles, cross-country skiing and enjoying a meaningful dental practice. Aside from seeing patients in Barrow, Rosellini will fly to two outlying villages to provide dental care there, too.
She encourages dental students to look into summer work at interesting sites. "There are tons of places all over Alaska that need dentists, but you don't have to go to Alaska — you can go to lots of good sites closer to home, and maybe they're willing to pay you for it, too."
Rosellini will be a fourth-generation dentist and plans to join her father — eventually — in his general dentistry practice in Dallas. "My mom is super-adventurous, so she's all about it," Rosellini says. "My dad hates the cold. They'll come to visit, but they're looking forward to me coming back and going into practice with him."
--Rhonda Moran, UTDB Communications Specialist
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