Profiles by Anna Sacks

Jean Nordin-Evans is a dentist who focuses on holistic dentistry and healing. Though she knows her specialty is unknown to many patients and dentists alike, she and her staff are working to make an impact.

“Growing up, my parents opened every opportunity for me. There was never a limit as to what I could achieve,” she said. “If the world is your oyster, so to speak, you grab what you can and you envision bigger and better and you just keep going.”

The most difficult part of being a holistic doctor is getting a person to accept something that’s new, out of the box and many times out of his or her comfort zones.

“I feel like we’re in new territory,” she said. “We’re leading the charge, especially in our area, so we have to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves and we have to make sure we present ourselves in a way that people understand.”

As a child, Nordin-Evans was raised to be a strong but compassionate woman. She said being a woman leading the charge means having the ability to hold power with grace.

“Your life can be anything you want to make it, and if you persevere and hold your focus day after day, and you really want what you’re going for,” she advised. “You don’t have to be the smartest or the prettiest or the fastest or the strongest. You just have to have the will and the determination.”
	Her favorite part of her job is seeing where her patients are from and what they have to teach her, because she is always learning from them.

On the other hand, her least favorite part of her career is managing the business part of her practice.

“It’s a very challenging part, not that my business is a challenge because it’s going well, but that part of it is not my passion,” she said. “I’d love to live in a world where we could just give and take what we need instead of having to do business like we do now.”

Currently, Nordin-Evans’ practice is expanding to include a pedo-ortho wing where she will be able to offer her holistic approach to a wider range of patients. In the future she hopes to be able to open more offices and to teach other doctors the inner workings of holistic dentistry.

Nordin-Evans thinks a holistic approach to dentistry is very important because dental professionals have the opportunity to play a major role in the health of the patient. Because most patients only visit their dentists twice a year, she would like to see patients reminded of what they should be doing to take care of their bodies as a whole instead of just their mouths.

“I think that we concentrate so much on what’s going on in the mouth, but truly, it can be and has the potential to be so much more.

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Jean Nordin-Evans is a dentist who focuses on holistic dentistry and healing. Though she knows her specialty is unknown to many patients and dentists alike, she and her staff are working to make an impact. “Growing up, my parents opened every opportunity for me. There was never a limit as to what I could achieve,” she said. “If the world is your oyster, so to speak, you grab what you can and you envision bigger and better and you just keep going.”

Top 25 Women in Dentistry: Jean Nordin-Evans, DDS

Deborah Borden Dunker sold her practice after retiring from orthodontics and now spends her time on Christian and dental-related missions. She has traveled to Guatemala, Brazil, Peru, Liberia, India and Thailand in order to train and help those in need of dental care, where there are often no dentists.

Dunker volunteers for many reasons, one of which is to avoid what she calls the depersonalization of medicine, which happens when you forget the best interest of the patient and instead worry about the business side and the money.

To Dunker, exposure to the profession early is most important because that’s how you’ll know it’s something you’re going to love.

“It wasn’t always something I wanted to do. I became interested in it by the people around me and my roommate in college,” she said.

When it comes to influencing others, she said, “I never expected the amount of influence I could have on someone’s life just by being their orthodontist. A child’s confidence and self-esteem is often affected by the care that you provide.”

The best advice she’s gotten came later in her life, but was in itself, timeless.

“Faith is so important in my life now, and I think that when it wasn’t that was when I struggled the most,” she said. “Always put God first, family second, and then everything else will fall into place. When I received that advice, I immediately wished I’d received it sooner, because if you lose your faith and family you lose touch with everything.”

When she first graduated from dental school she was interested in going into a specialty, but she was burnt out from school and almost chose not to, but then made a decision based on a little unexpected guidance.

“One of the professors in the dental school overheard that I was interested in going into a specialty and he pulled me aside and said, if you don’t do this now, you never will,” she recalled. “If he hadn’t said that to me, I think I would have taken a different path. He really made me think and I’m thankful for that.”

In the future, Dunker has faith in God’s plan for her as she works with those struggling with dental health.

Top 25 Women in Dentistry: Deborah Borden-Dunker, DMD

Susan Maples has been in private practice as a dentist for more than 27 years and through each year and each patient she’s found passion and her niche in the world. She attributes that passion to her leadership mindset as well as her ability to stay engaged and open to new knowledge.

“I like to be a health advocate for people and look at their overall health as well as their dental health,” she said.

Her team also has been a huge contributing factor in Maples’ success. She said the women on her team share her values. They care for each other and their patients, and through those shared ideals they were able to develop open relationships with one another, allowing them to communicate openly and create a workplace dynamic that feels like a second family.

“I have a sign in my office that says, you may be better than me, but you’re not better than my whole team. I believe that,” she said. “I really ride on their shoulders.”

Though she considers her career to be a blessing, it isn’t without struggle from time to time. Keeping a smile on her face in the midst of personal or professional setbacks is sometimes a challenge. “For example, we had a flood a year ago that wiped out our entire building, and I had to come in every day pretending life was beautiful--my team needed that,” she recalled. “It was a $200,000 loss which was huge. When times are rough it’s hard to be that person responsible for keeping the positive energy.”

As a dentist she feels she doesn’t fit the “typical mold” because she is more creative than logical. As such, she’s fostered a practice that is conducive to developing creative ideas and allows people a unique experience in dentistry. Her children’s Hands-on Learning Lab is just one example.

“At this point in my career, I feel like the more complex the case the better because it’s so much fun to put all my learning and experience together,” she said. There are so many different ways I’m looking at expanding the scope of what we do because dentistry is unfolding as quickly as my brain can handle it.

The advice that’s helped her most came from her father who told her to surround herself with good people and always add fun and laughter to your work.

Maples sees dentistry moving in a direction that considers whole body health as well as optimal oral health and she’s hoping to have her hand in that change by collaborating with other dentists and physicians to share her knowledge as well as learn from them