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

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.