How I Practice Pediatric Dentistry as a Full-Time Military Dentist

Welcome back readers! In this blog post, I can't wait to share with you my professional side quest of 2025. For anyone new and interested in practicing pediatric dentistry whether you are a current dental student, pediatric dental resident, or seasoned general dentist, I can't wait to share how working EXTRA (seriously, I work 6 days a week twice a month), has actually brought me so much fulfillment and outlook on how I envision my career. If you have been following along in my journey, you know I'm finishing my final tour of my four year HPSP payback as a general dentist in the US Navy.

I'm currently stationed at Naval Air Station, Lemoore where I have the honor of ensuring optimal dental readiness of the Navy's finest pilots and aviation community. With the nature of our warfighters, the duty station location is often placed in a more rural area which offers plenty of terrain to practice flying and coincidentally, landed me in the heart of Central California.

While moving to a remote area 250 miles away from my nearest friends and family was no easy transition, everything certainly panned out exactly the way it should. The Central Valley (Fresno, Visalia, Porterville, and Delano) is the agricultural capital of California and home to patient demographic that is largely underserved and presents with an extremely high caries risk incidence in children. That being said, I have never seen a greater calling for dentists to provide quality and compassionate dental care to children and families.

Weekdays: LT Jenny Giao, US Navy Dental officer

Weekends: Dr. Jenny, Your Friendly Neighborhood pedodontist!

The ultimate catalyst to fulfilling this mission was finding employment at Kids2Dentist - Visalia. Becoming an associate as Kids2Dentist (K2D) has been accommodating to my military obligations and exploratory to what I want to do next in my career! As one of the only offices open in the Central Valley on Saturday, this was the perfect gig for me to get my foot in the door to practicing pediatric dentistry.

To share more about this experience, I'm going to dive into a day in the life of a pedodontist dentist at K2D!

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First, I'll say before working at K2D, the last pediatric dental experience I had was during my D3/D4 UCSF pediatric rotation. It had effectively been years since I worked directly with children. However, I'm thankful to the the mentorship from board-certified pediatric specialists (Dr. Brent Tucker and Dr. Drea Goodman) at K2D and a highly efficient dental auxiliary staff who helped me transition seamlessly into the practice. I shadowed their clinical workflows, behavior management techniques, and general anesthesia days before diving into patient care.

*Pro-tip: If you are eager to practice pediatric dentistry but have hesitations, one thing that really helped me was first transitioning by scheduling Frankl 3/4 patients (children who tolerate dental procedures well) and children 9-18 years of age. While I was getting used to diagnosis and treatment planning of the primary and mixed dentition and monitoring development of children, I would supplement my exams with treatment I knew how to do day in and day out by restoring permanent dentition of older kids.

Now that I am working independently, a typical day includes practice a full scope of pediatric dentistry includes:

• Exams and Preventive Care – Early detection, growth and development monitoring, and family education.

• Restorations for Primary & Permanent Teeth – Restoring function and esthetics with both fillings and crowns.

• Stainless Steel Crowns & Pulp Treatments – Providing durable care for compromised teeth.

• Extractions – Managing space, infection, and patient comfort through safe and effective extractions.

  
  

Other benefits:

Outside of my working days, K2D offers professional development opportunities that I have fully immersed myself in. These include monthly doctor's study clubs led by our clinical director where we review cases and discuss guidelines/ literature from the Academy of Pediatric dentistry to ensure we are providing the highest standard of care to our patients. We are also provided 20-30 CE units a year (at no cost) in the fields of orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, and oral surgery to continue developing our multidisciplinary care.

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Tips to succeed:

1. Practice time management: Pediatric dentistry inevitably comes with high volume and speed. Compared to general dentistry, you will typically see 30-50 patients a day in the pedo space. As you can imagine, infant exams where you only have 4-20 teeth erupted vs an adult's 32 can go by pretty quick! The key is proper communication with the child and parent.

2. Lean on your dental team: Learning to work harmoniously with your dental assistants to anesthetize a child and jump to a few exams before beginning to the procedure is key. In a pedo office, the dental assistant to provider ratio is often 5:1 which is amazing!

3. Seek mentorship: K2D has spoiled me with the mentorship of leaders in the field of pediatric dentistry today. I appreciate they are just a text or phone call away to review cases or seek guidance on communication with families.

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Finally, I will add, the financial aspect of converting my practice to pediatric dentistry has also been very rewarding. Pediatric dental offices typically offer a higher base and production percentage than general practices because it is specialty work. Based on my research, this employment offers one of the higher bases/production percentages I've seen in California.

If you have made it to the end of this blog post, my echoing thoughts are:

With a competitive pay structure, mentorship, and opportunity to provide a necessary and meaningful service to underserved patients in the Central Valley, I hope to have opened your eyes to a special employment opportunity and fun way to practice dentistry.

At the end of the day, when the last patient leaves and the clinic quiets down, you feel the kind of satisfaction that only comes from combining clinical growth, mentorship, and service to others. Kids2Dentist Iis an environment I've been able to practice pediatric dentistry, expand my clinical skillsets, and become part of a mission-driven team dedicated to children’s health.

For dentists, graduating dental students, or pediatric residents who seek employment, mentorship, and growth, I'm thankful to have found the gem that is Kids2Dentist in the Central Valley.

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Contact for Opportunities

For more information regarding professional opportunities at Kids2Dentist or Star Tek Adult Dental, please reach out to Michelle Ammons, HR Director, at hr@kids2dentist.com. To take the next step, include your resume or CV. Phone conversations are available upon request after initial email contact.