Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 2

Passion for Community Care She opted for dentistry, assuming she would have a career as a private practice dentist. But soon after completing a dental internship, she found a position in a public health unit in North York, Ontario, providing care for socio-economically marginalized patients. This was something of a game‑changing moment, a spark that would inform everything that was to come. “I fell in love with public health,” she says. “It started by taking a short-term contract as cover for a dentist on maternity leave. I was proud to work there. We knew we were serving a population that would not otherwise be receiving dental care.” Yet despite finding a meaningful niche for herself, Dr. Waschuk describes the early part of her career in dentistry as enormously stressful, a stress primarily brought about by her own misgivings about whether she could competently provide the entire scope of practice that was expected at her various workplaces at that time, coupled with an inability to manage the stress. It was an untenable situation, and when the stress started to get in the way of her doing a good enough job for her patients, she started looking for a way out. Academically minded and with a growing curiosity for education, Dr. Waschuk began to develop a keen interest in non-clinical work and set out to acquire the necessary skills. She volunteered on various working committees and took a business writing course. In 1998, she enrolled in a Master of Education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at U of T and continued teaching on the side, using her teaching evaluations as learning opportunities for reflective teaching practice. When she finally made the move to organized dentistry, Dr. Waschuk hoped it was permanent. That it would be the first step on an upward career trajectory, with no intention to return to clinical practice. For over 20 years she worked at the RCDSO in a variety of roles, including monitoring officer, senior practice advisor, and finally senior educational consultant, a position that involved teaching courses in dental recordkeeping and arranging for other instructors to give hands-on clinical courses. Return to Practice But because Dr. Waschuk was not a clinician anymore, her teaching focus was restricted to diagnosis, treatment planning and other non-clinical courses. Certain teaching opportunities were not available to her as a non-practising dentist. It was apparent that if she was going to continue teaching in a clinical capacity, she needed to upskill. And so, 21 years after her departure into organized dentistry, as fate would have it, she started to make her way back to clinical practice. “Part of The passion for me is access to care, and there are other ways that I can serve that aim. But it would help if I could practise as well and do the procedures that are typicallyperformed in community health settings. it was confidence and part of it was conscientiousness,” she says. “An awareness that I had not practised in so long that I was going to need to regain my full clinical competence if I was going to remain an effective clinical teacher. And that’s something I really wanted to do because I love teaching.” Like any major career choice, the decision to go back to practise dentistry is complicated. Yet one senses that for Dr. Waschuk, it all boils neatly down to that one simple yet powerful driver: the deep-rooted passion for community care that was sown during her early days of practise. “What’s the passion?” she asks. “Is the passion access to care, or is the passion dentistry?” For a moment, it feels like she’s waiting for me to answer. No matter, I already know what her answer will be. “The passion for me is access to care,” she says, “and there are other ways that I can serve that aim. But it would help if I could practise as well and do the procedures that are typically performed in community health settings.” Support and Mentorship Having maintained her certificate of registration over the years, there is no regulatory impediment to Dr. Waschuk in returning to practise, but she still feels a strong ethical and moral imperative to regain her clinical competence. Having taught dental students and evaluated dentists, she is mindful of ensuring she meets the standards of practice. To this end, she has found both support and mentorship at Prep Doctors, a dental training and support services provider for internationally trained dentists (ITDs) where she currently I ssues and P eople 25 Issue 2 | 2021 |