Dr. Antonella Trache at her practice in Edmonton. surgery training, and completed a 4-year residency in Houston, Texas. When I graduated in 2008, I was deployed to Afghanistan. My daughter was 8 months old when I began my oral surgery program in Houston, so she was 4 when I was called up to Afghanistan. I was a single parent, and I didn’t really want to go to Afghanistan at that time, but I did my duty. My parents moved to Halifax, where I lived at the time, to care for my daughter while I was on my first tour. I did not know I had in me. It is so rewarding. And to be honest, right now, I work longer hours than I’ve ever worked before; preparing lectures, answering student emails, consultations and looking at charts to see which cases are good for my students. I feel that my tours in Afghanistan were meaningful, but I think now, as an educator, I can make more of a difference. I also keep my fingers wet, so to speak, by seeing patients in private practice, at Contours Oral Surgery in Edmonton, a non-hospital surgical facility owned by another female oral & maxillofacial surgeon, a leader and an educator in our field. Professionally speaking I feel like I have worn many hats, each with challenges and unbelievable rewards. My two tours in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2011 were the highlights of my career. I got to experience things that most people never get to. I was nervous sometimes, and mainly on first tour, because I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was the only maxillofacial trauma surgeon in the Kandahar region, so everything from clavicle up went through me. We didn’t turn anybody away who came to the hospital, so we treated Canadian, American, European and Afghan military personnel, but also many Afghan civilians, many of them children. Because it was wartime, surgeries performed in Afghanistan were more intense and varied than in Canada. I felt a profound sense of camaraderie and friendship with the people I worked with at the Multinational Hospital. I had the opportunity to assist thoracic, orthopedic and ophthalmic surgeons, which wouldn’t happen in Canada. I helped with skin grafts, amputations, neurosurgery, bowel surgery, to name just a few. I retired from the military, at the rank of major, in 2013 after 21 years of service, and then worked parttime in both private clinics and at the U of A. In 2020, I joined the U of A School of Dentistry full time as the discipline lead for oral and maxillofacial surgery. I absolutely love it. I found a passion for teaching that When I started as a full-fledged dentist, I was 24 and relatively young looking. It happened that my dental assistant at the time was male. Some patients would assume that he was the dentist, and I was the assistant. 31 Issue 3 | 2024 |
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