Dr. Laila Hishaw is a fellow American Dentist, received her doctorate in dental surgery from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and her specialty certificate in pediatric dentistry from UT Health Science–San Antonio and is a board-certified pediatric dentist and the founding partner of Tucson Smiles Pediatric Dentistry in Tucson, where she lives with her husband and three children. But she is also a role model and mentor to children and future dentists. Dr. Hishaw is one of only 3.8% of Black dentists in America, strongly believes representation matters, and that children will want to emulate what they see in their lives. She decided something needed to be done to change this statistic and her passion project has grown into a nonprofit organization. Dr. Hishaw created the Diversity in Dentistry Mentorships to educate, empower, and mentor African American youth and other underrepresented minorities in dentistry.
In this conversation, we get to know Dr. Hishaw, her journey, and her amazing work bringing awareness and advocating for diversity in Dentistry. We wanted to talk with Dr Laila because the reality is (or our reality is) that we don’t hear much about diversity in Dentistry here in Europe. We also asked: Is there a diversity problem in dentistry? How will increasing the diversity in dentistry impact the dentists' lives and the communities they serve? And how can we (dentists) be coached to create a more inclusive and diverse work environment? Dr. Laila answered all our questions and we think this is a valuable conversation to bring awareness to the diversity problem in Dentistry, and also to show how we dentists can be so much more than doctors who fix teeth, we can have a significant impact on the community and ultimately, valuable leaders in dentistry.
Know more about Dr. Laila Hishaw work here https://diversityindentistry.org
Get the Inclusive Leadership Support Sheet here https://mailchi.mp/drlailahishaw/inclusiveleaderig
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