profile hispanic dental association president dr. tyrone rodriguez
When WSDA News Editor Dr. Mary Jennings found out we were doing a story on dental wünderkind and Hispanic Dental Association President Dr. Tyrone Rodriguez, one of the questions she posed was unexpected — “Ask him what compels him to wear his tall hats” It’s true, they make a bold statement — especially here in the Pacific Northwest, where we’re more likely to sport gore-tex than a Stetson — making Rodriguez hard to miss when he walks into a room. He explains that his parents live outside San Antonio in Bulverde, Texas, and the hat is a way for him to carry around a little of them wherever he goes. But it is also an opportunity to be a little different, and it has had a great effect on his youngest and most fearful patients — it relaxes them. He says, “We tell cowboy jokes while we’re taking care of them, and it brings the tension level completely down.”
Photograph by Samantha Deyette
66 · · ththee wsda wsdane newws s · ·issue issue1, 1,october october· ·2013 2013· ·www.wsda.org www.wsda.org