It’s hard to believe that it has been almost six months already since I joined Dr. Zamarra and the team at Beacon Hill Dental. In that time, I have met many wonderful patients and have shared my personal story with several of them. For those patients that I have yet to meet, I am sharing my background as part of the first blog entry on our new website.
My family lived in southeastern Pennsylvania for the first nine years of my life. The remainder of my childhood was spent in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. I was always an athlete growing up. I played many sports, including baseball and basketball in high school, but baseball has always been my favorite. After high school, I completed my bachelor’s degree at
Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. I returned to New York for dental school at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine on Long Island.
My wife and I, who have been together since junior year of high school, got married after my second year of dental school. She has been working in Manhattan in the advertising industry since graduating from college. After the wedding, she joined me on Long Island while I finished my dental degree. Completing dental school was the most difficult thing I have achieved, but it would have been even more difficult without her support.
After graduation, I continued my dental training at NYU Winthrop Hospital with a one-year General Practice Residency. It was an intense year of being on call many nights and weekends, but I learned a great deal. I am now better prepared to handle medical and dental emergencies because of it. As the end of my residency training approached, I had several exciting private practice opportunities present themselves, and I ended up joining two separate practices on
Long Island.
I am grateful for my time in those practices. I honed my skills and expanded my knowledge base under the tutelage of the more experienced dentists in each of those practices. However, after two years in private practice, and seven years total, on Long Island, my wife and I came to the conclusion that we wanted to live closer to our families in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Upstate New York. It was a difficult decision to make, since my entire dental industry network was on Long Island. I was essentially starting over in New Jersey. Fortunately, my wife could keep her job through our relocation. Again, making such a big life change would have been even more challenging without her support.
Reflecting back on our first six months in New Jersey, it was definitely the right decision for us as a family. We are able to see family more often, and it is much easier to get to family events and holiday gatherings without having to cross the many bridges and tunnels that separate Long Island and New Jersey. It was also the right decision for me professionally. If I had stayed in those Long Island practices for five or ten years, it would have been even more difficult to make a change than after two years.
From the day that we first met when I was interviewing for the position, Dr. Zamarra and I could both tell that we were the right people to be working together. We share the same philosophies on treating people honestly and ethically with the highest quality of care. In addition, we are both humble, life-long learners, always seeking new skills and information to improve ourselves and the practice. I feel fortunate to be a part of it, and I am excited to see what the future has in store for me, my family, Dr. Zamarra, and the Beacon Hill Dental team.
By Beacon Hill Dental
November 25, 2019