PEEKS Source for Happy Smiles Jeanette Kern, D.D.S. Is a vigorous professional and the professional woman's network's current woman of the year. Jan 2008

Jeanette Kern, D.D.S.

From early childhood I was interested in athletics, and played center position on my high school volleyball team. I was especially interested in art and created some ceramic pieces that some people thought were fine.

At age 13 I had some orthodontic work done and was simply dazzled by the effect that the procedure had upon my appearance. The experience created a desire for me to find a place for myself in the dental care profession.

However, women didn't become dentists in those days. Also, the process took too long. I was afraid I would be an elderly graying 30-year-old before I graduated, so I went into dental hygiene. If I couldn't give people a perfect smile I could at least give them clean white teeth.

Professional Beginnings
My role as Dental Hygienist supplied me with an important set of skills. I enjoyed the role I was playing in providing wellness for people. Things changed when bonding appeared in the 1980s and dentists could suddenly do such things as lengthen and smooth teeth providing an improvement in smiles beyond what had been possible up to that point. The power of bonding appealed to the artist in me. I wanted to create beautiful smiles. I decided to become a Dentist and applied to Dental School.

The world had changed and by that time women were beginning to get involved in any part of the business world that we wanted to be in. So in 1985 I became an entry-level dental student at UCLA. A full one-third of us in that class were women. By the way, parity has since become perfect and UCLA dental classes are now evenly divided by gender.

I've discovered that life has rhythms and cadences. If a person will simply stay in-tune with the Universe then things tend to happen when the time is ripe. In retrospect, the nine years I spent as a Dental Hygienist served to mature my self-awareness and my understanding of human nature to the point that I was prepared to engage in the dental experience at a level that simply wouldn't have been possible during my callow youth.

The difficult courses such as Physics and Organic Chemistry were simply hurdles that I cleared with great joy and energy because I was determined to become the authentic Me that the Universe had designed me to be.

I graduated at the head of my class and following graduation I taught dentistry at UCLA and USC, worked as an associate in a Los Angeles dental office, and gave birth to two daughters. LA is no place to raise children so in 1995 I moved to Monterey and purchased my own dental practice.

Climbing to the Top
My professional life underwent a seismic transformation in 1999. Following ten years of traditional dental practice I attended my first hands-on dental training institute emphasizing cosmetics and I came to a brilliant clarity that my practice could focus upon the kinds of transformation that I had only dimly imagined when I was 13. I subsequently participated in post-doctoral training with pioneers in the fields of aesthetic, restorative, and general dentistry. This was the culmination of the journey that I had been taking up to that time. I had found my purpose.

Fortunately I'm married to an amazing businessperson. My husband, Kevin, a professional accountant, has helped me with the business part of my practice. Besides keeping our accounts straight, Kevin takes care of our computers, performs liaison with the government, handles Costco kinds of tasks, and serves as a gentle shepherd for our daughters. Kevin is my life partner in almost every way a man could be a partner to a woman. He carves out space in which I can focus my attention on the thing that, after all, I love to do. He has provided me with the opportunity to be particularly successful.

I'm passionate about continuing education, never imagining that I have in any sense "arrived" at some pinnacle of professional competence. Every year I take all seven of us in my office for multi-day trainings in such places as Florida, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco. We always return from these events fired up and excited to utilize our newly developed skills for our patients' benefit.

The seven of us also have fun, both during our training experiences and in our day-to-day work. Our age spread is 29 to 52. Four of us are mothers, three single, and we blend into an organization in which the diversity serves to draw us together and to provide energies and abilities that no homogeneous group could ever match. As a result of our focus on education and training, I'm confident that I'm managing the most well-trained dental team on the Peninsula. My dental office was featured in the Winter-Spring 08 New Beauty magazine as an illustration of how a business like mine should be run.

Raising the Bar
Dentistry is undergoing profound changes because of the impact of technology. Along with so many other things, it seems that our profession is re-inventing itself every five years or so. To paraphrase an old car ad, "This is not your grandfather's dental office" actually falls far short of the reality.

"This is not your older sibling's dental office" would be closer to the truth.

We train ourselves to remain abreast of things like digital radiographs, laser for soft tissue management, and air abrasion ‹ a technology that permits us to remove decay without using a drill. Invisalign is an amazing process that provides clear removable braces. We have a CEREC machine that actually creates finished crowns in a while-you-wait process that frees patients from the always obnoxious need to wear a temporary crown for three weeks.

Our standard dental services are, themselves, a source of satisfaction because of the connection between oral health and general health. For example, inflammatory conditions in the mouth (periodontal disease) are tied to heart disease. Studies of plaque material in blood vessels reveal the same bacteria that live in your mouth causing cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, and leading to high blood pressure and strokes.

In the area of oral health, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than a pound of cure. I tell people, "You take care of your teeth and they'll take care of you."

I see my task as one of partnering with patients in creating and maintaining healthy teeth and pleasant ‹ even dazzling ‹ smiles. "I'll help you keep your teeth for a lifetime," I tell my patients. "And help you be happy with your smile."

The primary responsibility for dental health properly belongs to the patient. My role is to restore and maintain their teeth, and to teach them about dental care so they can take responsibility for their own dental health.

Getting and Staying Connected
The years of my life have served to teach me the lesson that everything is about relationships; it's all about people. I'm in service to my patients. I've also put my training and position as a businesswoman into service for the community. Part of this is just for the networking and PR opportunities that community outreach provides me. If people have the desire to improve their smiles, I'm the one to give it to them. This isn't just an advertising sound-bite, this is the truth.

At its best, marketing is much more than merely pushing services and products. My philosophy is that you have to have your house in order, with a completely trained team in place and equipment up to high standards, before beginning any heavy advertising campaign. I wanted to have all my ducks lined up before telling the world "Here I am." I firmly believe that tooting your own horn is fine as long as you actually know how to play the tune.

Given the kind of excellence we provide, marketing becomes a matter of simply letting our light shine. We're simply showing others the blessings that we can bring to their lives. I sometimes feel that in marketing my dental services I'm like a lighthouse. Not everyone needs the services we provide; boats sometimes merely go sailing by on a course for some other destination. However, we're shining the way for people searching for a place to find help with their teeth.

The Professional Women's Network (PWN) has provided me with connections to people outside my sphere of dental professionals. The organization has become a great resource for meeting people and for profiting from their example of how to succeed in business.

The PWN includes women in ages ranging from 35 to 65. We are all business owners or high-level managers who have raised ourselves to leadership roles. Together we are learning from each other and teaching one another principles and techniques for growing businesses. We read books to improve our minds and spirits, such as The Path, by Laurie Beth Jones, Good to Great, by Jim Collins, What is Your Purpose?, by Jim White, and Your A-Game, by Bill Blatchford.

We read, study, and mentor one another ‹ using all available channels in order to remain in the currents of professional development and personal transformation. We believe that people are not born leaders; we evolve by taking many deliberate steps in growing into our roles.

Those of us in PWN are shoulder-to-shoulder in learning how to balance careers, family, and community. Theresa Ream, the current President of PWN, for example, balances five businesses while maintaining a happy family, in addition to serving on her church board.

The example of Theresa and other business women getting involved in community outreach encouraged me to spread myself out. It gave me permission to become an independent-minded and confident leader, and as a result I'm now Secretary of the Monterey Rape Crises Center board, member of the Dance Kids of Monterey County, and Chairperson of the PWN's Membership and Network Showcase committees.

I've created a university scholarship for local women who are interested in science, and am actively involved with the Go Red for Women, Give Back a Smile, and Make-A-Wish foundations. In addition, I'm the only woman member of the Monterey Dental Society's Peer Review. This fall I plan to launch a campaign to raise awareness about oral cancer. My career began with a vision. I have developed skills to complement my artistic talents and am applying them in service to my clients. I love what I do! The excitement that people derive from their new smiles never fails to turn me on.

I'm blessed to have become an artisan who gets paid to perform her art in doing the very thing that I would have gladly done for nothing. °

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