{"id":41319,"date":"2011-04-29T15:25:36","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T19:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=41319"},"modified":"2011-08-03T14:28:16","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T18:28:16","slug":"commencement-speaker-ready-to-be-%e2%80%98the-dentist%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/04\/commencement-speaker-ready-to-be-%e2%80%98the-dentist%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Speaker Ready to Be \u2018The Dentist\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joe<\/a>
Joe Blondin is the School of Dental Medicine Class of 2011 commencement speaker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joe Blondin says he\u2019s just looking forward to being \u201cthe dentist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2011 School of Dental Medicine commencement speaker\u2019s days as a student are not over, but the next phase of his training\u2014he\u2019s staying at UConn as a Master of Dental Science<\/a> candidate and endodontics<\/a> resident\u2014will be different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be the dentist,\u201d Blondin says. \u201cI really don\u2019t\u2019 have to check in with anyone. People will come to me and expect me to know what I\u2019m doing, expect me to do a great job. It\u2019s good that it will be a residency, there\u2019ll be help around, but instead of being watched every step, I\u2019m supposed to know the steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blondin\u2019s undergraduate path followed his father\u2019s and grandfather\u2019s to the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in preprofessional studies and minored in science technology and values.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I wanted to do health care as soon as I went to college,\u201d says Blondin, the son of an optometrist and brother of a neurologist. \u201cI\u2019m really good with my hands. I didn\u2019t really have the art skill but I thought dentistry was a good field.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was drawn to endodontics as a UConn dental student in a pre-clinical lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was the first thing I was really good at,\u201d Blondin says. \u201cSo I shadowed the residents, and we got to clinic, and I really enjoyed doing the procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blondin\u2019s clinical work was under the supervision of Drs. Melissa Ing, Frank Nichols<\/a> and Jonathan Meiers<\/a>, all of whom he credits for raising his professional standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent a lot of time in the clinic trying to become perfectionists, and they expect our work to be absolutely great,\u201d Blondin says. \u201cSo now I feel that I am always going to expect my work to be at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also spent four years involved with the American Student Dental Association, ending up in the role of district trustee representing UConn, Boston University, Tufts and Harvard at national meetings.<\/p>\n

Blondin, a Litchfield native, believes he\u2019s part of the best class of graduating dental students in the country. And when he takes the dias at the Connecticut Convention Center May 15, he plans to tell his classmates that the school is only part of the reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows how great UConn\u2019s dental school is, but I\u2019m going to think about how great our class has been,\u201d Blondin says. \u201cMaybe what makes us good dentists is not only the school, but who you\u2019re with all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Blondin says he\u2019s just looking forward to being \u201cthe dentist.\u201d The 2011 School of Dental Medicine commencement speaker\u2019s days as a student are not over, but the next phase of his training\u2014he\u2019s staying at UConn as a Master of Dental Science candidate and endodontics resident\u2014will be different. \u201cI\u2019ll be the dentist,\u201d Blondin says. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[57,2010],"class_list":["post-41319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 23:49:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41319"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43047,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41319\/revisions\/43047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41319"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=41319"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=41319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}