{"id":76725,"date":"2013-04-24T12:03:30","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T16:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=76725"},"modified":"2013-04-24T12:03:30","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T16:03:30","slug":"from-chemistry-to-dentistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/04\/from-chemistry-to-dentistry\/","title":{"rendered":"From Chemistry to Dentistry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eric<\/a>
Eric Navok<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Eric Navok, the nerves are building as his UConn School of Dental Medicine commencement address nears. \u201cI haven\u2019t given a speech this big since my Bar Mitzvah,\u201d says Navok.<\/p>\n

The Stamford native graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with a bachelor\u2019s degree in chemistry. After graduating, while working as a chemist for Duracell in Danbury, he decided he wanted to go to school for dentistry. He says he shadowed a few different fields to decide which career path would be most satisfying to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re self motivated as a dentist; you can watch yourself and your practice grow,\u201d says Navok. \u201cI\u2019m a people person and being a dentist will allow me to be more involved with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

His decision to go to UConn was based on the wide spectrum the School of Dental Medicine offers its students.<\/p>\n

\u201cUConn made the strongest case for why it was the best school. It has respect for all areas of dentistry. You can find your interest here and expand on it by working with different faculty,\u201d says Navok.<\/p>\n

Navok got involved with faculty at UConn not only in his classes, but also as co-chair of the General Dentistry Interest Group and co-chair of the American Student Dental Association.<\/p>\n

He was also one of 12 dental students from UConn to travel to Honduras to provide dental care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was humbled by the genuine need and appreciation in the country,\u201d he says. \u201cYou got a sense that you were doing a great act of service. There were lines out the door with people who had been in pain for months. When we went out in public we were greeted with hugs and patients showing off their treated teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navok says he was very appreciative of the time and resources the faculty contributed to the trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time you graduate, the faculty is more like colleagues. They\u2019re not just teaching you dentistry, but life lessons,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is one of those fields that takes a lifetime to master. I have a lot of respect for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navok says by teaching with specialists, UConn exposes its dental students to all the different aspects of dentistry. The people who impacted him most, he says, were the private practitioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the ones I want to emulate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navok will be doing a one-year general practice residency at Stony Brook University on Long Island. He says he is looking forward to learning new materials and techniques in a hands-on atmosphere and being exposed to a new set of faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will hopefully give me the confidence and knowledge of an experienced dentist,\u201d says Navok.<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Eric Navok, the nerves are building as his UConn School of Dental Medicine commencement address nears. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":76729,"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":[45],"class_list":["post-76725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","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":"2026-04-20 18:28:20","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\/76725","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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76725"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76734,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76725\/revisions\/76734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/76729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76725"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=76725"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=76725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}