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Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #126: Sandra Brener with Sandra Brener & Associates
Have you ever wondered how someone can start over, rebuild their career and succeed in a new country? Get ready to be inspired by Dr. Sandra Brenner, a pediatric dentist who moved from Argentina to the US in 2002, and now serves as the Director of Intro to Pediatric Dentistry at Nova Southeastern University. In our heartwarming conversation, she shares her journey of starting her dentistry career afresh, her research studies that have been awarded by the Healthy Smiles Healthy Children Foundation, and the story behind her successful boutique practice that champions preventive care for children.
But it's not just about professional achievements! Dr. Brenner is a firm believer in giving back to the community. She fills us in on the Good Neighbor Program in Cooper City, where locals get to nominate their favorite businesses for a show feature. We wrap up our chat with a well-deserved tribute to Dr. Brenner and her dedication to the community, and a reminder that we all can make a difference in the lives of our neighbors. Tune in for an episode full of inspiring stories and priceless insights into the world of pediatric dentistry. Don't let this conversation pass you by!
Learn more: https://coopercitypediatricdentist.com/
Call us: (954) 441-3777
Visit us: 9720 Stirling Road, Suite 100, Cooper City Fl
This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolff.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor podcast. Your host, jeremy Wolff, and today's guest originally hails from Buenos Aires, argentina. Shortly after she came to the US, back in, I believe, 2002, she started her teaching journey and ultimately became the director of intro to pediatric dentistry at Nova Southeastern University. The research studies awarded by she has the research. Her research studies were awarded by Healthy Smiles Healthy Children Foundation. She's a diplomat of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry and she's been featured in the Journal of the American Dental Association. I have here with me today Dr Sandra Brenner, with Sandra Brenner and Associates pediatric dentists right here in lovely Cooper City. Dr Brenner, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Hi Jeremy, thank you for having me, and you did your research. It appears that you started my entire dental career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to give praise where praises do, and we're so happy to have you on the show and thanks always to our listeners for tuning in to learn more about our great community and the businesses that serve us. So, dr Brenner, why don't we start off? Tell everyone a little bit about Sandra Brenner and Associates, and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 3:Okay, so our office turned 10 years this year. I've been a dentist for over 30 years, but in Cooper City I opened my practice in, you know, 10 years ago. This past July we had a boutique practice. I was a little bit tired of being pushed by the big companies of dentistry to do this and do that for productions. So I decided, okay, we have a good opportunity here in Cooper City with young families from our county area and they want to know how to prevent disease more than manage the results of the disease. So let's go ahead and do that. And yeah, that's what happens here at our practice. We help people prevent the disease of decay and we monitor children growth and their development.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I apologize, your connection is a little bit spotty, but we'll do our best here today. So 30 years you've been practicing you said 30 years you've been practicing dentistry. 10 years you've been at the office here in Cooper City. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yes, this is my office before. I always worked as an associate.
Speaker 2:All right, so I wanted to talk also a little bit about your background in education. Can you talk about so? You came over here in 2002 from Buenos Aires and you started, I believe, shortly after you came over, at Nova with a teaching position there, correct?
Speaker 3:Exactly so. At the beginning, the hardest thing for me was to stay away from dentistry, and you may or may not know, but to become a dentist in the United States you have to do basically all training again.
Speaker 3:So, as I was doing that, I started a teaching position at Nova. Before that, I was also a professor at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, so teaching was familiar to me and it's something that I absolutely love. I was holding a teaching position at Nova for about 10 years. During that time I did my residency, I got my dentist license here in Florida, I worked as an associate for a while and then I decided to open my practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've spoken with other guests before that are in various medical fields, where they had their licensure in their home country and then, after they moved over, they had to get recertified through the American schools. So you got a double dose of education, if you will, and you've been educating for many years. Dr Brenner, how did you get into dentistry? Where did your fascination start? Is this something that goes back to your childhood? Tell us a little bit about your journey, how you ended up here.
Speaker 3:The truth is that the answer to this might be a little bit difficult, but in all honesty, my father was the one who said dentistry was a good profession for me.
Speaker 3:At the time I wanted to be a veterinarian or a preschool teacher, but somehow he thought that wasn't right for me and he guided me towards studying dentistry. It took me a few years to realize that he was right, but not for the reasons he thought he was right. It wasn't until I reached my fifth year of dental school back in Argentina, when I fell in love with dentistry by taking my first course in pediatric dentistry. In Argentina, we do it during the last year of dental school, so that is when I really fell in love with the profession working with children, trying to help them develop not only good dental habits and healthy nutritional habits, but also prevent the fear to go to the dentist and that's what I like the most about my profession turn an apprehensive child into someone that really likes going to the dentist. And of course, you don't have to believe me, but you can ask a few of our neighbors and they will attest by that.
Speaker 2:So when you initially started in dentistry, were you planning on just doing regular general general practice or did you always, from the very beginning, want to do pediatric dentistry?
Speaker 3:No, no, I didn't know that I wanted to do pediatrics until I was exposed to it. So I was kind of, ah, this again. I mean I really didn't like working with adults. But yeah, finally, eventually I got into pediatric dentistry the final courses of my career and I ate them all my pediatric dentistry courses. The other ones I was average, but in pediatrics I was. I was really good at it. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Nice, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to have a boutique practice and steer away from, you know, the more mainstream type of offices. Can you talk a little bit more about that distinction between the mainstream offices and what you do as a boutique practice, and what led you to that?
Speaker 3:place. So I can't speak for all corporate practices, but in general there's more freedom to decide what's best for the patient and there's less pressure to do more than what's necessary or to guide your treatment plan towards more treatment than prevention and I'm really big in prevention. Obviously, prevention doesn't pay as much as restorative procedures, but I believe it's worse for the families to have experienced prevention before having to deal with the consequences of not doing prevention. So you know, after I always try to maintain my personality in what I do. The first 10 years of practice back in Argentina it wasn't hard. Even though I was working as an associate, I never felt pressure. Coming to the US it was a little bit different in corporate practice. So then is when I decided that I wanted to do things my way and I opened my practice. I was very scared, but I mean, I can complain. I'm very happy with what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:So, coming from an education background here at NOVA and then transitioning from that to opening your own practice, what would you say was the biggest challenge that you face in that process 10 years ago?
Speaker 3:So, well being an educator is different because you're not so much hands-on. I mean, you demonstrate procedures and you demonstrate behavior management techniques to your students and your residents, but when I'm in my office it's all hands-on, so it's basically me. The education part goes to my assistants. I always have either students of mine from NOVA that come in shadow, or even patients of mine that eventually want to become pediatric dentists, who also come in shadow. So I still have the opportunity to teach, but it's mostly hands-on.
Speaker 3:It's funny because I have children from all ages that want to be dentists. I have now one young college student who's been my patient for 10 years that he wants to be a dentist and he's in college and he shadows as many times in the week he can. And then I have students who are in elementary school, two of them who had to do a project for school last week. They also want to be a dentist, so they came to the office, they dressed up as dentists and they pretended to be dentists. So there's always opportunities for teaching, even when I'm here in the office.
Speaker 3:So even though I'm not a dentist anymore, I always have opportunities to educate.
Speaker 2:That must be an amazing feeling to have somebody that you treated as a child now that they're going to college. It brings to mind a recent story I had. I was at my son's open house with a teacher and she's been teaching at Griffin Elementary for I think she said 35 years, and one of the parents of the kids in the class now she actually taught when she was in elementary school, so she's coming full circle seeing the parent of the child. I thought that was just such an amazing story to see that evolve. So so, speaking of family, why don't you tell us a little bit about your family? I know you're. You have kids of your own, I'd imagine.
Speaker 3:Yes, my kids are boys. They're 22 and 24. So they're all older now. I mean they're adults.
Speaker 2:Did either of them get into dentistry by chance or no?
Speaker 3:No, no, I wish they had, but no, they have different paths. But they had the opportunity to shadow and work in the practice when they were at Cooper City High School. They were forced to come to the office in the afternoon and they learned quickly that that's not what they want to do as adults. But, yes, so they chose different paths, but you know, they still appreciate what I do.
Speaker 2:Now do you? You mentioned your children went to Cooper City High School. Do you currently still live in Cooper City?
Speaker 3:Not at the moment. We live east. Since the kids moved out of the house, we moved to Hollywood East, but we're coming back. We are hoping to be the house close by. So that was enough of the fans of South Florida. I like nature, so my idea is to have an edible garden, raise chickens and live in the community that I work.
Speaker 2:Very, very cool. So before we wrap up here, maybe share with the listeners the one thing you'd like to leave them with about your practice.
Speaker 3:Well, my slogan is that we make it mine. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Some kids are more apprehensive than others, but I don't recall any patient over the past 30 years that didn't come around eventually. So I noticed some parents that are stressed about taking their kids to the dentist and how uncomfortable the situation might be for them or the child. Every child can learn to cope with dental care. The way we do it here is with desensitizing the most apprehensive children, little by little, one step at a time. They don't even need to take care of the first time they come. They can come and just watch other children being taken care of. You don't even have to schedule an appointment for that. You can just bring them and have them experience what it really is, because a lot of the fear comes from not knowing what's going to happen. The fear comes from parents who have bad experiences themselves. So by seeing what really happens here, that could be a good starting point to loosen up a little bit, mostly for the parents who have that fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it all comes back to parents at home with their kids proper education, creating the habits necessary for proper health and maintenance Something you mentioned earlier about making sure this whole preventative side. It's just so important to get people to take care of, not just inventory and everything right, and build the habits for successful health and life in general. So, Dr Brenner, please share with us I know you're right down the road from where I live, You're right off sterling. Please share your address, your contact information, how we could learn more if anybody wants to contact you.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we are located just across from Cooper City High School. It's 9720 sterling road, Suite 100, and the office number is 954441 3777.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and we will, of course, link in the description to all of your contact information. Dr Brenner, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Now the pleasure is all ours, and thanks, as always, to our listeners for tuning in, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Good Neighbor podcast. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast Cooper City. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, Go to GNPcooperCitycom. That's GNPcooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.