Dental Student Profile
Hunt School of Dental Medicine Student Profile: CheyAnne Meguess
“I feel extremely blessed to be at the Hunt School of Dental Medicine. It took me years of challenging work to get here, but it finally paid off. Now I’ll be the first doctor in my family, and I’ll leave a legacy for future classes to come.”
Tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school?
I grew up in Fannett, Texas, a small town near Beaumont with a population of about 2,000 people. I graduated and moved to College Station to attend Texas A&M University, where I majored in health and minored in biology. During my three years between undergraduate and dental school, I first worked as a pediatric and general dental assistant. I later transitioned to working in public health at the American Heart Association.
Who or what moment inspired you to go into dentistry?
I don’t have many pictures from my adolescent years. It wasn’t because no one tried to take photos of me, but because I had crowding, which caused crooked teeth. I lacked self-confidence, changed the way I smiled and wouldn’t let anyone take pictures of me until my family could afford braces at age 16. Years later while shadowing a dentist, I saw myself in a sweet woman missing all her maxillary teeth. She felt so self-conscious that she covered her mouth when she spoke, even in the dental office. She didn’t have the funds to pay for all the dental work needed, but the doctor addressed her problems. The happiness I saw in her eyes as she looked at her beautiful new smile was priceless. I remembered how my new smile felt as a teenager and knew I wanted to help others gain their confidence and smile back in the same way.
What impact do you hope to have on the community as a dental student at the Hunt School of Dental Medicine? And after?
As a dental student, I want to help develop new organizations and programs within the community and the school to improve dental care and oral health in the Borderplex. I hope to lay a good foundation with these projects so future classes can build upon them, and more people can benefit from them.
After dental school, I plan to participate in local and international service trips. I’m extremely interested in craniofacial abnormalities, so I would like to be a dentist who’s part of the cleft palate repair team abroad. For my community, I hope to bring a more comprehensive approach to dentistry by using my knowledge in public health.
Do you have any mentors who have helped you along the way?
Dr. Leah Villareal taught me so much while I was a dental assistant. I knew nothing when I started working for her at a large corporate office in San Antonio. She took me under her wing and went out of her way to explain and teach me all about dentistry, no matter how busy our days were. She got me first interested in learning more about specialized areas of dentistry, such as airway health and orofacial myofunctional disorders. She taught me to always pursue my passion.
Do you have any family you would like to mention?
My significant other, Tyler, has stood by my side. He encouraged me when I didn’t think I was good enough to get into school and was supportive when I quit my full-time job to get a part-time job and study for the Dental Admission Test. He’s been my rock, and I’m thankful he was able to find a job and move across the state to El Paso with me.
What challenges have made you who you are?
The journey to dental school was a challenge that helped make me who I am. In my gap years, I grew so much as a person and found things that I’m passionate about. I’m thankful that I got real-world experience working, managing a team, forming relationships in the community, creating programs and being a volunteer. I see that if I had gotten into dental school right after college, I would not have been able to do any of these things.
What is something about you people might not know?
I had a career before coming to dental school. I worked for the American Heart Association and helped create programs such as Mercado por tu Corazón, a mobile market with fresh fruits and vegetables that visited food deserts, and a blood pressure measurement program that trained food pantries to measure blood pressure accurately and refer pantry clients to the doctor if their blood pressure was high. It was hard leaving that job, but I hope to return to public health interventions with a dental focus.