Standing Tall
Sydnye Fields
From Scrubs to Graduation Gown
Former NCAA volleyball competitor sets new heights in dentistry as she prepares to make history in Hunt School of Dental Medicine’s groundbreaking program
Fourth-year dental student Sydnye Fields stands tall above most of her classmates – literally. The 6-foot-3-inch former NCAA women’s volleyball middle blocker is easy to pick out in a crowd.
The fourth-year Hunt School of Dental Medicine student is on the cusp of graduation. She will spend the next three years at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago for a dental anesthesiology residency.
Fields and her classmates started four years ago, in 2021, as part of the dental school’s inaugural class. As the first new dental school established in Texas in 50 years, the Hunt School of Dental Medicine soon proved to be the most innovative.
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in Missouri City, Texas, outside Houston, Fields knew at 7 that she wanted to be a dentist.
“Every time I went to the dentist, I had so much fun,” she recalled. “I was told I was such a good patient and got stickers and toys from the toy chest.”
Fields attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her achievements on the volleyball court included breaking the school’s 30-year-old record for blocks by a player and earning her ACC Player of the Week honors.
However, her desire for dentistry lured her back to Texas in her senior year. She completed her Spanish degree with a chemistry minor at Texas A&M University, where she received a full athletic scholarship.
Returning to Texas meant paying in-state tuition. This would keep her cost of attending dental school down.
Richard Black, D.D.S., founding dean of the Hunt School of Dental Medicine, and Wendy Woodall, D.D.S., MAGD, wanted Fields for the first cohort of students admitted in 2021.
“Sydnye’s leadership and drive are a testament to the kind of talent we aim to cultivate,” said Dr. Black. “She has embraced every challenge, setting a standard for future students. She embodies the innovative, compassionate care we strive to foster at the Hunt School of Dental Medicine.”
The enthusiasm they showed for the program impressed Fields.
“I flew in, and they canceled their meetings that day to meet with me,” she recalled. “That was significant to me – they’re deans, after all. Despite their busy schedules and opening a new school, they stopped what they were doing to talk with me.”
That’s all it took.
“I ultimately made my mind up and decided to come here,” she said. “No regrets. It's been a great experience!”
Fields was also awarded an Electric Company Charitable Foundation Dental Student Scholarship, which eased her financial burden.
What impressed her most about the school’s unique program was working with patients at the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic during her first semester. Most dental schools do not offer clinical practice until the third year, following two years of classroom studies.
In her first year as president of the Student National Dental Association chapter on campus, she met many dental students from across the nation.
“People were like, ‘Oh, you’re part of that new school, right?’” she shared. “When I told them I'd already performed a filling on a patient, they were blown away. They couldn't believe that we'd done a filling and root canals, and they were still in the classroom, reading textbooks.”
“That was kind of cool, being able to show off and say that I had performed procedures they wouldn’t do for another two years,” she said, flashing a smile.
As the inaugural members of the school’s first dental class, Fields and her classmates didn’t benefit from working with upper classmates who could show them the ropes.
“It could have been a struggle,” she said. “But I think it wasn't because our class size is so small. I may not have had a fourth-year student to lean on. But our professors were always willing to give us feedback.”
The small class size was another feature of the program.
“I had friends at NYU where there were 300 people in a single class,” she said, comparing it to her class of 40 students. “Even though they have upper classmates and professors, they would wait 30 minutes before someone could come by to check their prep.”
In May 2025, Fields will shed her scrubs for a graduation gown. She will make history as part of the first graduating class of the Hunt School of Dental Medicine.
Thanks to her residency at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Fields will specialize in dental anesthesiology, which focuses on the advanced use of general anesthesia, sedation, and pain management to facilitate dental procedures. Like her medical school peers, she must spend at least another three years in a residency program.
While most of her fellow students were biology majors, Fields had minored in chemistry at Texas A&M University. It was during her anesthesia class that something clicked for her.“
Anesthesia is interesting to me because of the pharmacology of the drugs that they use, how it interacts with the blood-brain barrier and the rest of your body,” she said. “It just sparked my interest because it was a little bit more what I was used to studying.”
About the Hunt School of Dental Medicine
The Hunt School of Dental Medicine opened in 2021 and is the only dental school on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the first in Texas to open in more than 50 years. The school offers the most innovative curriculum in the country, preparing students for the future of dentistry with high-tech simulation and an advanced fabrication laboratory. A first for any dental school in the nation, students begin clinical training and patient interaction during their first semester. It’s also the first and only dental school in the nation that requires Spanish language courses.
As upward of 75% of dental school graduates open practices near their dental schools, Hunt School of Dental Medicine graduates are expected to address the oral health care needs along the U.S.-Mexico border for generations to come. The Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic specializes in high-tech, same-day dentistry for patients. With a full complement of 221 students spanning four dental classes, Hunt School of Dental Medicine students are poised to provide nearly 60,000 clinical hours of oral care annually.
About Texas Tech Health El Paso
Texas Tech Health El Paso is the only health sciences center on the U.S.-Mexico border and serves 108 counties in West Texas that have been historically underserved. It’s a designated Title V Hispanic-Serving Institution, preparing the next generation of health care heroes, 48% of whom identify as Hispanic and are often first-generation students.
Established as an independent university in 2013, Texas Tech Health El Paso is a proudly diverse and uniquely innovative destination for education and research.
With a mission of eliminating health care barriers and creating life-changing educational opportunities for Borderplex residents, Texas Tech Health El Paso has graduated over 2,400 doctors, nurses and researchers over the past decade, and will add dentists to its alumni beginning in 2025. For more information, visit ttuhscepimpact.org.