Drs. Ziese and Torres Added To Growing List of Student Loan Repayment Grant Recipients

On average, a new dentist has more than $250,000 in student loan debt. For many, this makes the option of working in public or community health nearly impossible. For the past four years, the CDA Foundation’s Student Loan Repayment Grant Program has been expanding those options for a few. The latest, Siri Ziese, DDS and Jose Torres, DMD, make up numbers eight and nine as the 2009 recipients.

It’s estimated, based on yearly reports, that the CDA Foundation Student Loan Repayment Grant recipients, provide well over $500,000 each on an annual basis, in dental care provided to families- a remarkable return on the grant investment, significantly adding to the number of children, aging adults and working families receiving oral health care in California.

The Student Loan Repayment Grant Program began in 2006 as an initiative to help ease the burden for dentists who wished to practice in a community clinic. A maximum of $105,000 is awarded over a three -year period in exchange for a three-year commitment in a community clinic or program of their choice.

The program has been a success providing millions of dollars in dental care throughout California and it is gaining interest. This year the program saw a 67% increase in applications since the prior year. Drs. Ziese and Torres were two among 25 applicants.

Siri Ziese, DDS

Dr. Ziese grew up struggling financially with her Yugoslavian immigrant parents. “My grandparents were displaced refugees from Yugoslavia who were interned in Russian work camps during World War II.

Following their release, they immigrated to Solingen where my mother grew up in the poverty of Post-war Germany,” reflected Dr. Ziese, “In 1976 my mother married and immigrated to the U.S.A. where she struggled to learn English and integrate into American society.” Because of her parents’ limited finances, Dr. Ziese spent her early years with very little resources in Grizzly Flat, California.

While in college, Dr. Ziese worked as a dental assistant for the Diamond Springs Dental Center where she is currently serving her three-year commitment.  The clinic treats children and adults from impoverished communities from as much as 100 miles away because of their lack of local access to dental care. “My life experiences in Grizzly Flat as well as my family’s long struggle with social and economic hardship have inspired me to serve the community I am so familiar with. The grant is an amazing blessing and is having a huge impact on my life and in turn my community.”

Dr. Ziese graduated from Loma Linda in 2007. Because of loan debt and cost of living, she and her husband were planning to move out of state. “This area and the clinic is home to me,” says Dr. Zeise. “The staff here and my patients are like family. I am so grateful I am able to stay and am indebted to anyone who has given to the CDA Foundation in support of this program.”

Jose Torres, DMD

Dr. Torres is Mexican-American who grew up speaking Spanish to his farm worker parents and was faced with a low socioeconomic background. Because he fluently speaks Spanish and is practicing in the community he grew up in, Dr. Torres has developed a trust among his patients he serves at the United Health Centers of the San Joaquin Valley/Earlimart Health Center. “My earliest memory of the hardships of being from a migrant fieldworker family was waking up in orange orchards with a small fire nearby as my parents worked at picking oranges from the nearby trees,” recalls Dr. Torres. “During the summers and weekends, my siblings and I worked alongside our parents in the fields – they wanted us to realize that working in the fields was a difficult way of life. I was the first person in my immediate family to attend college and graduate.”

Dr. Torres heard about and was encouraged to apply for the Student Loan Repayment Grant from Dr. Mao Her-Flores, the first recipient of the grant. “Dr. Her knew my desire was similar to hers – to practice in the community I was so familiar with. I heard about the position at United Health Centers and applied. They explained that because of the location, it is difficult for them to keep dentists longer than two months. Because of the grant, I am able to stay here for a long time, giving the patients a stability in care that had been lacking. It allows me to focus on providing quality dental care and building relationships with the patients that I identify with.”