Dr. Swarnaprabha Ashok – This passionate Laser trained dentist pivots and gets out of her comfort zone to offer quality dental care to rural populations

Life was all butter smooth till I completed my 12th. I was elated when I got a BDS seat although I desired to do MBBS. But the 5 years of BDS were a roller coaster. I often felt like a misfit. However, on completing BDS, I listed out on a paper what I would like to do and don’t do, moving on with the degree in hand. I joined private practice and decided to take one step at a time.

Entering a private clinical practice taught lot of things from clinical, patient and business perspectives. It was then that my urge for learning more increased and was keen on setting up a dental start up someday. I completed Diplomate in Orthodontics from Orthodontic World Institute. With the advancement of dentistry and technology, I decided to incorporate lasers. Completed my Associate Fellowship in Laser Dentistry from World Clinical Laser Institute, USA and Indian Academy of Laser Dentistry and then went onto pursue Fellowship in Laser Dentistry from Saveetha Dental College and Kp Institute of Laser Studies. All these while, I was in clinical practice at Sara Dental Care, Chennai.

With the ingress of COVID, we shifted our bases and set up a dental clinic at Arani, about 40 km from Chennai, in April 2021. The clinic is presently serving quality dental care to the rural population and is revolutionizing the dental treatments rendered by providing laser dental treatments, dental implants and orthodontic treatments. I aspire to impart the knowledge I have gained to the future dentists out there and my dream project is to set up a diagnostic center with all amenities. Although, I barely missed doing medicine by about 1 mark. Today, I have no regrets. Thanks to the support of my family and friends.

To all the fresh and budding graduates, dentistry is not a sinking field. Today there are so many opportunities available such as dental clinic start up, dental consultant, teaching, forensic dentistry, sports dentistry, hospital management, public health specialist, clinical coder, pharmacovigilance officer, researcher, entrepreneurship, data science and artificial intelligence with the degree and knowledge in hand and it is not necessary to stick practicing to performing dental treatments alone. Be you. Be the best.

Dr. Swarnaprabha Ashok
Managing Director
DRS Smile Care Pvt Ltd