Today we’d like to introduce you to Maria Jackson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Maria. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am originally from the Kansas City metro area and I attended the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk Jayhawks!). During that time, I was fortunate enough to be a member of the KU Women’s Golf Team. After college, my passion for dentistry led me to pursue a Doctorate of Dental Surgery from the University of Missouri-Kansas City College of Dentistry. You could say dentistry is in my blood, as I come from a long line of dentists and am actually a fourth-generation dentist! After dental school, I continued my training with an extra year of Residency where I trained for advanced surgical procedures and treated highly complex cases.
After visiting my longtime boyfriend, who is a business owner in Forney, I knew the DFW area was where I needed to be! I relocated immediately after dental school and began working in a corporate dental office for several years. While this time allowed me to hone my skills, I wanted to create something better. A place where every person that walks through the door is treated as family and not a number. So now, I am very excited to be opening Empower Dental in July! It has been a long term dream of mine, so it is amazing to see it coming to fruition.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the more “fun” challenges was deciding where to build an office. The DFW metro is HUGE so there were lots of choices. I mentioned earlier that my boyfriend owns a business in Texas. Well, he has a state of the art sports training facility right here in Forney! Since we live here and are already part of this young vibrant community, it was a no-brainer that Empower Dental had to be located here.
There are always challenges when building something from the ground up, but the planning, designing, and construction have gone smoothly. Obviously, due to COVID-19, there were some setbacks and we made adjustments to ensure that my team’s safety was priority #1. We want our patients to walk into the safest environment possible, so we have gone above and beyond to ensure that Empower Dental is that!
We’d love to hear more about your practice.
Since I am a general dentist, I get to see patients of all ages. My goal has always been sticking to basics first so I aim to help them create healthy, aesthetic smiles. Being a former collegiate athlete, I am naturally drawn to incorporate sports dentistry in my practice. This means that I can manage facial trauma from sports injuries; I can make custom athletic mouthguards to help prevent that trauma in the first place; and I can help athletes improve their airways. Better airways leads to better oxygen intake which leads to better performance and better sleep patterns. See! Your jawbone really is connected to your knee bone! If we start managing an athlete’s airway at younger ages, around 6-7years old, we can help guide their growth and development so they have a better foundation for the rest of their lives. I could go on and on, but you can see how passionate I am about prevention being paramount for athletes of every age.
I am most proud of being able to say that my dad was my first patient at the office. It is surreal that he has been my dentist my whole life and now I can say I am his dentist. I have really enjoyed being able to have my parents be a part of this process. My ability to run a female-owned business and also create a family atmosphere sets me apart from others. Come try us out and see for yourself why Empower Dental is the place to be! 😉
Contact Info:
- Address: 485 Marketplace Boulevard, Suite 110
Forney, TX 75126 - Website: www.empowerdentaltx.com
- Phone: 4692895959
- Email: empowerdentaltx@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empowerdentaltx/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmpowerDentalTX/
Image Credit:
Daymond Patterson II
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