Working

Sherri Gollins, RDH, BSDH
Dental hygienist at NIH

Ask any child what they would like to be when they grow up, and you will get the usual answers—astronaut, rock star, President of the United States. And though most will change their plans for something a little more down to earth, Sherri Gollins, RDH, BSDH, has always known who she wanted to be, even if it wasn’t the most glamorous of professions. She always wanted to be a teacher, to help others.

“It calls me. It’s what I do.”

Born in Los Angeles, Gollins moved with her family to Albuquerque while still in high school. Gollins always knew she wanted to help those in her community, a trait she said she acquired by being raised in a Jewish family.

“[Being Jewish], it’s a big part of who you are,” she said. “I think I would have always chosen to be in a profession that is always interacting with people.”

But as those young rock stars and astronauts surely learned, life doesn’t always work out how you hoped it would.

“My dad pointed out that, at the time, you couldn’t find a teaching job,” she said. “It was very difficult to make a living—my dad wanted me to always be able to take care of myself, whether I had to or not.”

At that point, going to college had not been a priority in the Gollins family, so it was settled that she would do just that. It wasn’t long until she discovered dental hygiene—a career with promising job placement and, as she would soon learn, a career with the chance to do what she always wanted to do.

“Your job is to educate and prevent,” she said. “My job had the potential to help people.”

Gollins earned her Associate of Science, Dental Hygiene degree from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas and her Bachelor of Science, Dental Hygiene degree from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Since graduating, Gollins has worked as a dental hygienist in various fields. Like many, she started out in private practice. And though she was able to educate patients on proper oral health, she felt that there was more she could do with her degree.

“I actually like scaling teeth,” she said. “But if that was what I had to look forward to every day, I would have burnt out a long time ago.”

If teaching was her first passion, the need for change, to always be experiencing something new, would be her second love. Her motivation to broaden her horizons led her to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she worked with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). She took on new roles by serving as a study coordinator, working in a consultation manner with other institutes such as the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. The primary focus of the research at that time was in the discipline of genetics.

“Genetics is very big right now,” she said. “Researchers are making great strides in identifying the genes responsible for so many syndromes and diseases.”

Her time with the NIDCR, in collaboration with other NIH institutes and their studies, allowed her to work with patients who have some of these rare abnormalities. She has collaborated and helped on a study addressing Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare and fatal condition where certain aspects of aging become present early in a person’s life. There are only 54 known cases of progeria in over 30 countries. She also worked on studies that dealt with Job’s syndrome, a rare disorder that weakens the immune system, making the body susceptible to fungal or bacterial infections. Job’s syndrome affects fewer than one in a million people, with approximately 250 cases reported in research literature. With such low numbers, Gollins said she was provided with the opportunity to become very familiar with syndromes she had never heard of or seen before.

“I was in private practice for 25 years, and I never saw anything like this,” she said.

For an even bigger change, Gollins shifted her focus outside of the clinical area. She began collecting information and creating databases, and working as a protocol coordinator.

“I got to kind of be a technical geek for a while,” she said.

She currently works in a more administrative role for the NIH Clinical Center, where her agency manages the more than 1,800 intramural protocols. This has required her to understand the regulatory processes, the Institutional Review Boards of NIH, human subject protection and the regulatory side of how protocols are carried out.

“I’m charged with knowing these different aspects of research so I can facilitate initial protocol reviews for new studies, and continue reviews and amendments of the studies that are conducted at NIH,” she said.

This doesn’t mean that she has left dental hygiene behind her—if anything, it is just as much a part of her life now as it was during her time in private practice.

“I can’t stop being a hygienist,” she said, adding that she still does in-services for NIH Clinical Center for their neuropsychology center. She also speaks at various NIH career work fairs to promote the field of dental hygiene, letting students know what it means, and takes, to be a dental hygienist.

Throughout all of the shifts and changes in her career, the one thing that still stands out is her ability to help people. It can be anything, from helping people better understand their oral health, to bringing care to those who need it. Wherever she works, the most important thing for her is to bond with her patients.

“I always made sure that, wherever I worked, I had an hour to do what I needed to do to create a relationship [with the patient] and to educate and motivate people to take care of themselves and not rely on me solely for their oral health,” she said, adding that this is vital to being a hygienist, and a very rewarding aspect.

“When you get out of school, you are going to be a good technician. But the real question is: are you going to be a good human being? Will you be able to send the message, teach the lesson, motivate a person to value what you have given them and take it home for their own?”

In trying to answer that question, Gollins has found her work has taken her to many different places. Whether it was delivering dental care to Navajo Indians, traveling to nursing homes across New Mexico to scale teeth, or helping and educating children in a juvenile prison, Gollins went where people needed help the most.

She recalled her time working in nursing homes as some of her work that she is most proud of. It also was some of the most difficult.

“I was scaling teeth in people’s beds,” she said. “Some of these people we would treat would never get any visitors. I felt like I made a difference.”

Her time spent helping others at the nursing home was just one of many life altering experiences. One that will stay with her forever was her work in a juvenile prison, where she treated a 13-year-old boy who would be spending the rest of his life behind bars after he and some friends threw some rocks off an overpass. One of the rocks hit the windshield of a truck; the driver lost control of his vehicle and was killed in the ensuing accident. She said the boy’s story struck a nerve, and it’s one story she will never forget.

“That was my first patient there that day,” she said. “I went home that night and cried.”

She said seeing these children, who would spend the rest of their lives behind bars, put everything into perspective for her.

“You look at your own mortality,” she said. “I was sick to my stomach the first couple of times, but then you reframe it. You just jump into their reality with them.”

But her passion to help others allows her to keep going back, and to always see the good side of people.

“Inside every person, no matter what has happened, is someone good.”

Looking forward, Gollins said she would like to return to school and get her master’s in Public Health and the study of epidemiology, hoping to broaden her horizons even more. She hopes that all future dental hygienists will think outside the box and find different ways to help those who need it most.

“I would encourage people to keep dreaming and don’t let preconceived notions keep you from pushing the envelope, because you never know what is around the corner.”

Sherri Gollins, RDH, may be reached at slgollins@comcast.net.

This edition of Working was prepared by Josh Snyder, staff editor of the Journal of Dental Hygiene.