Schools

Shoreline CC Dental Hygiene Instructor Wins National Award

Rosie Bellert is graduate of the Shoreline program and has practiced or taught dental hygiene for 37 years

Shoreline Community College Dental Hygiene Instructor and Interim Director Rosie Bellert was one of eight dental hygienists in Canada and the U.S. to receive a 2011 Sunstar/RDH Award of Distinction which recognizes dental hygienists who make a positive difference in the lives of their patients and students.

Bellert graduated in dental hygiene from Shoreline Community College in 1974 and completed a bachelor’s at University of Washington in 1981. This fall, she begins her quest for a master’s of education at the University of Washington in Bothell. Rosie has practiced or taught dental hygiene for 37 years and was recently named the director of Shoreline Community College’s dental hygiene program.

She was nominated for the award by Jane Moreno, RDH.

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Bellert volunteers and serves on the board of directors of Smiles Forever Dental Hygiene School in Cochabamba, Bolivia – a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that started the first dental hygiene school in Bolivia.

"Working with Smiles Forever has opened up a new horizon for me and provided a venue for me to teach what I know to a population where the need is great," Bellert said. "Smiles Forever is unique in that it gives homeless young women a chance to build a career. We accomplish this through an educational program that trains needy young indigenous women in the profession of dental hygiene. Smiles Forever Dental Hygiene training focuses on preventive dental care, a service rarely provided in South America. The training offers young women the opportunity to become dental hygiene practitioners, giving them a skill that provides for higher self-esteem and independence."

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Rosie is proud to be a part of an agreement negotiated between Smiles Forever Dental Hygiene School and Carmen Pampa University Nursing Department in Coroico, Bolivia, near LaPaz. Smiles Forever will accept two fifth-year nursing students. These students will spend four years of nursing education at Carmen Pampa University and an optional specialty year of dental hygiene education at Smiles Forever. The graduates will then return to their rural communities and help with local health problems.

This August, Bellert will personally escort U.S. dental hygiene students with the Shoreline Community College International Summer Institute, volunteering at Smiles Forever Dental Hygiene School, local shelters, and rural villages in Bolivia, and work one-on-one with the Bolivian dental hygiene students.

"The course explores dental disease and the practice of dental hygiene on a global scale, enhancing the student’s perspective on how to teach essential hand skills in an environment without normal equipment available; we teach home-care skills to people living in poverty, and gain an awareness of dental issues in an impoverished environment," Moreno wrote in her nomination of Bellert.

Bellert’s biggest influence to become a hygienist was from a high school job.

"When I was a junior in high school, I was a nanny for a family of four boys. Their father just happened to be a dentist. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. He was instrumental in helping with the process of applying and completing prerequisites. He let me shadow in his office to see what the RDH position is like in an office. I was 16 years old and had never been to the dentist’s. Coming from a family of nine children, we went to the dentist when we had a toothache. I was fortunate enough to not have had one."

Hard work and perseverance combined well with Bellert’s desire for excellence in her career.

"Dental hygiene has been the best career for me," she said. "It fits my personality, my hand dexterity, my artistic nature, my ability to care for people, and it allowed me to work less when my children were born, take care of my family, and still earn a living.

"As I said before, I come from a family of nine children. My parents were immigrants from Belgium. Without knowing much English, just married, and pregnant with their first child, they ventured to the United States. They made their way across the country, eventually settling down in Port Orchard, Washington. I use their adventure as an inspiration to me whenever I think I can’t do something."

 

 


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