The Privilege of Being a Dentist

A love letter to the patients who became my teachers — and to one who changed me forever

By Dr. Asma Muzaffar | Truth and Laughter Dentistry

Nobody tells you, when you go to dental school, that you will fall in love with your patients. Not romantically — but in the way that happens when someone trusts you with their pain, their fear, their vulnerability, and eventually, the quiet details of their life. You lean in close. They open up. And something shifts.

I didn't expect that. But I am so grateful it happened.

During my residency at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, a patient walked through the door and became, over time, one of my closest friends. She would sit in my chair and confide in me — her worries, her hopes, the small dramas and tender moments that make up a life. I watched her date, fall in love, get married. I heard about the betrayals and the heartbreaks. I cheered, quietly, at her victories. I carried her losses with her too.

She never knew how much those conversations shaped me. How they cracked open something in me that textbooks never could. She was teaching me — about resilience, about trust, about what it actually means to take care of another human being — while I was simply trying to take care of her teeth.

That is the hidden privilege of this work. We are invited into people's lives in a way that few professions allow. And if we are paying attention, our patients give us far more than we know.

As the years have passed, I have had a front-row seat to the full range of the human experience. I have felt genuine joy watching a patient's gum health transform — yes, a probing depth dropping from 5 to 4 genuinely moves me — but even more, I have been inspired by the lives people are living beyond my chair. Their courage. Their perseverance. The quiet dignity with which they show up, again and again, even when life is hard.

But today, my heart belongs to one person in particular.

Her name was Sondra Lee.

"Asma," she would tell me, looking me right in the eyes, "you are my friend. And my dentist. In that order."

I loved that about her. She never let me forget that the relationship came first. The dentistry was almost secondary — a reason for us to keep showing up for each other.

Sondra had a way of gently redirecting my enthusiasm. Whenever I would map out elaborate treatment plans with great energy, she would smile softly and remind me of her age. "Most of my friends are already on the other side," she'd say — not with sadness, but with a kind of peaceful acceptance that I found simply beautiful. She wasn't afraid of what was coming. She was honest about it. And she wanted me to be honest about it too.

I have a confession to make. One of the reasons I chose dentistry over medicine was to avoid death. My grandmother passed away the very year I was applying to medical schools, and the grief nearly undid me. When I was accepted into dental school, I remember feeling a private relief — a belief that I could have a meaningful career without having to stand at the bedside of someone leaving this world.

Sondra, gently and persistently, showed me how foolish — and how human — that hope was.

Dying is the final act of living. And if we spend our lives looking away from it, we miss something essential about how to truly be here.

When I received the news that Sondra had passed — or, as she would have said with that quiet twinkle, "stepped through the portal to where all my friends are waiting" — I sat with it for a long time. Grief, yes. But also something that felt like gratitude so big it ached.

She had been preparing me. All those years of gentle reminders about her age, her friends on the other side, the life she had lived and was still living fully — she was teaching me how to face the inevitable with grace. How to stay present. How to not waste a single conversation on anything less than the truth.

Sondra was a master of her profession. But more than that, she was a master of being alive. Every appointment, she arrived with a gift. A recommendation. A piece of herself. She introduced me to A Gentleman in Moscow and Call My Agent — shows I never would have found on my own, that I now count among my very favorites. That was her way: always thinking of theater and art, always giving, always engaged with the world right up until the very end.

She showed me that the secret to a life well lived isn't perfection. We will all falter. We will all fall short in ways we didn't plan for. But if we move through the world with courage and authenticity — if we stay generous, stay curious, stay present — something eternal takes root in the people we love.

Sondra took root in me. She changed. my perspective on life and what it means to be truly alive!

To my patients, who have trusted me not just with your teeth, but with your lives — thank you. You are the reason I come to work. You are the reason this work matters. And to those of you who, like Sondra, have reminded me that a dentist's chair can be a place of real, honest, human connection: I am forever grateful.

In the end, I believe that is what it means to be engaged, to be generous, and to be prepared. Not just for the next appointment — but for all of it. The whole beautiful, impermanent, precious thing called life

.

Thank you, Sondra. For everything you gave me — and for teaching me the art of surrender

Written with love, grief, and deep gratitude — Dr. Asma, Truth and Laughter Dentistry