Ava Zelefsky

Unlike many children, Ava Zelefsky always enjoyed a trip to her dentist. “I used to look forward to my dental visits, and there were quite a number of them growing up,” she said.

Those early visits instilled a love of dentistry that led Ava to pursue it as a career path. “There was something about the friendly nature of every dentist that I went to that piqued my interest in the field. As I got older and started viewing dentistry in the light of a lifestyle and career, my interest only grew,” she explains.

Ava began shadowing dentists and came to appreciate the mix of science and art, which solidified her choice. As she looked into colleges, Ava loved the sense of community and connection she found at Touro’s Lander College for Women (LCW) and chose the school for her undergraduate studies. “My first semester of college began in a state school, where it was easy to get lost among the numbers and a lot harder to create relationships with professors. I transferred to Touro and immediately felt a change. The opportunities to connect felt more seamless and the one-on-one relationships with professors, while it came with time and effort, felt easier,” she said.

A positive undergraduate experience made choosing Touro College of Dental Medicine an easy choice for. LCW faculty ensured Ava was ready to move on to dental school, providing assistance crafting a cover letter and personal statement and studying tips for the entrance exams. She is particularly grateful to Professor Dr. John Loike, who mapped out a plan for every semester with which classes to take and when to take the dental admission test (DAT). “It was with Dr. Loike's help that I was guided towards the steps required to get me where I am today,” she said.

Now, as a student at Touro Dental, Ava is enjoying the same personalized attention. “I appreciate the advice and guidance that we receive from every single doctor as well as the patience and openness to questions of all sorts. I feel that within Touro Dental, I am not just learning the skill set that I will need for my career, I am also creating bonds with incredible dentists who I know will be there to continue to help me down the line.”

Though she hasn’t yet chosen a specialty within the dental field, Ava already knows she would like to build a practice that provides a sense of community, in addition to good patient treatment and care. “I envision a practice where patients come to their dental appointments with calmness and leave feeling satisfied in their treatment and always on a better note than when they walked in. It is my wish to be more than just a dentist to my patients, but rather to be a doctor to their physical needs, a listening ear to their emotional needs and a friendly face and supporter in their life,” Ava said.