Close to Home, and Smiling

The Borderplex’s first oral surgery residency is expanding access to complex care for El Paso patients who once had to travel hundreds of miles.

Before Rebeca Rodriguez, D.D.S., walked a patient into the operating room for cranial surgery, she paused to style the patient’s hair. That small gesture reflected the kind of surgeon Rodriguez strives to be.

“I knew from day one I wanted to be a surgeon,” Rodriguez said. Her determination carried her from dental school in Caracas, Venezuela, through oral surgery training and six years of practice in Colombia. After a two-year internship in San Antonio, she arrived in El Paso.

Repeating residency in the United States is “not repeating,” she said. “I just keep learning and getting better.”

Rodriguez is one of three inaugural residents in the Hunt School of Dental Medicine’s new oral and maxillofacial surgery residency. The program is the first of its kind in the Borderplex. Vernon Burke, D.M.D., M.D., FACS, founded the program to address a longstanding need. When he arrived in El Paso, many patients requiring complex oral and facial surgery had to travel to cities like San Antonio for care.

“I came here with a mission to stop that,” Burke said.

A $250,000 gift from High Desert Oral and Facial Surgery, matched by Texas Tech Health El Paso for a total of $500,000, endows a professorship that funds academic leadership.

The program trains three residents at three clinical sites: the Texas Tech Dental Oral Health Clinic, University Medical Center of El Paso, and El Paso Children’s Hospital. During their first six months, the inaugural cohort performed twice the number of procedures required by accreditation standards. Burke has already reviewed 150 applications for three positions in the next class.

“Success would be that the residents graduate and that they’re good surgeons: proficient and safe surgeons who take good care of people and take care of the needs of their community,” Burke said.