Working

Donna Brogan

Donna Brogan, RDH, BS, has three jobs and couldn’t be happier about it.

A registered dental hygienist for 14 years, Brogan splits her time between educating with Philips Consumer Lifestyle, teaching at the University of Oklahoma, and working part-time in private practice.

“I have three jobs right now, and I can’t imagine not having one of them,” she said. “They work so well together: faculty, education and private practice. I think the three really complement each other.”

Brogan knew that she wanted to go into the medical field when she was young, growing up with her mother being a registered nurse, but since she had “horrible hours,” Brogan knew that nursing wouldn’t be her first choice.

After working in various settings, including a veterinarian’s office, she made the decision to go into the dental profession. “I started doing all my pre-dental science work because I really loved science,” she said. “But once I started working with different dentists, I began to hone in on dental hygiene. I liked the fact that it was part-time and so flexible.”

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with her Bachelor of Science in dental hygiene in 1994, Brogan began working for Ultradent Products, Inc. in Utah as a sales representative and then a product specialist, all while still working clinically.

“My position naturally progressed,” she said. “I began as a sales rep, but the part I loved about the job was the ‘lunch and learns.’ I loved going into offices and educating staff members about products and how to treat and talk to their patients. I was lucky enough to be able to transition my job into an educational position within the company. I started giving CE courses and I was hooked!”

Unfortunately, though, Ultradent had cutbacks, and after working there for 10 years, her position was eliminated. Through some networking, she eventually found her new calling as an educational consultant at Philips.

“With this position, it’s 50/50,” she explained. “I would say that it’s 50 percent student relations and 50 percent dental professional relations.”

Brogan covers the entire southwest, teaching dental and dental hygiene students about power toothbrush technology. She also presents to dental professionals across the country and all over the world on topics that range from the oral systemic link and oral health concerns over a lifetime to different career opportunities for dental professionals.

Being an educational consultant with Philips, Brogan said, is different from her previous job in that it is “strictly educational, whereas before I started out in sales and it kind of morphed into education.”

“Interestingly, as any hygienist would tell you, [sales and education] are really very much the same,” she explained. “You have to make people want knowledge just like you have to make them want a product. You can’t force knowledge on people. [The two positions] are very similar. I just don’t have sales goals now; I have educational goals.”

With her second job at the University of Oklahoma, Brogan is a part-time faculty member. She supervises the dental hygiene students when they are in the clinic working on each other or with patients. She also teaches a whitening and dental materials class.

“I am a huge OU fan, and I have a lot of pride in my school,” she said. “This worked out well for me because I knew I wanted to be a professional speaker, and I knew that teaching students and being in a university setting would help me get where I wanted to be as a speaker. I just had no idea that I would love it so much!”

As a dental hygienist, Brogan said that she will almost certainly be doing part-time clinical hygiene forever. “I see myself always doing some sort of private practice because I love the career of dental hygiene. I love the patients, I love being in an office. I just love the whole vibe of that.”

Brogan said that the best aspect of her jobs, all three of them, is the variety. “I love the individual variety that each of them has,” she explains. “My favorite thing is the contact with dental hygienists across the country and the contact with the wonderful organizations and leadership in ADHA and state organizations. I love constantly being in touch with strong dental hygienists. They keep me motivated.”

This edition of Working was prepared by Frances Moffett.