Alumni Give Back on Behalf of Dental Practice
From Left, Drs. Mike Massaro, Elisa Bland, Christopher Emma and Ryan Pannorfi.
Dr. Christopher Emma credits the success of his practice, Encore Dental, with the clinical skills that he and his colleagues learned at RSDM. “It prepared us very well for the real world of dentistry,’’ said Dr. Emma, head of Encore, which has five offices throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties.
When he learned that scholarship donations would be triple-matched in 2019, Dr. Emma (Classs of ’01), and two of his partners at Encore, wanted to give back by supporting present-day RSDM students. They remember how the pressure of earning a DMD was compounded by financial worries and wanted to help. “I remember getting my acceptance letter and saying, ‘oh my god, how am I going to pay for this?’’ Dr. Emma recalls.
“We know how stressful it can be and now that we’re in a position to help financially, we want to help alleviate that,’’ he said. In addition to financial need, the fourth-years student receiving the Encore Dental of NJ endowed scholarship will also have outstanding clinical skills and the ability to work well with other dental students. Since establishing his practice eight years ago, Dr. Emma has made a point of hiring mostly RSDM graduates. “We find that alumni from other schools can be less prepared and it takes them longer to acclimate,’’ says Dr. Michael Massaro (Class of ’06) an alumni partner in the practice and also one of the donors, along with Dr. Ryan Pannorfi. “We attribute the growth of our practice to that fact that the majority of our dentists are from RSDM,’’ he said.
