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Michel Daccache (DDS 2006): Repaying the Dental School With a Gift for the Ida Gray FundM Dentistry - Fall 2024
The distance between where he came from and where he is today is so great, both literally and figuratively, that Dr. Michel Daccache can’t help but be grateful for those who helped him along the way.
From his vantage point as a successful oral and maxillofacial surgeon operating at two major medical centers in Las Vegas, Nevada, Daccache looks back on his time at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry as nothing short of life-changing.
Daccache finds it amazing to be where he is today given that his family immigrated from Lebanon in 1989 when he was in the fifth grade. Seeking to escape the Lebanese civil war, one of his grandfathers had previously immigrated and established a shoe repair business in Las Vegas, then he sent for the rest of his family. The large extended family – Daccache’s mother, his two siblings, aunts and uncles – all lived in the same residence at first. Over time, the hotels and casinos in Las Vegas provided steady and long-term employment for the family members. Daccache’s father, who had been delayed by a glitch in his immigration status, also eventually arrived, supporting his family as an accountant and cab driver.
As Daccache approached college age and the need to decide on a career, it would have been easy to make a life by working on the Las Vegas Strip and the vast network of jobs that support it. But there was this family story that had been oft-repeated since he was a child in Lebanon. One of his grandmothers there was missing all of her teeth. One day, young Michel, probably 7 or 8 years old, told his grandmother that someday he would become a dentist and make dentures for her. It was a cute moment that could have faded from memory, but family members embraced the story and kept it alive over the years, often reminding Daccache of his “promise” to his grandmother.
So that’s the path Daccache took as he obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Nevada-Reno. He was a good student, but coming from a blue-collar family with no dentists or other professionals to act as mentors, Daccache knew he needed help. He learned about a summer enrichment program at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry called Profile For Success (PFS). Designed to encourage students from disadvantaged backgrounds, historically underrepresented minorities and first-generation college graduates, PFS tutors students to prepare them for the Dental Admission Test (DAT) and to provide insight into the profession of dentistry. He was invited into the PFS program the summer between his junior and senior years at Nevada-Reno.
“I came out to Michigan for the PFS program and that’s where my life changed right there,” Daccache said. “Those people took care of me. I got prepared for the DAT test and I did really well on it. That allowed me to get accepted not just by U-M but by multiple dental schools. My story all goes through PFS. It truly gave me my shot at success.”
Daccache’s gratitude for the U-M dental school deepened even more after he decided to return for his DDS. The support he received from faculty – especially faculty members Drs. Todd Ester, Kenneth May and George Taylor – seemed like family. He notes that going through such a challenging educational program is difficult for young people in their early 20’s who are prone to mistakes and need some early-life guidance.
“Dr. Ester felt like a father figure,” Daccache remembers. “He always would try his best to protect you and look out for your best interests, knowing where you were coming from and making sure you had the proper guidance and resources to succeed at Michigan.”
After graduating with his DDS in 2006, Daccache spent the next four years at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania to complete a rigorous residency in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. In 2010, he returned to Las Vegas to begin his OMS private practice. Early on he also taught at the UNLV dental school, but today he is focused on his private practice and work as a Level 1 trauma surgeon at the University Medical Center and at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.
Performing complex orthognathic surgery and repairing facial trauma is especially rewarding, Daccache said. “People are so appreciative for what you do, and that’s very fulfilling. You have somebody who has been in a car accident with severe facial fractures and you are able to use your training to help them and reconstruct their face and get their life back in order.”
Daccache never got the chance to make the dentures for his grandmother; she died in Lebanon while he was in college before entering dental school. Yet that family story inspired his career in dentistry, then oral and maxillofacial surgery, and ultimately his ability to help thousands of patients over the years of his career.
“I treat every day as having the privilege of treating patients,” he says. “Especially from where I came from, I value and cherish the education I received. I think it’s a gift to be able to do what I do for a living. I treat it like that.”
Daccache’s gratitude for the dental school led him to recently make a foundational gift of $50,000 to establish the Ida Gray Legacy Student Fund, named for the first African American woman to graduate from a U.S. dental school when she earned her DDS at U-M in 1890. The fund will support the PFS program that meant so much to Daccache’s introduction to dentistry.
“Now as I look back and I think about how fortunate I am in life, given the situation I’m in right now and where I’ve come from – from a war-torn country, that my grandpa got us all to America, that we lived four families to a house with my grandpa, that my family held me up to the promise of my grandma’s teeth. To know where I came from, it is pretty amazing. Sometimes it’s good to sit back and talk about it. I don’t get a chance to do that much, to appreciate it, because we are so busy working. So to be able to talk about it and say, wow! That is pretty cool.”
