16
Acute Pain Management and Preventive Dentistry
in Endodontics
George Simonyan and Abraham Zilberstein Dr. Mario Alvarez has always strived to relieve patients from their pain and preserve their natural teeth. Born and raised in Honduras, Dr. Alvarez graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras with a D.D.S. degree in 2004. Following his graduation, Dr. Alvarez was able to fulfill his passion for helping communities in need by working as the lead dentist at an Episcopal Church Dental Clinic. Working solely with underserved communities, Dr. Alvarez was able to experience first-hand how these patients had severe oral health problems due to their inadequate access to dental care. Often, when treatment planning many teeth with guarded and poor prognosis, most practitioners would turn to extracting teeth – but Dr. Alvarez was committed to conserving natural teeth to maintain functionality and longevity by performing root canal therapy. In 2010, Dr. Alvarez, along with his wife, moved to California. Interested in pursuing more in-depth exploration of endodontics, Dr. Alvarez started shadowing in the USC Advanced Endodontics Clinic. Throughout his time shadowing, Dr. Alvarez was impressed at the microscopes and rotary endodontic instruments that were being used, which not only improved the outcome and quality of root canal procedures but also increased efficiency and patient comfort. These techniques and instruments were something that he had not been exposed to in Honduras, and they proved to be one of the driving factors, along with his passion for Endodontics, which made him apply to USC’s Advanced Endodontics Program, to which he was accepted in 2012. Upon completion of the program in 2014, Dr. Alvarez undertook a part-time teaching position and recently became full-time faculty in the past year. Dr. Alvarez takes pride in being able to mentor and teach undergraduate and postgraduate students, in addition to working in the Urgent Care clinic a few days a week and preparing students for the endodontics portion of licensure exams for the WREB and ADEX. As important as the clinical aspect of Endodontics, treatment planning and choosing one procedure over another relies on research. Dr. Alvarez is currently involved in two clinical research projects, one that is aimed at exploring the management of endodontic pain and another with the goal of preventing dental caries before it can arise.
The Explorer Journal 2021
