Faculty Spotlight: Meet Dr. David Ciesla

Where we start is rarely an indicator of where we will finish, and this was certainly the case for David Ciesla, D.D.S., M.S., FAAPD, assistant clinical professor of pediatric dentistry at the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, and Pediatric Dental Residency program director.

As a young student, Dr. Ciesla dreamed of playing college baseball, but beyond that, he was unsure what he wanted to do. His father died while he was in high school and as Dr. Ciesla embarked on college life, he recognized that his life was missing something. He found what he was seeking shortly after — as a college student at Arkansas Tech University he became a Christian and he knew he had found what was missing.

While at college, Dr. Ciesla initially thought he’d follow in his mother’s footsteps and become a math teacher, but once he started to study, he recognized it wasn’t for him. A college careers adviser suggested oral surgery and his interest was piqued. “I didn’t even know what an oral surgeon was, so I picked up the phone and called an oral surgeon and ended up working for one for a year-and-a-half.” He graduated with a bachelor of science degree with a major in biology from Arkansas Tech University and a plan to study dentistry.

After playing college baseball, he was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1998 and lived every college athlete’s dream. He played with the Phillies organization for a year, but he missed home. “After the first summer I knew that I was so ready to go home that my truck was packed with all my belongings so that if we lost at 11 o’clock that night, I could drive from Buffalo, New York, to Arkansas, and I did. I knew that baseball wasn’t what I was going to end up doing.”

He had married right before baseball spring training and spent his honeymoon training! Once he was released from the Phillies, he didn’t have a job to go to, but he had been accepted at Baylor University in Dallas to study dentistry for four years. Dr. Ciesla joined the Army and after graduating Baylor, he and his wife moved to Germany for a year, for a three-year assignment, with a one-year deployment to Iraq. “The first year was the most amazing year of our lives. Two young people from Arkansas living in Europe and traveling around — it was amazing.”

After a year in Germany, Dr. Ciesla was deployed to Iraq, where he performed emergency dental work on the soldiers and civilians who helped support the war effort. It was a challenging time — he and his wife already had one child and another on the way and being so far from his family was difficult. After a year in Iraq, he and his family moved back to Germany for the last year of his tour, but returned to the United States. and to Baylor so he could commence a two-year pediatric dental residency.

After completion of the residency, Dr. Ciesla still had to fulfill his obligations to the Army, so he moved back to Germany for the third time, with his family, for three years. It was an enjoyable time which he spent working in pediatric dentistry on the soldier’s children. He said, “When I think about my faith and going into dentistry, it wasn’t a faith-based decision. But when I decided to move into pediatric dentistry, I knew that this was what I was meant to be doing. It was God calling, there was no question — a very strong calling, and I am very blessed to be in a field I am truly passionate about. Of all the things I have been able to do, it’s pediatric dentistry that I truly love.”

Once Dr. Ciesla had served in the Army for eight years, he moved his family back to Arkansas and went into private practice in pediatric dentistry for an additional 10 years. During this time, he became involved in advocacy roles within dentistry, namely for the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. As a public policy advocate he represented Arkansas in issues related within the state and taking issues to the national level. This included finding congressional support for funding of educational programs to train dentists to treat children and at the state level, addressing the

Affordable Care Act and Medicaid-related issues and how they impacted Arkansas.

Advocacy led him in the direction of academia, in which Dr. Clesla was interested but purely on a part-time basis and as something he’d consider in the future. He started teaching once a month and continued in private practice knowing that a move to academia would mean leaving his business partner without help. However, a pediatric dentist who planned to move to the town was looking for a job, so Dr. Ciesla acknowledged that he had no excuse to put off the transition into academia to work with students as assistant clinical professor of pediatric dentistry and made the move to the college in 2021.

His goal when working with students isn’t simply to instruct them in dentistry — it is more than that — he wants to help students think about what their purpose is and why they do what they do and how they take care of people. “I love working with the students. Helping them think through what they will do once they graduate and to hopefully pass on my passion for pediatric dentistry is what I am most excited about.”

When Dr. Ciesla took on the role at the college, introducing a pediatric residency program was under discussion. He has since taken on the role as director of the program with the dental practice one day per week. On top of that, Dr. Ciesla is passionate about mission work and has been on many mission trips — some through church and others being humanitarian trips through universities. He said, “Since being at OU, I took my first group of dental students on a mission trip this year and we did dentistry just for children at a hospital as they had an operating room and we could do more cases. We also went to one of the schools and did a skit for the students to teach them about dental hygiene. We are planning next year’s trip to a mission hospital on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, and we have so many students who are excited to go. This is one of the principle reasons of me being here — to work with students on that scale.” how we can deliver more advanced dental programs in Africa.” Dr. Ciesla has the support of many friends and colleagues who want to help in making the classes a reality, including lecturing via Zoom.

Empowering and educating students to take their dentistry skills to under-served communities is very important to Dr. Ciesla. He has been working with a group in Uganda that has started up a dental school in Kampala, which is short in faculty and curriculum. The dental school is about to graduate their first class and Dr. Ciesla has been assisting in undergraduate curriculum development and assisting and consulting in future graduate-level training programs.

Dr. Ciesla has achieved a great deal throughout his career and both his faith and passion for pediatric dentistry remain his focus. When asked what it is about pediatric dentistry that is so meaningful to him, he said, “Taking a fearful child and making it a great experience is one of the most rewarding things in the world. When you have a kid who is too scared to walk into the room, and by the end they are giving you a hug or a high-five, is so rewarding. I also love the diversity of being able to work in a hospital and take care of kids with very complex cases.” Dr. Ciesla brings his infectious passion and commitment to the college and will be imparting his years of experience to the students in pediatric residency program in 2024.