For Mary Joyce Gomez, DDS, director of the St. Bernard Hospital Dental Center on Chicago’s South Side, a usual day could involve writing grants for the clinic’s upcoming projects, preparing data and completing reports, giving presentations to donors, or performing adult and pediatric dental care in the hospital’s clinic or operating room. A passionate advocate for the communities she provides care for, Gomez’s mission is to bring both basic services and hope to vulnerable populations in Chicago.

Gomez prioritizes empathy and access while providing good technical care. She’s never more serious than when talking about her patients, but, during treatment, she often expresses her warm, exuberant personality — singing with her patients and donning a tiara when she’s treating children. “I’m no special person,” she maintains. “I’m just here to help.”

Since joining St. Bernard in 2017, Gomez has expanded the client population, moving from strictly pediatric care to treating seniors, special needs patients and low-income adults. Believing the clinic should make services more accessible and convenient for patients, Gomez and her staff abolished the clinic’s late policy. After discovering that parent work conflicts and issues with transportation were barriers to pediatric patient attendance, the clinic began offering services in schools and out of a van.

Gomez embraces a holistic approach to patient care. “We dentists do some of everything,” she says. “We are a patient’s therapist and psychologist. We are the artists, the engineers. We provide education. It’s not only the teeth — we are looking after the whole person.”

Gomez grew up in Manila in the Philippines, the daughter of a dentist father and an academic mother. At an early age, she was comfortable in the dental environment — her father’s office was attached to the family home. However, when her father predicted she would follow in his footsteps, she adamantly disagreed. “I hated the smell of the dental office,” she remembers.

She felt drawn to the ministry but, when her father became ill in her late teens, began to appreciate the community aspect of her father’s work. She recalls many of his patients visiting him in the hospital to wish him well. “It was like he was a celebrity or something,” she says. “He helped so many people; he touched their lives.”

After her father’s death, Gomez’s mother — whom Gomez describes as “the visionary in the family; whatever she says always happens” — encouraged her to pursue a health-related career. She earned her Doctor of Dental Surgery and practiced in the Philippines for eight years, working in hospital and pediatric dentistry. Her mother then encouraged her to join her brother in the United States.

Her journey to becoming a fully licensed dentist in the United States was long and difficult. The day before she was scheduled to take the National Board Dental Examination (NBDE) Part I to start her pursuit of a U.S. dental license, she lost her mother. After passing the NBDE Part II and planning to take the bench test in California, new licensure requirements were established, requiring Gomez to complete and finance two additional years of dental school in the United States.

Working as an orthodontic assistant in Maryland, Gomez spent nine years obtaining her green card and applying for dental school. She had just started her second semester at the University of Illinois at Chicago when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to stop for a year to get treatment. 

Undaunted, she persisted in fulfilling her ambitions, returning to school after her cancer was in remission. “When I came back, the students were like, ‘Who’s that? She might be our new professor.’ Because I was so old and bald!” she laughs.

Gomez says her struggles taught her a vocabulary for encouraging resilience in others and the value of giving people a chance. She understands the complicated interpersonal needs of her patients because she’s been in their position. “I have been on the other side of the chair; I’ve been a patient, too,” she says. “Patients may be concerned or worried or hopeless, and we can be a beacon of hope for them.”

Outside of work, Gomez enjoys watching suspenseful movies and spending time with her husband. She spends a lot of time thinking about the future of the clinic, making plans for a sedation clinic for special needs patients and hoping to create a residency program in the future. She considers her work in the community to be like a ministry. “I feel that this is what I was created for,” says Gomez. “This is my purpose.”