I think dentistry is such an impactful profession and the reason why I became a dentist is because I can use my hands, I can use my mind and artistry to change someone’s life through clinical work. And specifically with dentistry, what I value about it is the ability to help someone’s quality of life in one visit or one appointment. Sometimes when you are at a physician or a doctor’s office, you know, there’s treatment that can take months before you really see improvement.
Dentistry is a little bit unique and enjoyable and really brings me purpose in the sense that someone can come in with a toothache or something that hurts them or they’re looking to get something fixed and in one visit we can potentially make a huge change, improve their quality of life, take away their pain. That’s one of the things about dentistry that excites me, that makes it valuable for me and why I chose the profession. And then also too, like I said, I like working with my hands, I like being able to have more of a hands-on profession as opposed to just the cerebral profession and so dentistry is kind of a nice balance between those two for me.
My background is, I did my schooling in Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, did my dental school and dental training also in Wisconsin at Marquette University in Milwaukee. And Marquette’s a little bit of a unique program in that we get a lot of clinical training early on in our schooling and so I was kind of brought into the clinic much earlier on than most dental students were and so that kind of got me exposed early. And then as I graduated dental school and in my, you know, first few years here as a dentist, I’ve really valued and put a lot of emphasis on continuing education, specifically surgical continuing education, implant continuing education and also just continuing education in terms of comprehensive dentistry, being able to do the patient comprehensively and not just one tooth at a time.
I try to always carve out a dollar amount and time amount each year to budget towards continuing education just to stay on the forefront of technology, treatment modalities, things like that so that I can be providing my patients the standard of care. And that’s really important to me and it’s something that I try to emphasize when I plan out my year, making sure that continuing education and attending different courses are a part of that. And so in the last few years, I’ve attended different courses down in Phoenix, I’ve attended courses back in my home state of Alaska, but yeah both both areas are important to me and I’ve really tried to focus on emphasizing that.
Dr. Tanner Menard Prioritizes the Patient Experience
Dr. Tanner Menard is a third-generation dentist who was born and raised in Alaska. He completed his undergraduate work, and met his wife, Taylor, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The pair continued to Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, where Dr. Menard earned his DDS and Taylor became a physician assistant in orthopedic surgery.
Since graduation, Dr. Menard has been practicing dentistry in Alaska. He and Taylor are excited to return to the lower 48 and put down roots in Moscow, where they can grow their family within an amazing community. They look forward to integrating into Moscow life, getting plugged into a local church, and discovering why living on the Palouse is so special.
When away from the office, you will find Dr. Menard and Taylor spending time outdoors. They enjoy new adventures doing their favorite things: hiking, skiing, or traveling.