Volunteering is an Investment | Blog

Dr. Hope Marshall
A Smile Generation-Trusted Office

Dr. Marshall DMD, MPH believes that volunteering is an investment that creates life-changing benefits and opportunities for community residents. Giving back is a core value ingrained in this Woodstock, Georgia dentist since childhood by her parents. “Giving back has always been part of my life,” says Marshall. Now in her fifth year of private practice, Marshall carves out time to help children live a healthier and happier lifestyle through her volunteer work for the American Dental Associations’ Give Kids A Smile, a program that provides free oral health care to underserved children. She also has a soft spot in her heart for military veterans after having served her country as a dentist in the US Army.

When one of her long-time patients, Louis Nieves, an Air Force security forces veteran of 24 years, arrived at her practice seeking care for his wife, Marshall asked him about the dental appointment he had been waiting to receive from the Veteran Administration to address the oral pain he was suffering.

“I couldn’t smile or eat properly and was afraid to interact with other people because my teeth were so bad,” said Louis.

“He was a patient who needed full dentures,” said Marshall. “All of the teeth he had were either diseased or mobile so we needed to remove them in order to eliminate his pain.”

At a previous examination she had told Louis that the only solution to restore his quality of life was for him to be fitted with full dentures. With cost as the largest barrier to care, he turned to the Veteran Administration for the procedure because it would cover 100% of the cost to replace his natural teeth with a full denture. But it had been three months and he still had no appointment.

That’s when Marshall decided she needed to step in and help. “I wanted to give Louis the best possible treatment and the best dentures on the market. That’s why I chose the Ivotion Digital Denture for Louis.”

After Louis’ teeth were extracted and he was fitted with healing dentures, he returned to Marshall’s practice where she scanned the healing denture and sent the scan to Edge Dental Solutions in Kinston, North Carolina for the try-in and final denture.

“For the Ivotion case we just did one appointment for the scan of the healing denture, an appointment for the try-in denture where only slight adjustments were made, and then went straight to the final delivery appointment,” said Marshall. “I was really happy with the outcome and Louis was super happy. He teared up at the final appointment, which helped me really reconnect with my purpose as a dentist. I will definitely do all my final denture cases this way from now on.”

As for Louis, he couldn’t be happier. “I have my confidence back and can smile and laugh again,” said Louis, choking back tears. “Now I consider Dr. Marshall a part of my family and am truly grateful.”