Memorial of Dental Hygiene Legend Dr. Jean Popuard
1. Written by RDH Shaida Zarrinnia and Edited by Rosana
Zarrinnia
Memorials of DR.
Jean
Popuard
Former Chairman of
Department of Dental
Hygiene
2. 1
My name is Shaida Zarrinnia and I am graduate of UCSF
dental hygiene program of 1985 and I am honored to have
had beloved Dr. Jean Popuard as my professor. She was not
only a mentor to me, but she was as well a great educator
and clinician. Her profound knowledge is always spoken of in
the dental communities. She was a true legend in the field of
dentistry.
She was formerly the chairman of Dental hygiene, but I
had the pleasure of having her supervise me during clinical
curriculum of dental hygiene as well as theoretical part of
the hygiene program.
Her patient care was not limited to their periodontal
care, but it was to treat patients as a whole. She advised us
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to have a thorough medical evaluation as well as dental
evaluation.
She taught me how to remove tenacious calculus with
one stroke from a deep 5 millimeter pocket. She said “you
first have to get a sharp instrument and slide the instrument
way deep underneath the pocket, and then get a hold of the
bottom of the calculus and open the blade, with one sharp
stroke remove the calculus.” Dr. Popuard was an advocate
for instrument personalization in hygiene. I follow her steps
and teach the dental professionals to offer their patients
their own set of instruments according to their shape of the
crown and roots of their teeth. The instrument should be
sterilized and stored with patient’s name in a cabinet in the
dental office. It is a win-win situation because the patient has
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their own sterilized and personalized instrument and the
doctors could charge the patients for the storage.
Jean taught me oral hygiene instructions, and with that I
was able to increase patient cooperation during my clinical
hygiene during the last thirty years. Her philosophy of
education stood for three things which are:
1) Show
2) Tell
3) Do
I was able to put a folder together in brushing, flossing,
using tongue scrapper, using rubber tip and non-alcoholic
mouthwash as well as nutritional benefits of variety of foods
that could help their health of gingival tissue. I would then
tell them how to use those products and lastly, I would have
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them use the products in their mouth in addition to teaching
them nutritional benefits of different foods.
Jean was a beautiful person inside and out and would
always dress so professionally. She would have beautiful
make-up and hair do each time I saw her. Most importantly,
she would have that smile that talked to you all the time. I
had the pleasure of meeting her in her office one day, and
she and I had shared an experience of stroke. She had at hers
at a later age and I had it when my mom was two months
pregnant with me. She was a great counsellor when I went to
talk to her in her office about other professors. She told me
that I would have to be strong among dental professionals
and re-evaluate my feelings towards others. She had a
beautiful Persian carpet in her office and she told me one of
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her students had given her that as a present. That tied the
knot of me being Iranian and sitting on a Persian carpet. I
was the only Persian dental hygienist in her class. Jean
encouraged me later in my profession when I was struggling
to get a job. She advised me to learn Spanish as a second
language to open the doors of dentistry for me. I listened to
her advice and took Spanish lessons and was able to
communicate with my patients in Spanish. She also taught
me to always have an extra pair of stockings in my
dashboard in the car, just in case I have a run in my
stockings. That was a life lesson which was not only limited
to stocking, but was a lesson to show that in life when you
fall down, you can always get back up again. She always
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emphasized a professional look in the field of dentistry as
she was a role model herself.
The time came around to write a thesis for her class and
among different titles, I chose mine to be marriage in
dentistry. She surprised me and gave me heads up to follow
up with my thesis and eventually gave me an A on my thesis
paper. At that time, I had no idea about marriage or its
relationship with dentistry, so I went to the library and did
the research and found out about the life of dental students
and found out that they had such a hard time during the
school and had a high ratio of divorce while doing dentistry.
That led me to write my whole thesis on how to overcome
the physical and mental burden of dentistry to have a better
life full of happiness and joy. I applied all of the theories of
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my thesis to my life today marrying an orthodontist. I am
intending to put marriage and dentistry in a book and
publish it on my 30th year of my wedding anniversary. I
would like to dedicate this book to Jean on my 30th year of
gradation from my dental hygiene school.
When we attended the dental hygiene class with Jean in
the classroom, Jean touched all of our hearts by baking us
sweets and offering it to us at the end of class to a bunch of
hungry students that not only were educated, but fed during
the class. My favorite sweet was sweet Rice Krispies. She
offered me the recipe and in the recipe I saw the connection
of puffed rice and marshmallows to my diet in Iran, which
was mainly rice.
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Jean was an advocate for American Red Cross and I was
the only one in her class to donate blood during the drive.
She saw me pass out after blood was drawn from me and I
saw her by my bed offering me an apple. She also gave me
an award for giving blood to Red Cross. I advocated that to
everybody that can offer such a humanitarian act.
Jean was an advocate for continuing education in cruises.
She put up many continuing education programs in cruises as
she enjoyed it. Since then, I have followed her steps and
have been providing continuing education courses, not
limited to cruises but to halls , libraries, synagogues,
restaurants and lately in my house.
I was in RDH under one roof meeting in Minneapolis and I
had come across meeting a dental hygienist who happened
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to look like her and I ran to her booth and thought she was
Jean but she notified me that Jean passed away. That was
the end of my meeting as I was very saddened at the fact
that we lost such a gem in the field of dentistry. I am glad to
have had her to teach me, not limited to dentistry but to life
in general.
Jean, may you rest in peace because I am here to teach
the whole world as much as I can the lessons you have
taught me. I never stop learning and educating myself in the
field that I feel is so needed for total care of human beings,
which is dental hygiene. You have made me a strong human
being and an educator, clinician, mother, wife,
granddaughter and daughter. May you rest in peace because
I am here to follow your steps that you have taught me.
