Dr. Pamela Egner is a recent graduate of Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas.  That is a disadvantage to some, to be recently graduated, but a source of pride for Dr. Egner, as she is not your typical student.

Dr. Egner obtained her undergraduate degree from Kansas State University in 1972.  She had a teaching certificate and planned to teach high school French and Spanish.  She was newly married to an electrical engineer Doug Egner, and 1972 was not a good year for engineers.  The space program had just collapsed and engineers were unemployed all over the country.  The young couple took a dartboard approach and chose to move to Dallas, Texas.  A move to the big city, after growing up in a tiny town in Kansas, was a wake up call to the realities of inner city schools and big city problems for which she did not feel prepared.  Needing immediate employment, the couple took whatever they could find for work and moved into a shoddy apartment complex, not even having enough money to pay the full deposit.  One night a drunk driver drove through the parking lot and managed to total ten cars.  Hard work and frugal living soon paid off allowing them to move into a better apartment and soon into a house.  In two more years they decided to start a family and, that Pam would stay home with the children.

After ten years of raising their three sons, Pam decided to go back to work and eventually got her real estate license so she would have a flexible schedule in order to keep up with three active children.  As the children graduated and went off live their own lives, she was looking at an empty nest and many productive years, and needed something more meaningful to fill her time.  The answer came disguised as something else entirely.

Pam has always been active in her church, serving on various committees and teaching Sunday school.  One night at a committee meeting, the intern pastor serving at the time came to the committee to ask for time off to go on a mission trip to Honduras.  Permission was given and Pam was seized with the desire to go with her.  She had always admired people who travel to underdeveloped countries to help and she loved to travel, too.  She had an interest in other cultures and also spoke some Spanish from her college days.  It seemed like an ideal opportunity and she immediately agreed to go.  The trip changed her life forever.

After the trip to Honduras, Pam realized that dentistry really interested her.  She was assigned, unexpectedly, to assist the dentist who went on the trip.  Next she went to Ecuador and assisted dental students from the University of Connecticut Dental School and their professor, Dr. Topazian, who later wrote her a recommendation for admittance to Baylor.   It took three semesters of college to get her ready to take the entrance exam for dental school.  Five grueling years later, she was Dr. Egner and ready to move to the next phase of her life.

Dr. Egner did not forgot her beginnings and still travels to third world countries every year to offer dental treatment to those who would otherwise not receive professional care.  Each school year during vacations, she donated time first as an assistant and finally as a dentist to places in Honduras and Mexico.  She has since spent three weeks in Mozambique, Africa and has plans to return there and to other countries in Africa as well as returning to Honduras and Mexico.  She has managed to convince several friends to tag along and be her assistants while experiencing a once in a lifetime opportunity to see places that most tourists never dream of visiting.  She’s looking forward to expanding her travels to other third world countries.

Having grown up in a small town, Dr. Egner wanted to have a dental practice in a small town.  She wanted to be a part of the community, to know families, and to treat people who were also friends.  She wanted a full service dental practice with elderly and also small children included.  She took an extra year of training at the VA Hospital in Dallas in a General Practice Residency to prepare her for the challenge of being the only dentist in a small town.  Towards the end of that residency, she found Dr. Larry Nickell and his practice in Van Alstyne, Texas.  Dr. Nickell had turned a sleepy, small town practice into a modern, thriving one.  It was just what she was looking for.  She began treating patients July 2001 and has never looked back.