Naperville dentist Dr. Meredith Gantos is closing the gap between her local community and other countries.
“I think anybody and any professional that has a really specialized honed-in skill that they’ve worked hard to achieve, I think that there comes with that a sort of social justice. Like if you’ve had that opportunity and you’ve had the ability to do that, then part of that has to be ministering it and giving it back to others who don’t have that opportunity or don’t have that special skill set,” said Dr. Gantos, dentist, and owner of Gantos Dental Group.
Dr. Meredith Gantos pursues dentistry and service
Dr. Meredith Gantos decided to pursue dentistry at an early age when an accident left her with half a front tooth. After seeing how dental care combined her love of art and science, she knew it was her calling.
Her commitment to helping those in need was ignited in college when she took her first service trip to El Salvador.
“We were working on building this orphanage and we got to be around all these kids in the school and it was just such a wonderful, transformative experience for me. So it was something that sort of lit that passion up that I really wanted to minister to others and be able to do that type of work,” said Gantos.
Since then, Dr. Gantos has completed mission trips to Guatemala, Zambia, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic three times.
Stories from her service trips
On the service trips, the Neuqua Valley High School alumna often performs oral surgeries, extractions, and fillings but services often vary. When she went to Kenya, she expected to see lots of cavities but was surprised with what she discovered.
“It was really interesting to find that they had beautiful, healthy teeth but they had rampant gum disease and that was because they had so much fluoride in their soil that they were over-fluoridated,” said Gantos. “So that was a very different type of dental need versus in other countries where they do have more cavities or infections.”
Each country also offers its own set of experiences and challenges. In Zambia, she found that many people were superstitious about dentists.
“So they would come in with a mouthful of bombed-out teeth, but one would be hurting and they would through the translator say, ‘just take out this one’. We would try and educate them like, ‘okay, but you have these other teeth, and they’re infected, they’re going to hurt you. Can I remove that for you?’ But because they were superstitious about it, they were kind of like, ‘no, no, no, I don’t want you to touch that one, just this one’,” said Gantos.
But on all visits, she offers more than just dental services.
“We’re interacting with the community, we’re playing with the kids, we’re meeting people. Almost every trip, we’ve gone to schools and educated people and we’ll get other types of donations, clothing, and things like that,” said Gantos. “We do really get to experience the culture and they get to experience us.”
More mission trips in the future
Dr. Gantos plans to make at least one international trip each year to continue to help fill the hole of dental care providers around the world.
“I’ve always sort of grown up in a household that really values service to others. And so to me, being able to serve other people is like the highest honor you can have,” said Gantos.
Photo courtesy: Dr. Meredith Gantos
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