STAFF MEMBER: KRISTA DAVISON
POSITION: DENTAL ASSISTANT
Dental assistant Krista Davison explored several career fields before finding her passion in dentistry.
Starting out as a pharmacy major, she dabbled in anthropology and criminal justice at Tacoma Community College before deciding to pursue dental assisting.
“I fell in love with dental assisting,” she said, “mainly because of the variety.”
After graduating from Bates Technical College, Krista Davison worked in private practice for about a year. She had done her internship during school at the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority and said she wished for a position at the PTHA to open up.
“Miracles do happen,” she joked.
More than 11 years later, Krista Davison is happy in her job at the PTHA and credits the people – staff and patients – for why she plans on staying for many years to come.
“The people are like my family,” she said. “I spend more time with them than my own family.”
One of the things that drew Krista Davison into the dental field was her own bad experiences with dentists.
“I hated going to the dentist, it just wasn’t comfortable. I wanted to get into dental assisting to make it comfortable for them (patients).”
She said that seeing customer satisfaction, results in patients’ teeth, and helping create a better attitude for patients toward dentists are what she finds as the most rewarding aspects of her work.
Variety of tasks and job responsibilities are also strong appeals of dental assisting, from placing fillings to working with youth and elders.
“Sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to get into – it’s always different. No patient is the same.”
Krista Davison is very involved in her family life. She and her husband Brent, her high school sweetheart, spend a lot of time with their two children Jacob, 8, and Sydney, 5.
The family spends most of their summer boating on American Lake and participates in many activities together, such as biking and walking.
