EXTREME MOUTH MAKEOVERS … FOR FREE
By Brittany Levine
OCRegister
Friday, October 16, 2009
A new program offered by a San Clemente dentist is like "Extreme Home
Makeover" for mouths.
Dr. Jon Marashi’s first mouth-makeover patient was missing molars,
her mouth had been damaged by faulty dental work, she had cavities
and her gums bled like crazy.
On top of that, Sofik Seboian, a Calabasas housekeeper originally from
Armenia, had endured difficult times. When she was 3, her mother was
killed when a train crashed into a bus. She was one of five children
and her father couldn’t afford to get their teeth fixed. She got
married at 18 and, after having three children, her husband left her.
"When you’re fortunate and you don’t have issues in your life, you
hear this stuff and, my God," Marashi said in an interview after
he had turned Seboian’s messed-up mouth into a shiny porcelain
masterpiece. "You think, ‘How much can one person take?’"
Marashi fixed up Seboian’s smile as part of Smiles for Life, a new
charitable program led by the California Center for Advanced Dental
Studies, a continuing-education group for dentists.
"This is an absolute dream come true," said Seboian, whose children
are 8, 17 and 19. "I never thought I’d have a beautiful smile."
Seboian’s work was valued at $40,000. The porcelain veneers used in
the surgery were donated by Frontier Dental Laboratories, a Brea-based
company that partners with the Center for Advanced Dental Studies.
The center has 11 directors nationwide and abroad, and each has agreed
to donate one new smile per year to a less-fortunate person who shows
the promise of benefiting greatly from the mouth makeover.
It’s not unusual for professional dental associations to give away free
smiles. The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry has a program that
gives free makeovers to domestic-violence victims, and the American
Dental Association has a program focused on children.
But Smiles for Life is different be are that an applicant show he or
she really needs the surgery and deserves it more than others.
"This is an opportunity that flat-out doesn’t exist anywhere else,"
said Marashi, 36. "Where else can such a large demographic of people
get this?"
Marashi said the program is especially unique because the program
directors pay for the makeover work out of their own pockets, despite
the economic crisis.
"Who gives anything right now? Do you know any plastic surgeons
right now giving out pro bono work when they’re trying to pay office
bills?" Marashi said. "Really what’s in it for me by spending all
this time and all this money, what I get back in return is that I
know I did the right thing."
Marashi, who has offices in San Clemente and Newport Beach, targeted
homeless, drug-related and domestic-violence shelters in Orange
County. He got about 20 applicants. One woman, who had no teeth,
said that if she had a new smile, she could apply for a job.
"I liked the ability to look at it on a case-by-case basis," Marashi
said, noting that each program director carries out his or her own
search for makeover winners.
He selected Seboian, who was referred to him by a patient, because
she had overcome dental and life problems and was still a constructive
member of society. He said he believed she was applying for the right
reasons and not just looking for a freebie.
"It wasn’t just go to the dentist and zip, zap, get it done," Seboian
said. "There were a lot of emotions in that office."
After her last appointment, Seboian cried for hours. Now when she
visits Marashi, she constantly wants to hug him, he said.
Marashi has started reviewing applications for next year.
"I wish that every doctor would take an initiative, even if they just
change one life in the world," Seboian said. "Wouldn’t it be nice if
they made this law that doctors had to take care of one person a year
for free? I wish all doctors would copy Marashi."
Contact the writer: [email protected] or 949-492-5129