Shannon Pace Brinker, CDA, CDD

Shannon Pace Brinker, a certified dental assistant for 23 years, said she wants to give other dental assistants a voice.

She has become a teacher, writer and started a magazine to do just that.
Shannon got her first experience in the dental field when she got a job answering phones in a dental office while she was in high school. Her first employer trained her to be a chairside assistant and she graduated in 1994 from the dental assisting program at Bowman Gray School of Medicine.

Several years later, she got a job as the dental assistant to Dr. Ross Nash and became a teacher at the Nash Institute for Dental Learning. Dr. Nash recognized her ability to communicate and encouraged her to become a speaker and a writer.

Working with some of the dental industry’s leaders, Shannon, CDA and CDD, gives credit to her mentors for her success and leadership skills.

Today, Shannon works as a chairside assistant for Dr. Daniel Etheridge at Greenbriar Dental. As a faculty member at the Spear Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz., she also speaks to about 3,000 dental assistants a year and is the co-founder, with her husband, Erik, of Contemporary Product Solutions, which provides a total team perspective in clinical and laboratory evaluation of dental products and equipment.

Shannon, who has four daughters, is the first auxiliary to sit on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and selected as one of Dentistry Today’s Top 100 Clinicians of 2009, 2010 and 2011.  

Being a dental assistant is an evolving profession and new roles include fabricating E4D restorations for CAD/CAM to composite placement.

Our industry is evolving, with change in duties every dental assistant should be pursuing additional educational opportunities to improve their chairside skills.

“I encourage all dental assistants that you can be anything you want.”