Take one look at John A.’s resume and it’ll become immediately clear that the traditional dentist career path was never for him.
While most dental students plan on starting their own practice after graduation, John decided to blaze his own trail, signing a three-year contract with the United States Navy as a military dentist. The decision paid off—he ended up staying for 36 years, serving on ships stationed in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and taking part in Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield during the first Gulf War.
“I thought, ‘I really like this kind of thing,’” John said. “I like traveling around the world, seeing other sites, working with other dental professionals, [and] learning a lot.”
So when it was finally time for John to retire from the military in 2020, it makes sense that he still had an itch for travel and adventure. The remedy? Locum tenens.
“With my history in the Navy and having to work with different people … I’ve been able to feel very comfortable with different things and abrupt changes that can happen because I can roll with it, because that’s all I’ve done,” John said. “So, locums is exactly that.
“It’s parallel—it’s pretty much the same thing,” he continued. “Only my first set of patients wore a uniform, and the present ones don’t.”
A Globe-Spanning Dental Career
Like many of his classmates, John initially thought he’d settle down after dental school and open his own private practice. But it wasn’t until he heard a convincing pitch from a Navy recruiter that he decided to think twice about his career.
“I certainly had no intentions to make a career [out of the Navy], but the pitch was great,” he said. “I could sign up for three years, save some money, work on speed and skills, have ready access to dental specialists, and I thought, ‘That’s going to make me more competitive when I finally do open up my own practice.”
It wasn’t just the dentistry that kept him in the Navy for so long. John said he started to enjoy everything else that came with a military career—namely combat training, flying in helicopters, and working alongside the U.S. Marine Corps.
John completed two tour assignments while in the Navy, serving on ships stationed on the East and West coasts. He was deployed to the Persian Gulf in the 1990s, where he was lowered in a horse collar by cable to ships to perform dental exams on hardworking and dedicated American service men and women.
“I had the privilege of working with America’s heroes,” John said. “These people are truly incredible.”
As a self-described “adventurous person,” John took every opportunity he had to try new things while in the Navy. For example, once during an underway replenishment, John said he was given the privilege of driving an aircraft carrier. Another time, John said he personally launched nine fighter jets off an aircraft carrier.
“When you watch the movie Top Gun or any of those Navy movies, I’m the guy who taps on the deck, bends down, points out, and the jets fly with the wings shooting right over me,” he said. “It’s just an incredible adrenaline rush.”
Dentistry onboard a Navy ship or in the battlefield is certainly different from dentistry in a typical clinic—but there’s much that is the same. They had all the state-of-the-art chairs, equipment, supplies that a dentist would come to expect, but dentistry on the ocean or in a tent with dust blowing all over the place does bring its own challenges.
“It’s just a little unusual to be kind of rocking or swaying a little bit while you’re trying to do dentistry,” John joked.
Transitioning to Civilian Life
Right after John left the Navy in 2020, he decided to take a full-time, permanent position as a dentist at a community health clinic in central California. He worked there for three and a half years before retiring completely. Or so he thought.
One of his friends, a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA), told him about locum tenens work—so John did some digging, and he came across Barton Associates.
“I went ahead and contacted them and got hooked up with a recruiter right away,” John said. “Marissa Colon is her name, and she’s been outstanding—just so great in keeping in touch with me [and] keeping me well informed on prospective positions.”
John’s very first locum tenens assignment was in 2023, in Oklahoma with the Indian Health Service (IHS). There, John said he worked with a Native American patient population doing routine dental procedures. After a while, he found another locum tenens assignment down the road at another IHS facility.
John’s most recent locum tenens assignment was in central California at another IHS facility, where he also performed routine dental procedures on a Native American patient population.
“They were very appreciative for what we were able to give them,” he said.
John said he likes how every locum tenens assignment is a new adventure, as it reminds him of his time working in the Navy, where things were changing constantly.
“I’ve told people at the clinics that I’ve been assigned to … ‘This is a perfect fit. I’ve moved around to different places so I don’t have to be in the same place every day where I have to have everything a certain way,’” he said. “I can work with what the clinic has.”
Working with Barton Associates
Ultimately, John said he is happy with his relationship with Barton Associates, specifically his recruiter, Marissa.
“She’s very good about asking what my plans are,” he said.
Beyond his recruiter, John said he’s had great experiences working with Barton’s internal travel team, who he said contacts him “right away.” Furthermore, Barton’s credentialing team has helped him keep his credentials and other documents in order—oftentimes a confusing task.
“Once I say ‘Yea’ to an assignment, they’re right on it,” John said.
While John hasn’t worked with any other locum tenens staffing agency, he said “it’s hard to imagine a better company to work with” than Barton Associates.
“I’ve just found everybody to be so accommodating,” he said about the teams at Barton Associates. “I sincerely feel that a genuine effort is made to make sure that we locum tenens providers are given everything we need to succeed.”
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