The Southern California Filipino Dental Society (SCFDC) is a world unto itself.
As the energy level started going up and up, the dentists moved, talked, laughed and think — and the brain power within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library patio/garden became formidable, cell phones ringing as the sun went down dramatically into the evening. This was the fruit of their endless brainstorming — working and persevering against all odds on their parallel efforts, anchored on a common goal, in the last fifty years.
In every report and idea are their dreams of becoming good at their assigned tasks: of doing best with their lives’ chosen career, of changing the world of dentistry (or at least small corners of it), where they found themselves settled. They also imagined that a hundred years from now, their accomplishments would be told, with their true picture of how these men and women felt and reached in response to circumstances prevailing at their time…the mind boggling crisis restriction of their chosen field.
They were ready, working and generating the confidence. There was no time to wait, these were the dentists who acted rather than talked. every challenge was going to be done. They had no doubts in their capacity to answer that.
These are determined individuals who worked hard and long to achieve positive results where others failed to get. Firm and competent, always on the trail of what was novel and workable. They are sterling entrepreneurs making it to a good cause to be shared by others to serve on the world of dentistry in this country.
Led by their President, Dr. Rene Calugcuran, SCFDC’s golden boy, they gathered themselves together, disparate, empirical good men, young and old. They are more linked to one another through their schools, sacrosanct values, social class and their concerns in public service. The mixtures were good personally and professionally, and the idea they would shake the earth and world, even recession’s inevitable assault on the economy. The idea honed is that they could service and complement one another, shoulder to shoulder in the dental world, each for the other.
Dr. Calugcuran stood smiling, swathed with that told world elegance of great breeding and taste, which to this day still kissed the elderly’s hand in that time honored Filipino tradition of a wordless “mano po.” Born to fascinate, charm, confuse and mesmerize a wild card off his socks with his mastery of his craft, he can win over a patient on a dreaded dentist chair. His bedrock principle are the rightest and of public knowledge.
The fun filled 50th anniversary celebration of dentists all over California was filled with lots of surprises, experience in dance interpretations, prayer and songs from opera singers — all in an unbridled celebration of sight, sounds and scene. It was a life changing celebration about dignity, respect, and courage.
Beneath the weight of responsibility, every member carried on. They were a compendium of able and dependable doers with stamina, grit imagination — a tale of heroes, of folks that refused to be beaten.
In one shining bright moment, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a marvelous portion of marvelous dentists, accomplished the impossible.
They were one!
