By Joe Pinchot
HERMITAGE — It might be hard to believe that attending a college on the other side of the state fit into her schedule better than one closer to home, but that’s why Jamie Konsol chose Harcum College in Bryn Mawr.
“Harcum’s program just fit me better time wise,” said the 32-year-old Hermitage resident, who is studying to become an expanded function dental assistant.
EFDAs specialize in placing fillings. By becoming certified as an EFDA, she could handle some of the duties that her employer, dentist Dr. Dale F. Spadafora, is responsible for, and free him up to spend more time with other patients, she said.
Harcum’s program offered a 15-week class period — she has to complete an internship, write a term paper and make a presentation to finish the program — which is shorter than that of other schools, and summer classes that made the weather less of a factor, she said. Spadafora does not schedule office hours on Fridays, which afforded Ms. Konsol time to get to Harcum for its Saturday EFDA classes.
Her typical weekend for the June 4 to Sept. 27 period was to head to Harcum on Friday — a 5è-hour drive — stay overnight in a dormitory room, attend classes and laboratory training all day Saturday, and head home in the evening.
Harcum officials thought Ms. Konsol was “absolutely insane and crazy” for undertaking such a schedule, she said, but worked to make her time worthwhile.
“They were awesome,” she said. “They made me feel as comfortable as they could.”
Her typical class day was to attend lecture from 8 to 10 a.m., and spend the rest of the day — until 4 p.m. — in the lab making temporaries on a model of a mouth called a typodont.
“It was five hours of just concentrating on filling these fillings,” she said.
Harcum’s program was more difficult than she thought it would be, largely because she must know how to work with silver fillings in addition to the composite ones Spadafora favors, she said. Ms. Konsol has been spending Fridays at Farrell Dental Center to meet her requirements for silver fillings.
She said she believes she is a better student now than she was when she took Youngstown State University classes in 1996, and 1997, a stint cut short by Spadafora’s office being destroyed in the Hermitage Square fire.
“I think I appreciated it more this go around than it was when I was younger,” she said. “With Dr. Spadafora paying for it, there was a lot of pressure to do really good.”
She got an A minus — the best grade of the five students in her class — and hopes to take her state boards to become certified in January.
Ms. Konsol has been involved in the dental industry since she graduated from Hickory High School in 1994. Her father, Frank Szabo, is a certified dental laboratory technician, and she started working for him.
“I gave him a year and realized I enjoyed it,” she said.
She eventually moved to assisting a Pittsburgh dentist, and has been with Spadafora for 12 years. Her sister, Teresa Szabo, also works in the office.
“I should have gone to dental school,” Ms. Konsol said. “I never thought that far ahead when I was young.”
While she would like to go to dental school, she has not because she has a 6-year-old daughter, Alyssa.
“I don’t know that I could walk away from her for that long,” she said.
Working in a dentistry office is satisfying because it helps people feel different about themselves.
“I love that part of it,” she said.
