Dr. Valenzuela.

He is Germán Valenzuela Basterrica, he was the first director of the dental school of the University of Chile. He was born on April 9, 1859 in Curicó, Chile.

He studied medicine at the University of Chile, and became very interested in oral pathology and went to study dentistry in Paris, he graduated as a dental surgeon in 1898.

It became known in 1909 after the resolution of the so called "Becker Crime", the dental examinations carried out on a charred corpse in the fire of the German Legation in Chile, carried out by the then director of the School of Dentistry, Dr. Germán Valenzuela Basterrica, allowed solving the mysterious Police case that put bilateral relations between Chile and Germany at risk, the image of an innocent man was cleaned up and the true culprit was handed over to Justice.

The President of the Republic, Don Pedro Montt, summoned Dr. Valenzuela convinced that he had done a great service to the country and, after congratulating him, offered him a reward from the Chilean government. Faced with this timely payment, Dr. Valenzuela replied that he wanted "the construction of a modern Dental School, which is so necessary to the country."

It is for this reason that I admire Dr. Valenzuela, because he is the founder of the first dental school in Chile and was able to solve a crime.

Pediatric Dentistry

    In this blog, I will tell you about one of the specialties that strikes me, pediatric dentistry.

    It strikes me as one of the people who inspired me to study dentistry was my pediatric dentist. She was very sweet, kind and an excellent dentist.

    But what is pediatric dentistry?

    The pediatric dentist is the specialist dentist who is responsible for the dental treatment of children, mainly dedicated to carrying out restorative treatment of parts and, as a general rule, they are the first contact of the infant patient with the dental world, so on many occasions, it will be the pediatric dentist who refers the patient to the orthodontist.

It must be borne in mind that the dental treatment of a child is extremely important to prevent future alterations but also to establish a good relationship between the dentist and the patient.     The first visit to the dentist of an infant will be with the pediatric dentist.

Today, it is recommended that the first visit to the pediatric dentist be made when the child is one year old.

Is important to visit the dentist and attend the corresponding controls.

The DKMS photo.

The photograph in this newspaper is very important to me, because since I started to become aware of how important it is to be able to help others. I always wanted to be able to contribute my grain of sand, either by being a donor, supporting a campaign, being able to donate, etc.

Until last year, I could not donate blood, because I did not have all the requirements. But when I fulfilled the requirements, I went to donate blood, for a girl who was fighting leukemia, her name was Catalina, just like me and she was only 8 years old. I was touched by his story when his report came out on TV, as well as all the stories that have to do with people who are having a hard time. Catalina, in addition to needing blood donors, also needed to find a 100% compatible stem cell donor.

Although I am afraid of needles, I made the decision and asked my boyfriend to accompany me to donate blood. We went very early one day.

I began to follow the story of the Catita very closely, like other children.

I found out how to be a stem cell donor. And I came to DKMS, a foundation that is in several countries and is responsible for bringing together potential stem cell donors, to fight against blood cancer.

As I was saying before, I was following the story of Catita and I found out that there was going to be a campaign at the Cata school, to find a possible donor for her or for anyone. So I signed up as a volunteer with my boyfriend to find potential donors.

That day many people came to register as a donor, and it was a record, since DKMS Chile had few registered.

Thanks to that, several people with blood cancer have been able to find a donor (genetic twin)

I am very happy to have been able to help and be part of DKMS.

(my boyfriend's silhouette appears in the photo).

The Mountain

I like the mountain a lot, because I was born and still live in the San José de Maipo mountain, it's a quiet place, full of nature and places where one can go trekking and sightseeing. In winter it's covered with snow and many people come to know and to snowboard. It's a beautiful landscape ( I'll leave a photo so you can appreciate how beautiful it's).

Although living in the mountains has its privileges, because it's surrounded by trees and clean air, it's quiet and there are not even many cases of theft, I would dare to say that there are hardly any.

But it's far from my university, public transportation is intermittent, even when a lot of snow falls there are roads cuts and power outages, internet or cell phone signal ( although this often happens on normal days). But despite that, I would not change where I live, because the tranquility is unmatched. 

My smartphone

My favourite piece of technology is my smartphone, my parents gave it to me 1 year ago, specifically at christmas. It has been very useful to me, because I can communicate with my family, my boyfriend and my friends. I can play to de-stress myself and also see social networks, although I can only have instagram and whatsapp. This is why I spend most of my time using my cell phone and especially now in quarantine, because it allows to see my beloved ones by video call and not lose communication with them.

The good thing about the smartphone is that you can bring it like a computer but smaller and you can take it everywhere, and it's super useful when I take long trips, for example when I'm on my way to university.

Without my cell phone my life would be very boring, because I can have everything I want on it and communicate anywhere, I also think that it is already part of our life.

My career

When I was a child, I used to dream of being a dentist.
At 8 years old I even at school about what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I always said that I wanted to be a dentist, I was never afraid to go to the dentist, because my dentist was very loving and made me think that I wanted to be like her.
It was never an option to study another career, but my family told me to study medicine, however I never took their opinions into account.
This year is my second year studying dentistry. The first year that I was studying was very difficult, but I liked my career even more.It has been a nice experience, where I have learned a lot and have met very good people.
In the future I would like to work with children, because I would love to teach them how important it's to worry about oral health. Obviously, I also pretend to help people who need it the most, one of the main reasons why I was motivated into this career in the first place.

Catalina Pizarro Arriagada.

Autobiography

Hello everyone 💖

I'm Catalina Pizarro Arriagada. I  was born in Santiago, Chile on October 6th.
I live all my life in San José de Maipo with my mother Mariela and my grandmother María Isabel.They are important for me.
In San José I live between the hills, is a beautiful place.

I studied at Colegio Rafael Eyzaguirre the elementary school and the high school,located in San José de Maipo. There I met my best friend Almendra and my boyfriend  💕
Now I study dentistry at Universidad de Chile,a dream come truth from my childhood, and so far I've made a lot of friends.
My hobbie is watching movies, in specially romantic movies and watching netflix series.