Dentists give new meaning to ‘military drills’

Gresham couple help put teeth in brigade bound for Iraq

By Shannon Wells

The Gresham Outlook, Mar 24, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Jim Clark / Gresham Outlook

Assisted by Shelley Grandjean, left, Dr. Julie Paynter of Paynter Family Dentistry administers local anesthetic to Cpl. Jason Fahrni before filling four cavities. A soldier with the National Guard 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Fahrni is preparing for his second deployment to Iraq this spring. He is one of 15 soldiers receiving dental care at Paynter.

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Reclined in the dentist chair and wearing dark shades, Jason Fahrni looks stoic and tough.

Still, the Army National Guard corporal is not above expressing a concern to Dr. Julie Paynter as she prepares to fill four cavities.

“I just got my wisdom teeth pulled out,” he says. “It’s a little tender there.”

Although thousands of miles from armed combat, Julie and Mitch Paynter have seen plenty of soldiers in recent weeks.

The husband-and-wife team volunteered its Paynter Family Dentistry services to help prepare more than a dozen National Guard 41st Infantry soldiers for their deployment to Iraq. It’s been taxing, but they’ve managed to squeeze in soldiers from the region into the busy schedule of their practice at 445 W. Powell Blvd.

Some soldiers need more work than others. But Julie Paynter, who goes by “Dr. Julie” at work, says she’s happy to give something back to the organization that jumpstarted not only her career, but also her marriage. “It’s nice to be able to help get ’em ready,” she says. “It’s a big undertaking.”

Patience and patients

Julie and “Dr. Mitch” Paynter first met in dental school at Oregon Health & Sciences University. They cemented their relationship while serving together in the Navy – Mitch on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, and Julie at the Everett Naval Base in Everett, Wash.

They left active duty in 2006 and started a joint practice in Gresham that fall. One of their soldier-patients raved to Lt. Jeffrey Flores, executive officer of the guard’s Gresham Readiness Center, about the top-quality treatment he experienced at Paynter.

When Flores needed to expedite the “readiness” process for soldiers, he immediately thought of the Paynters, says Sgt. Scott Shobert, Flores’ colleague. While dropping by the Paynter practice to check on Cpl. Fahrni, Shobert explained the importance of the right fit when preparing soldiers for deployment.

“The military is a huge bureaucracy,” he says. “It helps to work with someone who’s lived it and understands how things operate. It’s a long, drawn-out process. You have to have the necessary patience.”

Julie Paynter agrees that, when working on a U.S. military project, it takes one to know one.

“It helps that we’ve been in the military,” she says. “We understand the bureaucracy. It’s kind of a different world.”