“IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT the money,” says Dr. Rasul Albazi, BDS, MS, OHS, AEGD, ’25. “It’s good to help others.”
When you love a place and don’t want to leave, what do you do? Stay, of course. That was the case for Dr. Rusul Albazi when she decided to pursue an oral health master’s degree. She had been in Philadelphia for six years while doing research on genotyping for diabetes and thought, “I’m not going anywhere. I cannot leave Philly.”
An immigrant from Baghdad, Albazi had left the life she knew once before. “I didn’t want that feeling again,” she recalls. “So I didn’t apply anywhere else, only Temple Dental.” First came her master’s in oral health and then her DMD. Both degrees followed her BDS from Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. There and in Tikrit, Iraq, she had been a general dentist for two years in both private practice and clinical settings.
Making patients happy
While in Temple Dental’s AEGD program, Albazi served as chief resident, helping with special needs patients. “We saw a lot of complicated cases,” she recalls. One of them was a woman whose facial trauma years earlier had necessitated implants, now very outdated. The case was so technically demanding that only Temple Dental under the mentoring of Dr. Dellheim was willing and able to help her. Through detailed discussions about biomechanics, implant systems, prosthetic adaptation, and long-term function, the AEGD team provided the necessary care. And the patient was overjoyed because for decades she hadn’t been able to eat or speak well. In fact, she routinely placed tissue inside her dentures to provide stability. That kind of happy reaction is a major focus for Albazi.
To deliver good outcomes, she believes, compassion and advocating for patients who feel they have run out of options are key elements—just exactly what Dr. Dellheim modeled. She also credits Temple Dental faculty for emphasizing that “sometimes patients need to be protected from themselves.” That means, she explains, making sure they receive appropriate treatment and avoid unnecessary procedures, even if they think they need a different approach. “I want to guide patients to the right thing,” she adds.
Currently working in Chicago, Albazi misses Philadelphia but feels fortunate to be working “in a high-end, high-technology office that’s considered one of the area’s most prestigious.” She continues to see the patient smiles that are so important to her—and not just in the practice, but also in her volunteer work.
Once a month, she offers her services at a clinic that helps patients who don’t have insurance or who cannot afford treatment. Performing extractions, emergency root canals, and fixing kids’ chipped teeth, she says, “You feel happy at the end of day, and you’ve made someone else happy. They deserve that work to be done.”
Reflecting on her journey
Asked what she sees in the future, Albazi says she’d like to teach one day, perhaps part time. “I have a lot of cases documented A to Z because working in an office has given me the privilege of taking before-and-after pictures. I want to share them with students.”
She is candid about how her life has changed since leaving Baghdad 15 years ago. The differences are stark, she maintains, in studying and practicing dentistry here, especially with AEGD. In the U.S., she notes the advantages of “data collections, patient flow, and the availability of everything.” However, she says, “I was in Baghdad last year, and things are better. Now they have more resources, more materials, and more schools. They are following the American system of teaching, but they still need time.”
Appreciative that she was able to study at Temple Dental, she emphasizes, “I’m thankful for all the faculty. They really built my skills in planning treatment and handling comprehensive cases. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was lucky.”
She then adds a personal note. “I’m a mother of two. And I did it all while having a 12-year-old daughter and a five-year-old boy. I’m grateful, and I survived!”
Appreciative that she was able to study at Temple Dental, she emphasizes, “I’m thankful for all the faculty. They really built my skills in planning treatment and handling comprehensive cases. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was lucky.”