MARIA Pandolfi is a dentist. She also flies the sky as part of an airline crew.
At 27, she juggles her love of flying with her love for patients.
Maria was born and raised in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, a country in Eastern Europe bordered by the Baltic Sea, near Poland and Russia to the south.
At the age of 22, she was offered a job in an air carrier in Riga in the adjacent country of Latvia.
“My aviation career started while I was doing a final course of dental studies at the university,” she told Aerotime Hub.
“I had a false impression that a flight attendant must look tall and glamorous, so I initially thought that, due to my small height, I would never be selected.”
However, Maria turned down a slot at the airline. She had to put the dream on hold in order to finish a degree in dentistry. The focus must run in the family as her grandmother is a medical doctor.
Still, even as a practicing dentist, Maria never forgot the lure of the blue sky.
ACMI, the air charter in Vilnius, showed the way. Offered a slot, Maria began her career as a cabin crew on Airbus A319 and A320 jets.
Maria’s childhood included frequent-flyer days when she visited her father in Italy once every so often. It was the frequent flying that awed Maria with a career in the sky.
“The responsibility of a doctor of oral health is high. Creating and implementing treatment plans for patients usually takes a lot of patience and accuracy, and I still enjoy this job.
“But it’s more about focusing on face-to-face communication with a patient, while I always wanted to try myself in a profession which requires teamwork skills,” she said.
While it was a temporary contract, Maria was required to leave the dental clinic in 2019. That was no problem. When the contract expires, Maria knew dentistry was waiting as a career.
However, she was so skilled at her flying job that the contract was extended well into the winter of 2019. It was an off season for travel, so Maria dreamed of being a flight attendant and a dentist at the same time. The pandemic decided the future for her when air travel was put on hold.
After flying for nearly a year pre-pandemic, Maria saw the global lockdown suspend aviation as well as dental services except in emergency situations. Maria was now out of flying; she was also out of the dental clinic.
During the summer of 2020 Maria resumed her first career as dental clinics slowly reopened in Lithuania – that is, with strict health protocols in place for both patients and dentists.
Then again, the attraction of flying was never far – Maria went black in the air, this time on board an Airbus Family jet.
Flying and dentistry means a lot to Maria.
Ever confident, Maria believes the world will hurdle the pandemic. “We will overcome this crisis and I will be able to combine both dentistry and aviation,” Maria told Aero Hub, adding both are dreams that have come true.
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Dr. Joseph D. Lim is the former Associate Dean of the UE College of Dentistry, former Dean of the College of Dentistry, National University, past president and honorary fellow of the Asian Oral Implant Academy, and honorary fellow of the Japan College of Oral Implantologists and Honorary Life Member of Thai Association of Dental Implantology. For questions on dental health, e-mail jdlim2008@gmail.com or text 0917-8591515./PN
