Out of the chair and into the scrubs

It’s not often a person chooses one’s profession during a dental appointment but it’s exactly where Petersburg’s Kayleigh Short made her decision to go to dental school.

Short graduated from Mesa’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health last spring. Her educational experiences have taken her from classroom laboratories to Arizona Indian reservations and into sprawling Alaskan tundra.

“Dentistry had never been something that had come to mind after growing up in a fishing family,” Short said. “I just knew I had to do something with my hands.”

It was when she was discussing her high school j...