Five years ago, Peyton Billingsley could not have imagined that she currently would be a first-year student in the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry.

Peyton Billingsley For one thing, Billingsley was enrolled at that time as a mechanical engineering major at Auburn University, and her career path did not appear to be heading toward the medical field. In addition, she said that while growing up in Mountain Brook she had been “scared to death of the dentist.”

“This is nothing that I ever thought I’d do,” Billingsley says. “But life circumstances pointed me toward dentistry.”

Everything began to change in 2019, when Billingsley was diagnosed with inspiratory stridor, a condition that causes damage to the vocal cords and makes it difficult to talk or even breathe. It took three months of testing – including trips to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and a specialist in Colorado – before the cause was determined and Billingsley was able to start treating the condition with medication.

During that time, Billingsley says she received assistance and advice from numerous medical professionals and family members. This show of support so touched Billingsley that she decided she wanted to make a similar impact with her career.

“I was very much incapacitated during my illness,” Billingsley says. “I was fortunate that I was given a lot of healthcare opportunities and had people around me who were able to advocate for me. It really opened my eyes to how important that is.

“That changed my perspective to where I really want to be that advocate for others. Because I had that for myself, and not everyone does. But they still need care and to have people like that helping them. That really spoke to me. It changed my life.”

Once she returned to Auburn, Billingsley began considering what profession would best fit her talents and new career objectives, and was surprised to discover she was drawn to dentistry.

“I wanted something that was hands-on and had both an art form to it and was mechanically connected,” Billingsley says. “During my illness, non-verbal communication became important to me, so I’m comfortable with that. And most importantly, I wanted to be around people and help serve the community. I decided that dentistry was very much a perfect combination of everything I was looking for in a career.”

So Billingsley changed her major to microbiology and Spanish, adding the foreign language, she says, “So I can reach a wider group of patients.” To learn more about the profession, she spent time working as a dental assistant at a pediatric practice in Birmingham, and then later at a practice in the small town of Lafayette (located approximately a half-hour north of Auburn). It was there that she became interested in the need for rural dentistry.

“We had people from 50 miles away coming to see us (in Lafayette),” Billingsley says. “What was surprising to me was when people had a problem, how long some of them would wait before seeing us because they didn’t want to drive 50 miles or didn’t even have the transportation.

“It really broke my heart to see that. And it definitely confirmed that this is what I want to do. I left engineering wanting to be an advocate and to serve others, because I had people do that for me. And I immediately saw how I could do that, and it’s within rural communities.”

Billingsley graduated from Auburn in 2022 and enrolled at the UAB School of Dentistry this past fall. Like most first-year students, she says at times she can become “bogged down” in all the classroom work and studying. But what offsets that, she says, is the ability for first-years to almost immediately start helping out with clinic duty.

“What’s been so valuable is we were able to go into the clinic within weeks of starting here. That really reminds you of why you’re here and why you want to do this,” Billingsley says. “And the faculty has been incredible. They’ll tell you what you need to work on, but then they’ll sit down with you and help show you how to do it. That just blew me away.”

Of course, Billingsley might feel that way about quite a few things in her life right now. The UAB School of Dentistry certainly is not the place she once envisioned being, but she says it definitely is where she belongs.

“What I’ve learned is we all have challenges, but those challenges make us who we are,” Billingsley says. “Without those challenges, I don’t think I’d be in dental school. I’d probably be working behind a computer somewhere. And I wouldn’t be serving the people I want to serve.

“So I consider them to be experiences more than challenges. Those experiences have put me on this path, and I’m thankful for that.”