FREMONT
SHEILA DOBEE is a dentist on Mattos Drive in Centerville. She is a friendly and confident resident of Fremont with an English accent, her own private practice and an agent in England to help her with a part-time modeling career.
She works out regularly and is conscious about looks. Sometimes people say she is a celebrity dentist. Sometimes they say she looks like an "Indian Catherine Zeta Jones." And sometimes children run up to her with pictures of her from the cover of "California Visage: the Image Enhancement Magazine," she said.
She is also President and dental health chair of the Southern Alameda County Dental Society, which has organized about 30 local dentists to provide more than $40,000 worth of free dental care for more than 100 children in families who live in domestic abuse shelters or lack sufficient dental insurance.
According to a recent study by the county's health department, one out of every two children in Alameda County develops tooth decay by the time they reach kindergarten, and 69 percent of children develop tooth decay by the third grade.
"There's a lot of underserved children that don't get care, and that's heartbreaking," Dobee said." A lot of people can't get dental care because it's expensive. (Some people) have bad insurance (and) some people don't have insurance, so that's a big barrier to care."
On Friday, Dobee spent the afternoon working with special- education students at Glanker Preschool on Sundale Drive, where she helped children with disabilities and intensive autism practice using a yellow toothbrush on a set of plastic teeth.
In the exercise, eight children sit in a semi-circle as Dobee asks them why they need their teeth.
By definition, autistic children have a tendency to be easily distracted and many of children exhibit impulsive physical and verbal behavior, obviously excited by their new visitor. Some jump up and down. Others clap their hands or shout out.
When no one offers an answer, Dobee answers herself.
"We need our teeth because we all need to smile," said Dobee. Afterwards she said, "Sometimes they don't understand what you're trying to say, and I know that when I go in there. And what I'm trying to do is trying to raise awareness about what a toothbrush is, what toothpaste is. ... Your teeth really affect your self- esteem."
Dobee is 30 and has been a professional dentist since she
was 23 years old, though she said she has wanted to be a dentist since she was 9 years old. She moved to Fremont five years ago after marrying her husband, Dinesh, an engineer.
Although her roots are in Mauritius, an island in the southwest Indian Ocean, Dobee was born and raised in a predominantly white neighborhood in London, where she says she did not fit in "because I was brown." When money was tight, she began modeling to help finance her education at the University of London Dental Institute.
Today, in addition to modeling, Dobee says she also tries to be a role model for children. She drives a yellow Mercedes sports car, but she stresses that success has not come easy for her.
"We (my family) didn't come from a rich background," she said. "We didn't go to private school. We didn't get the crme de la crme education. I came from a very normal background... so I tell the kids, 'You can be anything you want to be; you just have to study really hard.'"
Jonathan Jones can be reached at (510) 353-7005, or jjones@angnewspapers.com.
c2006 ANG Newspapers. Cannot be used or repurposed without prior written permission.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
