Alumni Profile Q&A: Dr. Joseph Yancho – Returning home to practice and to contribute to the profession of dentistry after a U.S. Navy deployment in the Pacific

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Dr. Joe Yancho has packed a lot into the seven years since he graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry with his DDS degree in 2018. A recipient of the U.S. Navy scholarship for dental school, he continued his education after graduation with a one-year Advanced Education in General Dentistry program at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago. His ensuing four-year commitment to the Navy started in San Diego, briefly, before a nearly two-year tour of the western Pacific Ocean as a dentist aboard the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport ship, or LPD, that was homeported in Sasebo, Japan. After sailing the South China Sea and areas around Australia, the Philippines and Japan, Yancho finished the last two years of his Navy service as a dentist at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. In November 2023, he returned to his hometown of Traverse City to join the practice of his father, Dr. Phillip Yancho (U-M DDS 1985). In a recent interview, Joe talked about what he gained in the Navy, working with his dad, and his early-and-often commitment to the profession of dentistry and the School of Dentistry.

Q: When you reflect on your four years at the School of Dentistry, what were some of the key things you learned that have helped you early in your career so far? Obviously, the various dentistry skills and procedures involved in treating patients, but what were some of the overall lessons or advice that have stayed with you?

A: I look back extremely fondly on my time at Michigan. I truly feel that there’s no better place to lay the groundwork for the skills required to be a great dentist. I always felt that if you wanted to increase your involvement or take dentistry beyond the curriculum, that was encouraged and supported. Along with some of my classmates, I helped continue what was formerly known as the Wolverine Patriot Project and form it into what is known today as Victors for Veterans. It was part of the Pathways program then, but the great thing was we could go as big as we wanted with the scope of our project. Through excellent mentorship and faculty support, we were able to host clinics for multiple years in Traverse City, completing comprehensive treatment for scores of veterans who would otherwise have gone without. In this way, we were able to make a huge impact for the underserved veteran community in northern Michigan, which is a cause that is obviously near and dear to my heart. The advice that I always took to heart from my time at Michigan was that opportunities will be there for you if you seek them out – and they will greatly increase not only your enjoyment while in school, but will also be deeply fulfilling. 
 

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Q: After your year in the AEGD program, your time in the Navy was split between practicing dentistry at sea and then in San Diego at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. What were each of those assignments like?

A:  My time in the Navy lined up almost perfectly with the Covid pandemic, so that affected how I was able to do my job in the early part. My job was to meet the dentistry needs of the 350 sailors on board, or when the Marines were on board, you have another 800 or so people you are responsible for. We had a full-service dental clinic, with two chairs, two operatories, a small lab and storage room, and a front desk. Most of the time it was routine treatment like fillings or broken teeth. I wasn’t able to do crowns or some of the more complicated treatments because we didn’t have that kind of equipment on board, and also didn’t have lab support while deployed.  So it was routine dentistry and then creative dentistry where you treat things well enough that they can be treated more definitively later. There were periods of time during Covid, because of infection control regulations, that I wasn’t allowed to do anything that wasn’t emergency treatment. For example, I wasn’t even allowed to keep up with the yearly dental exams that everyone must have.

Q: Once Covid died down a bit, what was the routine like?

A: Overall, when you are underway at sea, every day is pretty much the same – the joke was that “everyday underway is a Tuesday” – a morning meeting, see patients, go to lunch, see more patients in the afternoon. It was Monday through Saturday, and Sundays I didn’t work generally, or at least didn’t do any dentistry. Then have some free time, work out, hang out with my friends, see the sun once in a while. I was out at sea for 372 days, not straight but combined on different floats. There were definitely days that it was boring, and Covid made it not as fun, because we couldn’t go to any ports. If it wasn’t for the pandemic, we would have been stopping all over the place – Australia, Guam, the Philippines. That altered the experience, but I made really good friends and I still look back on my time fondly. It was very cool. I enjoyed it. 
 

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Q: And what was your work like at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego?

A: That’s the Marine Corp’s boot camp on the West Coast, so my job was about recruit readiness, intake exams and treating all of their urgent needs. There was a lot to do because a lot of the recruits have never seen a dentist. They have lots of big decay with big fillings. I also got to do a lot of work making crowns and restorations with digital scans and CAD-CAM milling machines. So I got a lot of really good experience that helped prepare me for private practice.

Q: Your dad, Phil, said in an interview back in 2018 just before you graduated from dental school, that you would be welcome to join his practice some day. And now you’ve made that happen.

A: I didn’t want to come back straight from dental school to start practicing up here (in Traverse City), so it was nice to be able to get that kind of experience in the Navy all around the world and to be doing work that I felt was important at the same time. I joined him as an associate in November of 2023, then this July I bought in as a partner. I’m probably seeing more new patients than he is, but in terms of existing patients, we are pretty much splitting everything. A lot of the patients I’ve met before because a lot of them have been with my dad for 30 years. I also grew up with most of the employees; a lot of them have been there for 15 or 20 years.
 

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Q: There are probably pluses and minuses to working closely with a parent. How has that gone with your dad?

A: It’s been great, honestly. I can’t even really think of many minuses, it has just been mainly pluses. I think our working relationship is really good and I think our personal relationship is good, too. Having him there as a resource, given how experienced he is and how much he knows about dentistry, is awesome. I’ve learned more in the last two years, than I’ve learned in the five years before that for sure. Working with him has been excellent. The patients have been super receptive to it, too. My dad has been saying for years that I was on my way back, so the patients kind of expected that. And that fact that I had experience elsewhere was good, too, because I wasn’t coming straight out of dental school. So they weren’t dealing with a brand new dentist and had some of that inherent trust already built in.

Q: You have quickly become involved with numerous professional dentistry organizations and programs, and are maintaining ties to the School of Dentistry. You are president of the Resort District Dental Society in northern Michigan and a preceptor for the United We Smile program in Traverse City that provides free dental care for military veterans and children. At the dental school, you are a member of the Alumni Society Board of Governors and you volunteered for the new Look to Michigan capital campaign. Your wife, Leah (Barnas), is also a graduate of the dental school, earning her degree in dental hygiene in 2019. What is your motivation for keeping close to the dental school and for your other contributions to professional dentistry organizations?

A: I always really enjoyed being involved in extracurricular organizations, from high school to undergrad and all the way through dental school. Being a graduate from Michigan as an undergraduate as well really cemented my desire to get involved in the school and help not only give back, but help shape what the school will be in the future. My dad has been involved in organized dentistry for years, working with the MDA in Peer Review and Ethics and also being head preceptor of the United We Smile clinic in Traverse City. I think he’s partially responsible for inspiring me to get involved on a local level with the Resort District Dental Society, but also get involved with the school however I could, in this case being a part of the Alumni Board of Governors. It’s also easy to stay motivated with that involvement because of all the relationships I’ve been so lucky to cultivate at the school. I was back last weekend for the Board of Governors meeting and got to see quite a few colleagues and mentors that really inspire me to keep doing these kind of things. I think dentistry is a relationship-based field, and getting involved with these kinds of groups connects you with other like-minded dentists, which has been the most fulfilling part for me. 
 

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The University of Michigan School of Dentistry is one of the nation’s leading dental schools engaged in oral healthcare education, research, patient care and community service.  General dental care clinics and specialty clinics providing advanced treatment enable the school to offer dental services and programs to patients throughout Michigan.  Classroom and clinic instruction prepare future dentists, dental specialists and dental hygienists for practice in private offices, hospitals, academia and public agencies.  Research seeks to discover and apply new knowledge that can help patients worldwide.  For more information about the School of Dentistry, visit us on the Web at: www.dent.umich.edu.  Email: [email protected], or (734) 615-1971.