From Coney Dogs to Corporate Leadership: One Hygienist's Remarkable Career Journey

Twenty years ago, Heather McGuire was serving coney dogs at a Detroit restaurant, a single mother of three by age 24, when a friend's suggestion changed the trajectory of her life. Today, she's the Director of Dental Hygiene Development for Seva Dental Team, with leadership experience spanning pharmaceutical sales and DSO management. Her journey from clinical practice to corporate leadership offers powerful lessons for hygienists feeling that familiar "nudge" toward something more.

An Unlikely Beginning

"Hygiene kind of chose me," McGuire explains on The Dental Handoff podcast with Dr. Kelly Tanner. "I did life really backwards. I was a teenage mom, married, divorced, and had three kids by 24."

When a friend suggested dental assisting, McGuire was initially repulsed by the idea. "The mouth is gross. You're nuts," she recalls thinking. But the promise of $10 an hour was compelling enough to try.

Her introduction to dentistry was hardly auspicious—she promptly fainted during her first extraction. Rather than quitting, she pivoted: "I became the greatest sterilization tech that there was." From there, she gradually expanded her responsibilities, eventually becoming captivated by the hygienists she observed.

"They always seemed so polished and put together, and I loved the relationship that they had with the doctor and with their patient," she shares. After six years as an assistant, she entered hygiene school at Baker College in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

The Nudge Toward Something More

After a decade of clinical practice, McGuire felt what she describes as "the nudge"—that persistent sense that there was something more for her professionally. "That nudge that you just can't ignore," she explains.

Uncertain where to begin, she started by studying hygienists who had successfully transitioned out of clinical practice, connecting with them on social media. She reached out to industry expert Doug Perry to transform her clinical resume into one suitable for corporate opportunities.

The effort paid off when she landed a position with Ora Pharma as an account manager. The role revealed something unexpected: her impact on patient care could actually expand beyond the operatory.

"It was no longer about just the eight patients I saw in my operatory," McGuire explains. "I had the connections to hundreds of hygienists who saw eight patients a day. So my ripple effect of patient care and getting patients to optimal oral health standard was so much greater actually being in a non-clinical role."

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

The transition from clinician to corporate professional required significant mindset shifts. McGuire confronted limiting beliefs common among hygienists: "The fears, the limiting beliefs, the self-doubt, the 'I'm just a hygienist.' So many times in our groups, our Facebook groups, our LinkedIn culture, we see posts that say, 'I'm just a hygienist. I just have my associate's degree. What else can I do?'"

She characterizes this thinking as "a self-sabotaging block that you put right in front of yourself as an excuse to not move forward."

To overcome these barriers, McGuire reimagined how she presented her clinical experience. While interviewing candidates now, she observes that most hygienists' resumes merely list job duties: "I collaborate with a doctor. I scale and root plane. I sterilize instruments."

Instead, McGuire began tracking metrics that demonstrated her impact: "My very first resume showed my perio percentage at my last couple offices. It showed what my average daily production was. It showed my patient retention rate."

This approach highlighted not just what she did but the value she created—a distinction crucial for roles beyond clinical practice.

Reframing Treatment as Care, Not Sales

A significant barrier for many hygienists is the misconception that recommending comprehensive treatment plans constitutes "selling" rather than providing care. McGuire addresses this head-on: "If I'm thinking like this is all about selling, that's a limiting belief."

Instead, she encourages reframing clinical recommendations as tools for optimal health: "If I look at all of these tools in a toolbox, and I say I get to offer comprehensive care and I get to treat at the top of my licensure... Saying I want to treat my patients is not just about doing prophies for eight hours a day."

This perspective shift is crucial for hygienists' professional satisfaction as well: "We're burnt out and bored out because we see eight patients that are prophies all day. And we're having the same conversation over and over again. We've maximized and hit the ceiling of what we're going to earn."

By contrast, embracing comprehensive care creates variety that combats monotony while improving patient outcomes: "If we have that good mix of services, we take the CEs, we learn about the good products... everybody is healthy. And we're removing the burnt out, bored out symptom that so many of us are facing."

A Personal Lesson in Patient Autonomy

Perhaps the most powerful insight McGuire shares comes from her personal experience as a patient. After four miscarriages, including losses through IVF and donor eggs, she discovered that her physician had withheld a testing option that might have revealed her underlying clotting disorder much earlier.

The doctor's rationale—that the test was expensive and he thought her body could handle a pregnancy without it—profoundly affected McGuire: "That doctor took away my ability to choose. He didn't give me all of my options."

This experience transformed her approach to patient care: "I vowed years ago to never be that clinician again. And that's the way I lead my teams... let me give you a toolbox and the verbiage and the education and the resources behind it so you can have a very open conversation with Mr. Patient and say, 'Here are all your options.'"

Her core philosophy now centers on a simple but powerful principle: "People can't make decisions on information they don't have."

The Path Forward

For hygienists feeling their own "nudge" toward expanded roles, McGuire's journey demonstrates how clinical experience can become a foundation for diverse career opportunities. The key is recognizing your value, tracking your impact, and reframing limitations as possibilities.

"When you control your outputs—the controllables, the trackables, the action and the mindset—this industry is just an amazing place to be," she concludes.

From serving coney dogs to leading dental teams, her path wasn't linear, but each step built on the last—proof that with the right mindset, a hygiene career can go places you never imagined.

Keywords: clinical to corporate, dental metrics, dental career growth, dental team leadership, dental treatment presentation, dental patient autonomy, hygienist burnout prevention, dental hygiene resume, comprehensive dental care, The Dental Handoff podcast