Update - Community - A Stroke of Luck



Michael Meru

A Stroke of Luck
2/26/2007

How do you combine two of your passions into one career? Michael Meru has an idea.
By Veronica Jauriqui

It’s not your typical path to dental school—an undergraduate degree in public relations, throw in a love of writing and graphic design and a few classes in layout and photography.

Michael Meru wanted to combine his passion for publishing with his desire to be a dentist. Now this doctoral dental sophomore may have found it.

An editor with the American Student Dental Association’s two flagship publications—ASDA News and Mouth—Meru is also this year’s editor-in-chief of USCSD’s own student publication, The Articulator.

“I always knew I wanted to be a dentist, but I knew that I wanted to study business too,” Meru says. “PR had a good mix of business classes, as well as design and writing. I was hoping I’d find a way to combine them all, and I guess I have.”

“I found a nice niche. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky,” he says.

That may be an understatement.

While surfing off the coast of Oxnard, last September, Meru’s surfboard flipped him backwards, breaking the fifth vertebrae in his neck. The accident could have been fatal, but Meru sustained injuries that required several months with a neck brace followed by physical therapy. He takes the serious accident all in stride.

“It depends on how you define serious,” he says with a smile.

Now that he’s made a complete recovery, Meru can return to the task at hand, helping to set the agenda for the ASDA’s publications. With a circulation of 17,000 each, ASDA’s newsletter, ASDA News, and Mouth—ASDA’s quarterly journal—are distributed to dental students across the country. Articles include case reports, book reviews, new product announcements, technical quizzes and student perspectives on dentistry and dental careers.

Topics can range from bisphosphonate induced osteonecrosis to ‘what I did on my summer vacation,’ Meru says.

“We include everything that a dental student will encounter, like preparing for licensing exams, how access to care affects us, what are the legislative changes that will affect how we practice dentistry,” he says.

In addition to writing, layout and design of The Articulator, Meru also puts his PR skills to use as part of a public relations team that develops promotional materials for USCSD’s AYUDA clinic.

Meru hopes to continue writing and editing well into his career in private practice, and maybe do a little teaching on the side.

“Dental journals need writers. They need editors. Someone has to lay them out and do the design,” he says. “The nice thing about writing about the profession is you get to know much more about the profession than you could imagine.”