Doing Good in the Neighborhood: Student Earns Free Wisdom Teeth Removal

LUBBOCK, Texas (KJTV) - A Lubbock High School graduate is without his wisdom teeth tonight thanks to oral surgeon Dr. Robert Ioppolo and his team at Hill & Ioppolo Oral & Dental Implant Surgery of Lubbock.

The student, Isaac Doty, is a speech and debate champion whos hard work and determination earned him a complimentary procedure.

Dr. Ioppolo knows what a blessing a financial break can be. Having been through many years of school himself, the cost of books and classes has not soon been forgotten.

“The intent is to offset some of the expenses for college, specifically textbooks. I had many, many years of school and lots of textbooks that I had to buy. They were expensive when I was in school and now they’re crazy expensive,” Ioppolo said.

The Wisdom for Wisdom program is one of Dr. Ioppolo’s ways of working with students who go the extra mile. It allows students to apply for complimentary wisdom teeth extractions.

“This is the thing that we can do to give back. I had a lot of family members that were pastors and that were able to minister to people in that way. This is my thing,” Ioppolo said.

Doty was selected out of about 30 impressive candidates.

“I’m of course really grateful for the opportunity. It will be really helpful going into college sort of alleviating some of the financial burdens of health costs on top of education,” Doty said.

Doty lives with cerebral palsy and hearing loss. Dr. Ioppolo said it makes his speech and debate success all the more impressive. Doty has been a part of five national qualifiers in four years.

“In Isaac’s case, very very unique individual. very cool kid. He really impressed us all as we visited with him and read his essay. It was evident that he was the right guy to help this year,” Ioppolo said.

In the fall, Doty will take on a sociology major at West Texas A&M. He plans to continue practicing speech and debate throughout college.

“It’s a really excellent activity to interact with different perspectives and learn how to speak publicly about topics that are important to you but also sort of learning to interact with other people’s narratives and perspectives,” Doty said.

Following his surgery, Doty will have the opportunity to bank his stem cells. Those can then be used by doctors and scientists in stem cell therapy, through the practice’s partner, Stemdontics.

The Wisdom for Wisdom application can be found here.

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