Alumni Jesse Hollander, D.M.D. ’12, and Clark Brinton, D.M.D. ’13, both attended the OHSU School of Dentistry as National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholars after previous volunteer service inspired their interest in public health.
Hollander was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he witnessed discrepancies and inequality in health care, while Brinton completed a service mission to Mexico as an undergraduate student.
At OHSU, Brinton trained in IV sedation and graduated as class valedictorian. “Going through OHSU, I wanted to learn as much as I could at a high level and then take that high level into public health,” he says. During his NHSC service in rural New Mexico, he felt he was blocked from providing advanced dental care. “I wasn’t able to make the difference I wanted.”
Hollander says, “Both of us thought we were going to do public health our whole careers. After several years, we recognized that the pace of progress in driving meaningful change was slower than anticipated, prompting us to transition into private practice to accelerate our impact.”
“We feel truly fortunate to have found a way to collaborate with incredible people worldwide, leveraging the latest technology to expand access to care and create meaningful impact.”
Jesse Hollander
After fulfilling his NHSC service in Medford, Oregon, Hollander completed a general practice residency at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu where he developed specialized skills in oral surgery, root canals, dentures and full mouth rehabilitation. He now owns Kai Dental, a private practice in Kihei, Hawaii, on the island of Maui.
Brinton honed his oral surgery and dental implant skills and has been teaching continuing education in Portland for the past seven years. He is also co-founder of the Arvory Group, with nine dental offices in and around Portland.
Hollander is proud be an alum and to share the legacy with his father, Brian Hollander, D.M.D. ’75. Jesse Hollander and Brinton say their OHSU clinical education was excellent and have joined the OHSU School of Dentistry as clinical assistant professors. They are excited to work with Dean Ron Sakaguchi, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D., M.B.A.
“Having Ron there is a huge asset because he is so forward thinking,” Brinton says.
Hollander and Brinton both specialize in digital dentistry and have co-founded a 3D printing and consulting company, Pono Printing — Pono translates as “uprightness” in Hawaiian. They are committed to offering their specialized skills to patients at their practices while still finding a way to advance care for underserved communities. They use proceeds from their private practices to help fund their service work.
“Digital workflows decrease cost and increase efficiency,” Hollander says. “Our goal is to take digital dentistry to educational institutions and community health centers to increase access to care.”
“Thanks to the strong international relationships we have built, we’ve been able to accomplish so much.”
Clark Binton
One of the ways they’ve given back was in service to victims of the wildfires that ravaged Maui in 2023. Hollander and Brinton provided free 3D-printed replacement dentures for those who lost their dentures in the fires.
“We thought we’d get maybe five people,” Hollander says. “We ended up making 58 arches in a little over three months.”
Hollander regularly returns to Nepal where his father, Brian Hollander, practiced dentistry for 30 years. Jesse maintains connections with the Nepal Dental Association and the Dental School at Dhulikhel Hospital in Kathmandu. When the Nepali dental community expressed interest, he and Brinton donated an intraoral scanner and ran a workshop teaching dentists to scan, design and deliver a 3D-printed fixed arch. Accomplishing that workflow in one day was a first in Nepal. Faculty who attended the workshop brought their new knowledge back to the Dhulikhel Dental School to train students.
In 2022, Hollander, Brinton and other colleagues returned to Kathmandu to set up a digital design center. Pono Printing now employs two dentists and three additional staff members who create digital workflows for dentures, surgical guides, night guards and other prosthodontic appliances at the design center in Nepal. Digital files designed during the workday in Kathmandu are ready to be printed the next morning in dental offices served by Pono Printing in Boston, South Carolina, Atlanta, Portland and Hawaii.
“We’re doing between two to three hundred design cases a month and really putting Nepal on the map for great dentistry,” Hollander says.
Brinton says, “To go to Nepal and watch them jump ahead. They’re so motivated – they just lack resources. We give them a few tools and then we’re getting WhatsApp messages showing us how they’ve taken the technology and adapted it in all sorts of trauma surgeries and applications we never even considered — that’s been mind-boggling for me.”
Hollander and Brinton have started a 501c3, Donate Relief, in support of their next venture —building a facility in Nepal to manufacture affordable fluoride toothpaste. To achieve their goal, they turned to two OHSU alumni, Jesse’s father, Brian and V. Kim Kutsch, D.M.D. ’79, owner of CariFree dental products, who helped them develop an effective but inexpensive fluoride toothpaste formula. The Donate Relief plan is to sell their toothpaste at supermarkets in Nepal for one-third the price of other fluoride toothpastes and to funnel their proceeds back to the Dhulikhel Dental School. Donate Relief also plans to donate toothpaste to villagers in remote areas and track its effectiveness by conducting a Decayed Missing Filled Surfaces/Teeth study with the school.
Brinton says, “Thanks to the strong international relationships we have built, we’ve been able to accomplish so much – because it’s not just Jesse and me doing all the work.”
In Nepal, they have partnered with Dasrath Kafle, M.D.S., orthodontic surgeon, associate professor and head of the department of orthodontics at Kathmandu University’s Dhulikhel Hospital.
“Dr. Kafle grew up in a small village in Nepal,” Hollander says. “He works six days a week with the dental school and nights and weekends at his private practice. He got into 3D printing before I did and taught me a lot. To collaborate with people like that — he’s a legend.”
Hollander and Brinton are excited to be on the forefront of Computer Assisted Design, using digital workflows to help make better dental care accessible to more people.
Hollander says, “We feel truly fortunate to have found a way to collaborate with incredible people worldwide, leveraging the latest technology to expand access to care and create meaningful impact.”
