Stepping into Dr. Meagan Miller’s office, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had been warned that she could be Type-A, highly demanding, and her resume placed her at the top of her field. To say I was intimidated would be an understatement. But as we began conversing, I got to know a very different Dr. Miller than the one I was bracing for. While she is undoubtedly a titan in her field, she possesses a kind of warmth and attentiveness that puts you at ease, a kind that has not been calloused through her long years of training, and one that continues to shape her practice and parenthood.
Dr. Miller’s story is one of grit and insatiable curiosity. Growing up in Plano Texas, she hated the sight of blood and had no family in healthcare. Medicine wasn’t even on her radar until a high school medical symposium sparked her interest in the blend of science and ethics in patient care. She entered La Sierra University as an undeclared major on a Pre-Med track in the Honors Program, juggling being a full-time student athlete on the volleyball team, to learning ceramics and doing archeological DNA research for her Honors project. These seemingly unrelated experiences eventually led her toward dentistry. While studying for the MCAT one summer, she attended an Endodontics symposium, where she realized that dentistry was the perfect blend of hands-on procedural work and direct patient care. She pivoted to a Pre-Dent track and applied into Loma Linda University School of Dentistry (LLUSD).
Dr. Miller’s strategy of decision through indecision continued into dental school, where she rotated extensively through every specialty from Orthodontics to Pediatrics to Endodontics, eventually deciding to pursue Oral and Maxillofacial surgery in her final year of dental school.
Residency training pushed Dr. Miller harder than anything she had faced before, but her wide repertoire of experiences in her undergraduate and dental programs had built up acuity for the quality she needed most: grit Passion will get you in the door, but grit will drag you along when you’re exhausted, overstretched, and still expected to perform. LLUSD’s Oral Surgery program focuses on complex Maxillofacial surgery cases, many of which involve oral cancers and facial traumas that require partial or total reconstructions of the jaw and face. The patients Dr. Miller began seeing required her to extensively prepare for days if not weeks or months in advance, all with the added pressure of providing the highest level of patient care for individuals at some of their worst points.
I wanted to know where her grit came from – whether it was innate or learned – and our conversation changed how I think about passion and grit altogether. The word passion is thrown into the faces of students my age very often, but grit is left out of the conversation. Passion without grit burns out and grit without passion is a means to a pointless endeavor. Dr. Miller’s drive for surgery and patient care is backed by the toughness she built as a student athlete and later in dental school, learning how to operate at a baseline of discomfort whether it meant sitting through class sore from practice or balancing lab work with didactics. Her grit made her passion a reality and her passion ensured that the sacrifices she needed to make were ultimately worth it – even if it meant eating and showering at the same time for a few weeks until she could take some time off.
Just as important, her curiosity gave her confidence. Trying everything from sports, to research, ceramics, every dental specialty – cemented in her that she belonged in Oral Surgery.
Building up one’s acuity for grit can be callousing, which is especially damaging in a program geared toward holistic care. For Dr. Miller, the mantra to treat her patients as well as her family has ensured that she remains kind, caring, and empathetic in her practice. Stepping out of residency and into the position of Oral Surgery Program Director at LLUSD, her passion has changed slightly. While Dr. Miller is still very involved in the Operating Room, she has since shifted some of her attention to mentoring the next generation of Oral Surgery residents and imparting her knowledge on them. This shift in passion follows as she steps into motherhood and naturally devotes more attention outside of the Operating Room. She credits her daughter as shaping her to be more patient, which has direct implications for her practice and mentorship. Seeing the growth in her practice mirror her personal growth is humbling and refreshing. It’s the embodiment of a career lived with intention, nurturing both patients and future practitioners. We can all take a page out of Dr. Miller’s book – decision through indecision.
“Trust the process. You don’t have to have it all figured out. Stay open to change, work hard, and be kind to yourself and others. It all adds up in a meaningful way.”
— Eddie Nguyen, Class of 2026: Biological Sciences, Pre-Dental