Hoopa dentist Doyle Bradshaw makes difference in community

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of stories on local residents nominated as Heroes of the Redwoods. The first five stories will highlight nominated individuals. The sixth story, published Sunday, will name the winner.

Doyle Bradshaw, a dentist in the Hoopa area, was nominated by JoAn Brady, one of his former dental hygienists.

Bradshaw, dental director at K’ima:w Medical Center, has provided dental health access to residents and “did much for that community,” Brady said in her nomination letter.

She said that he went out of his way to help foster good dental health in an underserved area of the county.

“They weren’t bringing the children in for fluoride treatments, so they went out to the school,” she said. “He was just a terrific job.”

Brady said she was a hygenist for Bradshaw for around a decade and his work left a distinct impression on her.

She said his clinic not only was a good place to work, it was also a good place to be a patient.

The K’ima:w Medical Center’s website states that Bradshaw started working with the clinic in 1983. Brady said that was because he saw a job listing on a bulletin board while attending UCLA School of Dentistry and applied.

While multiple calls to the clinic were not returned by the publishing deadline, the website states that Bradshaw “was an outstanding sixth-grader, a graduate of Bakersfield College, UCSD, and UCLA School of Dentistry.”

In his free time, his hobbies, according to the K’ima:w website, are “sleeping, eating and gardening.”

“I dream of the day everyone brushes and flosses and I don’t see any more tooth decay,” Bradshaw states in the bio.