My name is David Holden. My family and I have called El Paso home since 2011. I love El Paso and the surrounding area, I love the beautiful desert, and I love the beautiful people, and have been blessed to raise my family here.
I lived many places as a child. I spent time in Mexico City, Mexico; years in São Paulo, Brazil; years in Racine, Wisconsin; many years in the Cleveland, Ohio area; and I graduated high school in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area in 1992. I enjoyed being raised in a wonderful family, making life-long friends, participating in scouting, working hard in school, playing football and soccer, and being passionate about wrestling. I developed great faith in God and felt a desire to serve Him as a missionary. After high school I volunteered 2 years to be a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was assigned to serve in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I completed my undergraduate education at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. I graduated in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in science, cum laude, majoring in zoology. Along the way I made some more life-long friends. I enjoyed my guitar classes and gained a great appreciation for Portuguese and Brazilian literature. I especially loved learning about the Portuguese author Luis de Camões and his sonnets. During this time I served as the secretary of the Predental Club for a year. I also enjoyed being a member of the BYU rugby team, playing hooker, prop, and flanker. The greatest blessing while at BYU was finding and marrying the love of my life, Shaela.
I attended dental school at the University of Florida, College of Dentistry. I became a Florida Gator, enjoying many football games with family and friends. I have fond memories in becoming a dentist, with my classmates and professors. During dental school I was an active participant at my church as a scout leader and teacher. I graduated in 2002 with a Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree, with honors. I was elected member of the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Dental Society, received the Senior Student Ethics Award, and was inducted into the Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity. My greatest recognition was earning the title of “father”. My oldest child, a boy, was born during my time in dental school.
My professional career began by me taking a position at community health center in Hatch, New Mexico, as a general dentist. Moving from Florida to New Mexico was a big change for us. We soon loved the desert southwest and everything about it. While working as a general dentist in Hatch, I had the opportunity to serve as a member of the Hygiene School Advisory Committee of the South West District Dental Society and Health Advisory Committee of the Hatch Valley Public Schools Head Start Program. I also was an active participant/volunteer with my church. We also had a new addition to our family, a daughter. During my 4 years in Hatch, I decided I wanted to become an endodontist to help people save their teeth.
In July 2006 I began my endodontic residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. It was the greatest and most challenging educational endeavor I have been through. I had great mentors and classmates that were instrumental in my educational success, which also included co-authoring two publications in the Journal of Endodontics. I also continued to be an active participant in my church as a scout leader and teacher, as well as a missionary. I received my certificate in endodontics in June of 2008. My residency opened opportunities for me to serve on the Resident and New Practitioner Committee of the American Association of Endodontists and Scientific Advisory Board of the Journal of Endodontics. My youngest child was born during my residency, a son, completing our family.
Since then, I have work at Westside Endodontic Associates in El Paso, Texas. I have served the El Paso community and surrounding areas by providing root canal treatment, root-end surgery, dental trauma treatment, and other treatments. When I am not working, I enjoy time with my family, traveling, hiking, and exercising. I continue as an active participant of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, having served in a variety of areas (scout leader, teacher, minister, etc). I also volunteered with the Boy Scouts of America at the district level. Regarding dentistry, I am a member of the American Dental Association, Texas Dental Association, and the El Paso District Dental Society. I have served the local dental society for several years as a board member. I am currently serving as president-elect and will serve as president in the 2021-2022 term. I enjoyed donating dental services for the New Mexico Mission of Mercy in 2012 and the Texas Mission of Mercy in 2018. I have also provided dental work as a missionary in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala in 2015 and in San Perdro Sula, Honduras in 2018. I do speak Spanish and Portuguese and love practicing those languages with any patients who want to practice with me.