Aruna Rajagopalan, DDS was 2 years old in 1982, when she first came to CID. Her profound deafness, caused by the use of ototoxic drugs to save her life, was diagnosed in Germany when she was 6 months old. Her family moved to St. Louis so she could learn to talk at CID.
After five years of instruction in speech and spoken language, she was 7 and ready to graduate and join her hearing peers in a St. Louis public elementary school. She became a stellar student and maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average throughout her academic career – as a high school and undergraduate student and later in dental school.
In high school, she was a member of the National Honor Society, participated in pre-med and key clubs and received scholarships enabling her to attend college. In 2002, she received a BA in chemistry from St. Louis University. In 2008, she received a DDS from the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Dentistry. She is now a practicing dental associate at Washington Square Dental and Washington Smiles in Washington, Missouri.
“I would not have such great speech and language if it were not for CID,” Dr. Rajagopalan said. “I felt invincible – and that I could do and be anything I wanted in life,” she said. Her memories include great friendships and “amazing teachers who made us feel we were special and loved.”