Growing up in Brazil, Dr. Elizabeth Brachowicz remembers sitting in front of the television to watch soccer matches. A lifelong fan of the sport, she has passed that passion on to her two young children.
Now she has the chance to play a role in soccer’s biggest event, the FIFA World Cup— answering the call for the French national team, Les Bleus.
Brachowicz, a dentist at Belmont Family Dentistry, has been selected as part of the health care team responsible for caring for Les Bleus during the World Cup. As the official dentist, Brachowicz and the rest of the team at Belmont Family Dentistry are on call for the players from June 8 until the end of their World Cup play, ready to jump in wherever they are needed.
“It’s such an honor, it’s not something that we get to do in our daily life,” Brachowicz said.
Brachowicz has been practicing at Belmont Family Dentistry for about 10 years.
Though the distinction of team dentistry doesn’t come with a seat on the sidelines, Brachowicz said it gives her the opportunity to combine two things she’s passionate about.
“Having a love outside the office and the love for dentistry kind of be one thing for a little bit, it just made my day,” she said. “It made my year.”
Brachowicz applied to be the team’s dentist, answering in-depth questions about her training in trauma and emergency care and about the experience of Belmont Family Dentistry. She found out in March that she had been selected, and now she’s officially on call for the team.
Since announcing her role, Brachowicz said she’s received an outpouring of support from the Belmont community.
“Belmont is very strong with French culture,” she said. “A lot of people speak French. I don’t, unfortunately, but I do enjoy the pastries.”
With her life outside of her dental practice revolving around soccer, Brachowicz said getting to put the sport and dentistry together was a surprising dream come true. Her children are both avid fans of the French team and play soccer in a local travel league. Getting to tell them she might have the chance to fix Kylian Mbappé’s teeth? She got to score some serious “cool mom” points, she said.
“I have a very international family, and my kids are part of the travel team for soccer, and especially [since France is] their favorite soccer team, it meant the world,” Brachowicz said.
With 48 teams coming from around the world to compete, each country has a “home base camp” in the United States. The French team is the only team with its home base camp in Massachusetts, practicing at Bentley University. Ghana has its home base in nearby Rhode Island. The U.S. team is based in California.
The World Cup kicked off on June 11. France plays its first match against Senegal on June 16 in New Jersey.