Provider updates

Dental Access & Referral Specialist Shayla Worthington has been a part of the CareOregon Dental Team for over two years. She is the CareOregonian who contacts your clinic with inquiries about submitted authorizations and referrals. You likely recognize her by her maiden name, Shayla Lawson, as she was married earlier this year in an intimate beachside ceremony in Kauai.

Shayla’s passion for oral health started in childhood. The oldest of three children, she helped her siblings brush their teeth each night. As they got older, they asked her to pull their loose teeth. Meanwhile, as a child Shayla had decalcifications on her front teeth and was insecure about the visible yellow scarring. Somewhere between her role with her siblings’ dental and her timidity about her own teeth, she became fascinated by oral health and grew a strong desire to help people.

At her first orthodontic visit for braces, Shayla was enamored by the kind staff and their beautiful teeth. Going to the orthodontist was her “favorite thing in the world, (because) the assistants were so fabulous and lovely.” She entered the RCC Medford DA program and was hired straight out of high school to work at the very same orthodontic office where she got her braces! Then COVID came. A past patient, a CareOregon employee, encouraged her to apply. She obviously got the job and she loves to work remotely from home while still engaged in oral healthcare.

Shayla and her husband Spencer live in Gold Beach, Oregon on a river just minutes from the ocean. Their home doubles as a mini hobby farm, inhabited with mini goats, thirty chickens, five ducks, three dogs, and two cats. Yet she and Spencer still find time for hunting, fishing, beach visits and boating, usually with an animal by their sides.