Alumni spotlight: Dr. Brian Bishop
Life is about balance, said Dr. Brian Bishop, ’06. The Texas A&M School of Dentistry alum takes this to heart, balancing family life, a dental career and his DJ alter ego – Vectorvision.
“Family and religion are No. 1 to me, then my career is important, my music is No. 3,” he said. “But you need all of them to make it through life and the stress. I try to spend time in all of them but keep my priorities.”
Bishop operates his own practice – Dental Dimensions – in Lake Highlands, following in his father’s footsteps. His dad was the town dentist in Gilmer, where Bishop grew up, and he said the combination of technical and artistic skills used in dentistry appealed to him.
“My father was my biggest inspiration, and I’ve always been artistic,” he said. “So, I figured with blending science and art, and my father being a dentist, it was a good path to follow.”
Bishop attended Tyler Junior College for two years on a baseball scholarship, before transferring to the University of North Texas and finally Texas Woman’s University, where he graduated in 1997 with bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry.
After earning his undergraduate degrees, Bishop went on a two-year mission trip to London with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before enrolling in dental school in 2002. He and his wife married one month before classes started, and they celebrated the birth of their first child one month after he graduated in 2006.
Over the last 16 years, he and his wife added two more children to their growing family, he built lasting relationships with patients and he began utilizing his technical and artistic skills in a new arena – dance clubs.
“Back in the ’90s there was a big rave scene in Dallas,” Bishop said. “I did a lot of that; I learned how to DJ and make my own music. I made a couple of my own records. Music has kind of become my passion. I always put school and family first, so it was kind of on the side, but maybe a year or two after dental school I felt I could pursue that more. Probably from 2010 to now I do a lot more music than when I was younger.”
Going by the moniker Vectorvision, he performs regularly in clubs across Dallas, but he has also played in Chicago, Houston, London and Barcelona, Spain. He is still getting his foot in the door, he said, but his musical career is starting to pick up.
“When people learn I’m a dentist and a musician, they always find that interesting,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of overlap, but people think it’s an interesting dynamic. My artistic ability I use in both areas, and my music style, I’d describe as technical and detailed, which is also how I practice dentistry.”
