gator dentist today - College of Dentistry - University of Florida

UF, HCC Team Up For
Dental Clinic
By GARY HABER
TAMPA — Surrounded by gleaming, state-of-the-art
dental equipment, the patient reclined in the chair as
a dentist and her assistant worked on her mouth.
Lara Thalji and her assistant Monica Zapata swiftly
passed dental instruments and observations back and forth,
displaying the kind of teamwork found in most any Tampa Bay
area dentist office.
Fostering smooth communication between dental
professionals is the goal of a new partnership of the University
of Florida College of Dentistry and Hillsborough Community
College.
At the dental clinic on HCC’s Dale Mabry campus,
which opened in October, eight dental residents from UF, 12
student dental assistants from HCC and 10 dental hygiene
students from the community college train together.
They treat Medicaid patients and others who otherwise
could not afford, or would not have access to, dental care. The
need is critical in Hillsborough County, where more than 104,000
low-income people do not have access to dental treatment,
according to the Florida Department of Health.
The $1.8 million clinic is the newest of five that UF
runs across the state. The others are in St. Petersburg, Hialeah,
Jacksonville and Apopka.
The residents are graduates of U.S. dental schools
receiving a year of post-graduate training, or foreign-trained
dentists such as Thalji, a Palestinian graduate of dental school
in Jordan who is taking two years of
additional training so she can become
licensed in the United States. They
divide their time between the clinics
in Tampa and St. Petersburg.
The UF-HCC program is a
novel attempt to bring coordination
to a fractured education system,
where practitioners from different
disciplines are trained separately
and often don’t meet until they find
themselves working side-by-side in a
dentist’s office.
``Most dental education
in this country occurs within the
footprint of the dental school,’’ said
Richard Valachovic, executive director
of the American Dental Education
Association in Washington.
``But if you look at how
dentistry is practiced in the typical dental office,’’ Valachovic
said, ``it’s a dentist and assistant at chairside and a hygienist
doing much of the cleaning and preventive care.’’
Only a handful of dental schools train professionals
8 Gator Dentist Today Fall/Winter 2003
(From left to right) UFCD Community Based Programs
Director Boyd Robinson, UFCD Dean Teresa A. Dolan,
FDA Immediate Past-President Al Bauknecht, HCC
President Gwendolyn W. Stephenson and HCC Health,
Wellness and Sports Technologies Dean William F.
Clark. (Photo – Lindy Brounley, UFCD)
HCC Dental Assistant students Traci Fant (far left) Nikki Whitten (second from
right) and Laura Peska (far right) get toothy with UFCD advanced education
in general dentistry residents Dr. Majd Babik (second from left) and Dr. Bob
Stevenson (in UFCD mascot costume) at the HCC Dental Clinic grand opening
in October. (Photo – Lindy Brounley, UFCD)
jointly in a community setting away from schools, Valachovic
said. But it is a model others, including the American Dental
Hygienists Association, support, said Tammi Byrd, the group’s
president.
A program, such as that between UF and HCC,
gives students a real-life view of dental practice, said Laura
Neumann, associate executive director, division of education,
for the American Dental Association in Chicago.
``If you want dentists, hygienists and dental assistants
to work together, the most ideal way is to train them together,’’
Neumann said.
The clinic affords dentists a year’s worth of intense,
advanced training. But it also helps alleviate a chronic shortage
of dental assistants in the Tampa Bay
area, said Connie Gore, HCC’s program
manager for dental assisting.
The clinic also serves the needs
of patients who otherwise might not have
access to dental care.
Carolyn Ellis was in the dental
chair recently, having her gums scaled.
Ellis, 63, and her husband moved to
Avon Park in Highlands County in
August from Miamisburg, Ohio. A
retired surgical technician, Ellis is on a
fixed income and does not have dental
insurance, or a local dentist.
``We didn’t know who to go to,
so we thought why not see about this,’’
Ellis said.
The care she received turned out
to be worth the nearly four-hour round
trip from Avon Park, Ellis said. It has been
thorough and less expensive than a traditional dental office.
The clinic treats Medicaid patients for free and has a
schedule of fees for other patients.
Article reprinted, with permission, as published in the 11/28/03
Tampa Tribune