U of S dental students to focus on ‘whole person’ at free clinic
SASKATOON Saskatoon’ s first student-run free dental clinic is expected to open in October and the students are looking to treat more than teeth — they ’re looking to help patients tackle social barriers to good oral health.
Direct Dental, which will operate out of the existing Saskatoon West Dental Clinic, is the result of more than a year of planning by a group of senior University of Saskatchewan College of Dentistry students. It’s a student initiative supported by the school. The clinic will be open for 14 days over the course of this academic year.
Treatments will be delivered by the most senior students who are closest to graduation, with the more junior students in support roles.
Volunteers from the dental community, including dentists, dental assistants and dental hygienists, will oversee their work.
Kristen Kezar, a fourth-year student who is one of the organizers of Direct Dental, said they will focus on issues that are causing patients pain — emergency care. They will also be providing advice and education about maintaining oral health and addressing social determinants of health, such as employment status and food insecurity.
“We want to be able to address the barriers that they might have to oral health and connect them to different resources so we look over the whole person, not just their teeth,” Kezar said.
It’s not the first time students in the college have offered free care: Last spring, students organized and held the first Dental Day YXE.
A more permanent free dental clinic run by students is something that’s been talked about among the college’s students, but Kezar, Christopher Bertsch, Mary Tait and Christy Macpherson came together to steer it to fruition.
The students can provide services such as fillings, extractions, initiating root canal therapy, providing relief for periodontal issues, and cleanings.
It comes at no cost to patients and no appointments are necessary, similar to a walk-in clinic.
Kezar said the senior students will provide a diagnosis and discuss treatment options, but if it’s beyond what the clinic can provide they’ll provide referrals.
She said they will lay out options for the patients, and the patients will then decide where the referrals will be made to.
“A lot of people go to walk-in clinics instead of seeing dentists because they have those financial constraints,” Kezar said. “With your teeth, it’s kind of one of those things where if you get antibiotics for a dental infection, for example, it can provide you with temporary relief, but it’s not a permanent solution.”
The problem will keep recurring until you see a dentist, she added.
“We want to help out those patients specifically, those that really avoid the dentist because they can’t afford it, but desperately need dental care.”
Doug Brothwell, the college’s dean, is “thrilled” that the students, of their own initiative, are leading the clinic.
While students are involved at the Saskatoon West Dental Clinic during the week, the studentrun weekend clinic based on-site means they’re putting in extra time in a program that doesn’t leave them with very much extra time.
The college does have a role: it has set out the standards for overseeing the students at the clinic, including the requirement that only the senior students be involved in the treatments.
Brothwell said the infrastructure will always be available to students in future years, and he hopes that future groups of students take up the “leg work” these students have undertaken.
Student participation isn’t mandatory, but when other students in the college were given the option to volunteer, Kezar said they got a positive response from 100 per cent of the student body.
Kezar is excited about the clinic’s opening, and credits not just the group of students organizing it but the college’s student body for its support, volunteers and sponsors.
The clinic is expected to open Oct. 20, with plans for a ribboncutting ceremony.