Dental clinic puts some teeth into education
They are students, Uber drivers, retired librarians, construction workers, professors and immigrants who do not speak English. Some have had lifelong dental care; others have never visited a dentist due to lack of insurance or opportunity.
They all are welcome and served by Middlesex Community College’s Dental Clinic on the school’s Lowell campus. The clinic offers training hours for MCC Dental Hygiene students and a wide range of low-cost, comprehensive, dental-hygiene services to the public, including for those who could not otherwise afford those services.
Kristen Flebotte graduated from the Dental Hygiene program in May 2019. She admitted that at first, she was nervous to work on real patients.
“My number-one priority from the first day was to make sure my patients were comfortable and knew what I was going to be doing and why,” she said. “The mouth is a very private and sensitive area of the body. Lots of people are self-conscious about their mouths and are hesitant to be vulnerable in a clinic where they think they may be judged.”
She learned how to ease patients’ fears by answering all of their questions.
“When you take a real interest in helping someone else, they can pick up on that,” Flebotte said. “There is a difference between really caring and just going through the motions, and if you care about your patients, they open up to you and want your help and advice.
“I will always remember this one man from Cambodia,” she said. “who bowed to thank me at the end of the appointment. I remember feeling so happy that someone appreciated what I did for him that much.”
Working in the clinic opened Flebotte’s eyes to the massive gap between the oral-health needs of the people in Massachusetts and quality, affordable care and the need to spread the word about the services available to the public at MCC.
Students often have to recruit patients for the clinic, a task Flebotte said was the most difficult thing about school for her. She managed to recruit 35 patients through people she knew, but got creative by posting on social media, Craigslist and handing out business cards she made.
“I paid some patients to help with transportation costs and lost income they would have been making if they weren’t sitting for me at the clinic,” she said. “I thought of this as an investment in my education as well as helping someone else out with their health.”
Patients at the MCC Dental Clinic can access services that reach far beyond just teeth-cleaning, including everything from checking blood pressure, to providing head, neck and oral-cancer screenings and nutritional counseling. Patients receive thorough dental cleanings, fluoride therapy, X-rays, sealants, cleaning of dentures or partials, customfit athletic mouth guards and Arestin treatments to treat gum disease.
While the Dental Hygiene program, which accepts 24 students per year, is going strong, the 25year-old clinic is in need of updating and renovations. The project, expected to be completed in August, will include 24 new patient treatment rooms, new patient chairs in radiology and a new centralized sterilization center.
The renovation includes a revised floor plan that will increase compliance with patient privacy laws and increase accessibility. In addition, the clinic will be renovated and outfitted with five new treatment areas.
“All new equipment will allow better ergonomics for our students as well as comfort and state-of-theart treatment for our patients,” said Karen Townsend, director of MCC’S Dental Hygiene program.
MCC received a Massachusetts Skills Capital Grant of $499,254 that will cover the cost of some of the renovation, but an additional fundraising campaign is required to raise the remainder of the project costs.
In the 2018-2019 academic year, 47 MCC Dental Hygiene students provided services to 636 patients, according to Townsend.
When Jean Connor enrolled in the Dental Hygiene program at MCC in 1992, the dental clinic on the Bedford campus was outdated and space was tight. In her second year, the clinic moved to the Lowell campus.
“The new clinic was state-of-the-art — it was really exciting,” Connor said.
She said being part of the first class to transition to the Lowell campus gave her a unique perspective and learning opportunity. It also provided students a wider diversity to the patient pool.
“In Bedford, our patients were mostly older, white, retired people, but Lowell has such great diversity, we got to work on everybody,” said Connor, who worked as a dental assistant for 10 years before enrolling at MCC to become a hygienist. “Learning through direct care on human subjects makes dentistry really unique.”
Connor said her education at MCC provided several professional opportunities.
For 25 years, she has worked full or part time as a hygienist, spent six years as a health-care investigator for the Board of Registration in Dentistry, served as president of the Massachusetts Dental Hygienists Association of America, and is a consultant for ACT fluoride rinse.
For more information about the MCC Dental Clinic, visit middle sex.mass.edu/dhclinic to make an appointment.