For the first time students, faculty and staff from the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry will travel 400 miles, bringing its free dental clinic to children in western Nebraska.
More than 100 children from Alliance and Hemingford, Neb., will receive free dental treatment and education at Dental Day VI June 4 and 5 in Alliance. Many of the children are Native American or children of migrant farm workers.
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Dental hygiene students will provide care at the Burkholder Building, Sixth Street and Black Hills Avenue. The Burkholder Building also is where lunch will be served to the children and families, and it will feature a festival with educational games, clowns and face painting. Activities will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 4 and 8 a.m. to noon on June 5.
This is the first time the College of Dentistry has taken its services to a rural community. Traditionally Dental Day clinics are held at the UNMC College of Dentistry in Lincoln.
This event provides an opportunity to help underserved Nebraska children and allows dental and dental hygiene students to gain clinical experience in a different environment.
“I am impressed that students and faculty from the College of Dentistry in Lincoln are willing to travel so far to serve the needs of western Nebraska’s underprivileged children,” Dr. Taylor said.
“Dental Day VI could not be done without the extraordinary support from the people of Alliance and Hemingford,” said David Brown, Ph.D., professor of oral biology and executive associate dean at the UNMC College of Dentistry. “Nor would it have been possible without the efforts of Dr. Taylor who asked us to come to Alliance.”
To take Children’s Dental Day “on the road,” more than 73 faculty, staff and students will transport 11 portable operatories, including a patient chair, all of the instruments used for comprehensive restorative care and cleanings, as well as all the supplies needed to provide fluoride treatments, sealants and cavity fillings.
“The value of care delivered at all five dental day events held by the UNMC College of Dentistry to date totals $206,000,” Dr. Brown said. “The estimated value of care that will be provided at Dental Day VI is $45,000. In addition, the cost of transporting people and equipment from Lincoln to Alliance will be around $3,000.”
The college also expects to perform a demonstration of its tele-dentistry project using videoconferencing equipment installed at the hospital where children in need of more complicated procedures will be treated. Using tele-dentistry, dental practitioners in Alliance will be able to talk with periodontists and oral surgeons standing by at the dental college in Lincoln.
Dental hygiene students from the west division program in Gering, Neb., also will be participating in the Alliance event. They have been receiving much of their dental hygiene classroom education via teleconferencing from the College of Dentistry in Lincoln to the Panhandle Community Services Health Center in Gering.