Dental Student Helps Upstate Woman Regain Her Smile
By Ami Finkelthal
One of Jennifer Frangos’s most challenging and rewarding experiences as a student in the College of Dentistry occurred far from the NYU campus in Manhattan. Last October, while participating in a week-long, 25 member dental outreach to Hudson, N.Y., to provide oral health care to needy Head Start children and their families, she examined Tabitha Muller, a 24-year-old woman with four front teeth which were in the process of turning black from severe decay.
“The decay was so advanced that I knew the teeth would have to be extracted,” says Frangos. “I wanted to replace the missing teeth with a denture, but since we were treating patients in a temporary clinic at a local community center, we did not have access to the materials and laboratory facilities needed to fabricate the denture.
Muller was in tears at the thought of having her front teeth extracted and being left with empty spaces. So Frangos proposed a plan to her advisor, Stuart Hirsch, associate dean for international programs and development, which would allow her to fit Muller with a denture immediately following the extractions. With Hirsch’s approval and the help of a local advocacy group, the Columbia Healthcare Consortium, a local dentist, and the College of Dentistry’s executive vice dean, Richard Vogel, Muller is now sporting a new smile and a reinvigorated self-image, and has since taken a new job as a nurse’s assistant.
In addition to Muller, the outreach provided essential care for nearly 200 Head Start children and their families in Hudson. More than half of the children needed extractions and restorations, and most received cavity-preventing sealants. In addition, emergency care was provided to nearly 200 siblings and adult family members. A College of Dentistry outreach team will return to Hudson every three months for a year to conduct follow-up visits.
“This plan roughly follows the model we created for the remote, underserved village of Kasigluk, Alaska, which we first visited in February, 2008,” says Hirsch.
“Kasigluk and Hudson have comparable rates of tooth decay. By returning at regular intervals to both places to reapply fluoride varnishes, we expect to achieve our goal of reducing decay rates by at least 50 percent in one year.”
The outreach mission was cosponsored by the Columbia Opportunities Head Start program, the Columbia Healthcare Consortium, and Columbia County Memorial Hospital. The Crosswinds at Hudson housing development provided its community center for the mission.
