One smile at a time
Posted: September 12, 2012
Timothy Oh, DMD, ’08, has a passion for community and decided to pursue a career in dentistry to give back. He has left smiles on patients’ faces ever since.
After serving two years as director for a small, non-profit dental clinic, Dr. Oh realized a greater need in his community was not being met—access to care. In response, he and his wife, Audree Park, DDS, established Caring Hands of Maine Dental Center in rural Ellsworth, Maine, in 2010.
The center, a community health organization providing affordable dental care access, primarily serves two of the state’s most socioeconomically disadvantaged counties. Some patients travel up to six hours to receive care at the center due to the lack of safety net clinics.
For those in remote areas and unable to reach the clinic, the center reaches out to them through its portable dentistry program. Heavy dental chair set-ups and equipment are loaded into a vehicle, ferry, or small boat to make the journey to rural communities and small islands off the coast of Maine. The most recent addition to this program is a retro-fitted school bus, which holds two dental chairs.
“The level of personal and professional satisfaction we get from this type of work is priceless,” Dr. Oh says. “The appreciation we’ve received from those in the community is overwhelming at times and is often the motivation to get up and do it again the next day.”
Getting to the root of the poor oral health problem, many of the center’s activities revolve around youth. By interacting with kids, Dr. Oh has helped them grasp the importance of good oral hygiene and overall health.
“Time and time again, we see children first. Then, after a year of treatment, parents will get the courage to seek care,” Dr. Oh says. “It’s rewarding because we feel like we’re breaking multi-generational cycles of poor health.”
In addition to programs like Back to School Smiles and Give Kids a Smile® Day, which provide free dental care to kids, the center’s largest outreach activity is a collaborative project—a weeklong clinic that has helped 3,000 patients during the last two years. This project is the largest charitable dental outreach in the state.
The center also doubles as an education facility, providing clinical training for dental students from ASDOH and other dental professions schools. In the past two years, more than 100 out-of-state students have trained at the center—the most students sponsored by any organization in the state.
“We’re excited to show students not only clinical skills, but also aspects of program development and involvement in their communities and states,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll inspire them to get out there and do something different.”
Dr. Oh understands that the enormity of the public health situation is daunting, but he feels they’ve been able to make a difference locally, as well as statewide.
“The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,” says Dr. Oh. “You may not be able to see the solution to all the public health dilemmas, but we can help one patient at a time.”