Assoc. Editor
C D A J O U R N A L , V O L 5 0 , Nº 5
Empowering Ourselves and Others Marisa Kawata Watanabe, DDS, MS
H
istory, law, music, economics, business administration, and then there was me — molecular and cell biology. I grew up surrounded not by dentistry, discussions about navigating that crafty MB2 or spending time in the dental office, but instead found myself helping with paralegal activities in a law office, playing sports and volunteering in the community. Like some (or maybe a few) of you, beyond dental visits, my exposure to the dental field was limited up until college. It was at University of California, Berkeley, where my civic and social responsibilities collided, where I learned about health disparities and inequities among populations and communities and discovered that dentistry expands beyond private practice delivery systems. The notion of social responsibility has long been considered economic and professional obligations in dentistry. Without searching the phrase in a web browser, or dare I say, opening an actual dictionary, we can infer by separating each word that there is an innate responsibility we take on toward all society once we receive our diploma and are called “doctor.” The recently published 2021 U.S. surgeon general report entitled “Oral Health in America: Advances and Challenges” noted that despite over 20 years since the last U.S. surgeon general’s report in 2000, data currently reflect that the number of health disparities, especially among low socioeconomic populations, has continued through the present day.1 Furthermore, the 2021 U.S. surgeon general report documented that Americans living in chronic poverty,
I believe that as oral health providers, we can incorporate both civic and social responsibilities into our profession.
including populations from specific racial and ethnic minority groups, continue to show the greatest burden of disease.1 I found myself wondering, what are ways to further support system-level changes, inspire the future workforce, work collaboratively with our private and community providers as well as educational institutions and advocate for health equity? National, state and local frameworks have provided clear goals and objectives, so why has the level of health disparities remained similar to 20 years ago,1 and how do we push the needle beyond equality toward equity and, eventually, justice for all people? The 2021 U.S. surgeon general report made a call to action loud and clear, focusing on policy changes addressing social, economic and other systemic inequities, interprofessional collaborative practice among all health care professionals and increasing diversity of the future dental workforce while reassessing dental student loan debt for the next generation of oral health providers.1 With approximately 65 million people in the U.S. currently residing across 6,837 dental Health Professional Shortage Areas (dental HPSAs), an additional 11,320 oral health providers are needed to fulfill the lack of oral health care in these dental HPSAs.2 In California alone, 501 dental HPSAs
exist, the largest number of all 50 states.2 By marrying both federal and state incentivization programs, future and current dentists can apply for scholarships and grants that not only help to navigate and incentivize providers to work in dental HPSAs or practices accepting Medicaid dental, but also support reducing student indebtedness. But as a practitioner or a graduating dental student interested in pursuing one of these scholarships and grants, where can one turn to for a centralized scholarship/grant bank? Currently, social media, publications and word of mouth are the main sources of information dissemination and navigating the search process can be daunting. Fortunately, both the California Dental Association3 and the American Dental Education Association4 list opportunities such as the state California Department of Health Care Services CalHealthCares loan repayment program and the federal National Health Scholarship Corps loan repayment program for interested practitioners. These opportunities can be found via a simple search engine keyword query. With almost all dental students graduating with educational debt and current dentists still holding student loans, programs and scholarships to explore and address student loans will M AY 2 0 2 2
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