February is National Children’s Dental Health Month Scranton native serves community by filling cavities –and gaps in dental workforce

To become a dentist, Dr. Caitlin McCarthy reluctantly left her family and native Northeast Pennsylvania community, devoting four years to a dental school in Philadelphia and one year to residency training in the Lehigh Valley.

Her heart, however, remained in Scranton.

Today the West Scranton High School alumna – who says she had been “inching back” to her hometown through a succession of early-career jobs – is finally in the place she wants to be, working for a Scranton-based nonprofit organization whose mission matches her personal philosophy of putting patients first: The Wright Center for Community Health.

“The mission connects to my core values,” says McCarthy, 33. “I’m able to give my patients the care that I think they need, because with The Wright Center’s emphasis on access and affordability – and its sliding-fee discount program – we can make things happen for people. It’s not all about that bottom line.”

McCarthy joined The Wright Center in October 2019, jumping at the chance to help launch a dental clinic at its startup Scranton practice in the city’s South Side neighborhood. Today, the busy dental clinic serves a diverse patient population that appeals to McCarthy’s blue-collar sensibilities, including Medicaid users and individuals from traditionally underserved populations who often face challenges in getting routine oral care.

About 120 dental patients are seen each week at the Scranton practice. As is the case at many area dental offices, the wait for an initial appointment can be weeks – an unfortunate circumstance caused by a shortage of dentists in Northeast Pennsylvania.

McCarthy can attest to how the situation frustrates patients who are left with few places to turn. “I’ve had a lot of patients come in because their dentist stopped taking their insurance,” she says. “I also have had a lot of patients come in because their dentist’s office closed when the COVID-19 pandemic began.”

To help meet the demand for affordable, high-quality care, The Wright Center operates two state-of-the-art dental clinics, in Scranton and Jermyn, and will soon open a third clinic at its Wilkes-Barre Practice at 169 N. Pennsylvania Ave.

The Wright Center also has expanded its oral care services beyond basic cleanings and fillings and significantly increased its workforce, hiring skilled and compassionate dentists like McCarthy, as well as hygienists, assistants and support staff. Together, these professionals use a patient-centered approach to care. They will ask the individual’s treatment preferences in cases, for example, where the options are to pull a deteriorated tooth or preserve it. They will also talk to a patient about the treatment’s expense and payment options.

Under Pennsylvania’s current system, Medicaid typically doesn’t cover crowns, root canals and other advanced procedures. The dental team will help the patient to explore other avenues of making the services affordable, including the organization’s sliding-fee discount program that is based on family size and income.

Bringing it home

Not surprisingly, McCarthy considered attending only dental schools near her hometown, so she could easily get home on weekends. She studied at The University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, enticed there partly by what she could learn beyond the classroom walls. “I felt Penn had a lot of good outreach programs and community service requirements – things that would get me out of the dental chair and into the community,” she says.

McCarthy earned her degree in 2015, then completed a general practice residency at Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Muhlenberg Hospital. Now married and living in Jenkins Township, McCarthy looks forward to introducing her own daughter, who is 1, to the places and pastimes she experienced while growing up.

Meanwhile, she gets to help train and mentor the next generation of dentists.

She serves as the program director for an Advanced Education in General Dentistry Residency, offered locally through a partnership with NYU Langone Dental Medicine. Since 2021, The Wright Center has served as a Northeast Pennsylvania training site for NYU’s dental residents, welcoming about two each year into its Scranton-area clinics.

Call 570.230.0019 or visit TheWrightCenter.org/services for more information.H