[Youth-list] Dental Services and UCONN Deficit

[JMRab at aol.com]

Hi,folks. As you know as many as half of CT's of the state's young children  
do not get the dental care that they need. See CT Voices' HUSKY analyses re 
this  online. In the following article, note both the decision not to continue a 
 minority training program re dental services (can't really tell if that's a 
good  or not-good decision) but see also the impending huge deficit at the 
UCONN  School of Medicine. JMG
 
     (http://www.courant.com/)    
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_http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-dental0118.artjan18,0,3292996.story?coll=hc-headlines-health_ 
(http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-dental0118.artjan18,0,3292996.story?coll=hc-headlines-health)  


Dental Effort In Peril 

UConn Minority Outreach Funding To End 

By  HILARY WALDMAN
Courant Staff Writer

January 18 2007

A  program at the University of Connecticut Health Center aimed at closing  
the dental divide between rich and poor by recruiting more minority  dentists 
will end this summer, when a private grant expires.

The  program was part of a national experiment funded by the Robert Wood  
Johnson Foundation that gave bright black and Latino college students  extra help 
to pass the dental school admission test and go on to graduate.  Research has 
shown that minority dentists are more likely to devote at  least part of 
their careers to treating people in underserved communities.  

But Dr. Monty MacNeil, dean of the dental school, said Wednesday  that the 
university never planned to cover the program's $250,000-a-year  cost after the 
grant ran out, and that there is no money budgeted for  doing so.

"The project was created on the premise that this would  be a five-year 
project that was independently funded," MacNeil  said.

Dr. Cynthia Hodge, an associate dean at the UConn Dental  School who runs the 
program for minority students, said that when she was  hired four years ago, 
she believed the Health Center was committed to  sustaining the program after 
the grant runs out Aug. 31. 

If no  private money is found, Hodge's job will be eliminated at the end of 
the  summer.

"The students I work with, there isn't going to be anybody  to help them," 
Hodge said.

The program was part of an effort to  improve dental care for blacks and 
Latinos by increasing the number of  minority dentists. Because so few dentists in 
Connecticut accept state  Medicaid payments, only about one-third of 
low-income children - most of  whom are black or Latino - get the regular dental care 
they need. It can  be next to impossible for an impoverished adult to find a  
dentist.

Before 2002, the first year of the grant, about 6 percent  of students 
accepted at the dental school in Farmington each year were  black, Latino or Native 
American. In 2006, the proportion was 20  percent.

The program also prepared students for other dental  schools. Since the 
program started at UConn five years ago, 18 minority  students completed a summer 
dental-school preparation course and 16 have  been admitted to dental schools 
across the country. Similar programs were  offered at 14 other dental schools 
nationwide.

Although some  preparatory or mentoring programs for black and Latino 
students will end,  MacNeil said the school will be able to continue much of the 
grant's  mission. 

For example, he said, the UConn Dental School has started  introducing all 
students to issues of racial disparities in health care  and the challenges of 
working in a public health clinic.

UConn's  fourth-year dental students now spend about one-third of their 
clinical  training in community health centers. Previously, students graduated from 
 dental school without ever seeing the inside of a free clinic.

The  curriculum also has been modified to ensure that all dental students are 
 introduced to issues of cultural competency, MacNeil said. 

He said  he hopes that all dental school graduates will be willing to treat  
low-income patients, as a result of their exposure.

In addition, he  said, a UConn-funded program called the health professions 
partnership  initiative, which encourages promising minority students to enter 
the  health professions, will continue. 

That program also helps black  and Latino students prepare for the dental and 
medical school admission  tests and gives them extra help once they get into 
school.

But  Hodge said that those students are generally high achievers who could  
probably succeed in medical or dental school on their own.

Hodge,  who became a dentist after dropping out of high school, becoming a 
teenage  mother and working as a telephone operator, said there are no programs  
like hers that take inadequately prepared students and turn them into  
dentists.

Hodge vowed to spend the rest of the school year applying  for grants to 
sustain the program. She estimated the cost at no more than  $250,000 a year.

MacNeil said the university's unwillingness to pay  for the program was 
unrelated to a budget deficit at the Health Center  that could reach $20 million in 
two years without more money from the  state.

The Farmington-based Health Center, which includes the  state's medical and 
dental schools, as well as the John Dempsey Hospital  and a large research 
laboratory, gets a state operating grant of about $77  million.

To remain afloat, Health Center officials plan to ask the  state to boost its 
grant to $94 million this year and $103 million by  2008.



Contact Hilary Waldman at hwaldman at courant.com.  
Copyright 2007, _Hartford Courant_ (http://www.courant.com/)    
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