Dentist

Dentists might be best known for the biannual recommended checkups and cleanings, but their responsibilities go much further—from filling cavities to diagnosing and treating tooth and mouth diseases and injuries; performing cosmetic procedures to improve a patient's appearance; and performing surgical procedures, such as implants and tissue grafts. Dental school typically takes 4 years post college.

As for NHSC dentists, they find their careers especially fulfilling and their challenges widely varied. In underserved communities, patients often neglect their teeth and gums because they have not been educated about oral health self-care and because affordable dental health hasn't been available for miles around. Thus, NHSC-placed dentists can count on keeping busy—bringing smiles to patients' faces.

Michael Helgeson, DDS
Delivering Smiles Door to Door

It was during his year as a dental assistant when Michael Helgeson decided against pursuing his PhD in physics, instead moving toward providing dental care for the elderly and others with limited access. But it was not because he admired his supervising dentist—quite the opposite. "I got really upset," Helgeson explains, "that the services being provided were really designed based on the dentist's economic goals rather than what people needed."

After dental school, Helgeson was assigned by the NHSC to help establish a community health center in St. Louis,Missouri.While there, Helgeson and colleagues sowed the seeds for the nonprofit Apple Tree Dental practice in Minnesota. For 15 years, the Apple Tree clinicians have been living up to the practice's motto, "Bringing Smiles to People With Special Dental Access Needs," using mobile dental equipment to make dental "house calls" to Head Start Centers, schools, and nursing homes.

We asked Helgeson about the NHSC:

What difference has the NHSC made in your community?
Thanks to the NHSC, countless patients in St. Louis got help for their serious dental problems. I remember so many patients—one, a 2- or 3-year-old daughter of Romanian immigrants with severe baby-bottle tooth decay. Tooth by tooth, we supplied her with stainless steel crowns and tooth-colored fillings so she could have normal teeth to start preschool.

What difference has the NHSC made in your professional life?
I signed on with the NHSC to give something back. It was a way to do something for my country, for my community. I was prepared to do whatever I was called on to do, and I benefited in ways I didn't bargain for. I saw every possible permutation of dental disease—a range much bigger than you can expect to see in a dental practice in suburbia. And it set me up to develop my successful nonprofit practice, which provides services based on what people really need, as well as helps to fill the voids left by Medicare and Medicaid.