ECU dental school opens 1st rural clinic

The East Carolina University (ECU) School of Dental Medicine is gearing up to open the first of 10 planned rural dental clinics to provide care in underserved areas and encourage students to become small town dentists.

The new 16-station, $3 million clinic in Ahoskie, NC, will provide treatment in an area that has only a handful of dentists, according to a story in the Charlotte Observer. Many people in the area have to drive to Virginia if they need urgent dental care, the story noted.

Fourth-year dental students will do three rotations of about nine weeks each in the clinic, and each dental resident will be assigned to work in a single clinic for a year. Each clinic will have five students, two residents, a full-time faculty dentist, and a half-time dentist.

A second ECU dental clinic will open this fall in Elizabeth City, followed by clinics in Lillington, Sylva, Spruce Pine, and Lexington.

North Carolina has a shortage of dentists, with 4.5 per 10,000 residents, compared with a national average of about 6 per 10,000, according to the Observer. As of 2010, four counties had no dentists at all.