Issaquah dentist helps extract 1,218 teeth in Tennessee
January 4, 2011
By Laura Geggel
Dentist Donna Quinby and dental hygienist Stephanie Keane, of Issaquah’s Eastside Pediatric Dental Group, give free medical care to a patient in Tennessee while working with the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps. Contributed
More than 450 people filled the parking lot at Signal Mountain High School in southeastern Tennessee, waiting for a chance to see a group of volunteer healthcare professionals who could fill their cavities or make them a new pair of glasses.
These were the working poor who were uninsured or underinsured, adults who needed medical care, but could not afford it after having to pay for rent, food and other expenses.
After seeing a “60 Minutes” segment about Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps, Dentist Donna Quinby, of Eastside Pediatric Dental Group in Issaquah, decided she wanted to help.
“Having the opportunity to reach out and help people in need is one of the most rewarding experiences, and one of the reasons why I chose dentistry as my profession,” Quinby said.
She flew to Signal Mountain to deliver free dental care during an Oct. 23-24 clinic and helped pay the airfare of three co-workers who joined her: dental hygienist Stephanie Keane and dental assistant Christina Moon, from Eastside Pediatric Dental Group; and dental hygienist Seng Phanhthavilay, from Seattle Special Care Dentistry, where Quinby teaches dental residents. Phanhthavilay commended Quinby for pushing them.
The four healthcare workers volunteered to set up medical supplies on the Friday before the clinic and were among the first to arrive and the last to leave that weekend.
Patients began showing up at 4 p.m. on Friday.
“They were just kind of camping out,” Moon said.
RAM volunteers started handing out tickets at 3 a.m. to the people lining up outside the high school.
“They only had a certain number of tickets and if you didn’t have one you wouldn’t get seen,” Moon said.
She and her colleagues arrived at 5:45 a.m. on Saturday and saw patients from 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. It was so crowded, “it looked like a football game on Friday night,” Phanhthavilay said.
Patients who needed dental care had to choose whether they wanted an extraction, filling or cleaning — but they could only choose one.
“If you needed extractions, you couldn’t have a cleaning also,” Keane said. “They had so many people and they just wanted people to be seen.”
By the end of the two-day clinic, the dentists had filled 189 teeth, extracted 1,218 teeth and performed 33 cleanings. All in all, 192 volunteers served 452 people healthcare worth $286,659 — and not one of the patients received a bill.
“It’s really a lifesaver for the people of the area,” RAM State Director for Rural America Ron Brewer said. “A lot of times you cannot get enough doctors, dentists and vision care providers who will come in and give their time. It’s just unbelievable that people want to do this.”
This is the third time in 10 years RAM has held a clinic at Signal Mountain, a rural area besieged by unemployment.
“We don’t choose to do a clinic anywhere we go, the area chooses us,” Brewer said. “Usually, it is a public official or health council within that area who will give us a call.”
RAM is booked until 2012.
Moon said she enjoyed meeting patients not only from Signal Mountain, but also people who had driven hundreds of miles for free medical care. She said she liked “just being there to help them relax and feel a little bit more comfortable. I never felt so valuable.”
Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 241, or lgeggel@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.
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