To smile about: Dental school mission taking shape

East Carolina University last week named three of 10 sites where learning centers will be established by the dental school to provide access to care in underserved rural areas of eastern North Carolina.

For Pitt County, that welcome news is illustrative of the university's growing mission to provide local solutions to regional problems. For all of North Carolina, the ECU dental school's emergence shows that the state is committed to expanding health services to its citizens, even in the midst of an economic recession.

Residents of Elizabeth City, Ahoskie and Sylva are celebrating the news that they will host community service learning centers for the dental school. The school is scheduled to open in 2011 with its first 50 students. Fourth-year students will spend a year working at one of the community centers with a team of faculty and dental hygienists.

According Dr. James Hupp, dean of the dental school, the community service center model will be a first in dental education.

"From this moment on we are departing from the traditional path of dental education," Hupp said.

That departure can even be traced to 2002, when ECU began exploring the possibility of building a dental school in Greenville. In the same way that an underserved population led to the Brody School of Medicine, the dental school effort was prompted by a growing shortage of dentists.

The state remains below the national average in the number of dentists per 10,000 residents. By 2007, North Carolina had seen another 0.7 percent decline in the number of dentists per 10,000 residents. More that half the state's counties have three or fewer dentists per 10,000 residents, and four counties have no practicing dental professionals at all.

To address the problem, lawmakers approved the ECU dental school in partnership with an expanded dental school at UNC-Chapel Hill. Although budget constraints earlier this year shrunk ECU's request for the dental school's planning phase from $8 million to $3 million, school officials said the amount is enough to keep the school on schedule.

Last week's announcement bears out that prediction and further solidifies ECU's reputation as a dynamic and positive force for improving the lives of the residents whose tax dollars support its noble mission.