Dentist Honored by YWCA for Contributions to Racial Equality
Chicago - The YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago Board of Directors is proud to announce Dr. Linda M. Kaste as the recipient of the 2004 Leader Luncheon Racial Justice Award. Dr. Kaste was presented with her award at the YWCA Leader Luncheon, one of the area’s most prestigious salutes to outstanding women and the YWCA’s largest annual fundraiser. The luncheon was held on Oct. 14 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.
Dr. Linda M. Kaste
Dr. Kaste is co-advisor to the American Association of Women Dentists’ student chapter at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. As associate professor and director of predoctoral dental public health for the college, Dr. Kaste has devoted her career to the oral health needs of underserved populations. Her leadership was instrumental in the university being selected in 2002 as one of only 10 sites nationwide for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Pipeline, Profession, and Practice: Community-Based Dental Education” grant. The $1.5 million award is helping the college prepare an oral health-care workforce competent and committed to treating oral diseases of vulnerable urban, rural, and special needs populations, including minority, economically disadvantaged, and/or medically compromised persons.
Titled “Dental/Community Partnerships Responding to the Illinois Silent Epidemic,” the UIC College of Dentistry program is designed not only to bring dental care to underserved populations, but to increase the diversity of the dental workforce in the state as well. As part of the program, the college will develop and launch a new curriculum that will place students in community clinics throughout Chicago and Illinois.
“Patients tend to seek dental care from people who are like themselves or who understand their needs,” said Dr. Kaste, who is developing the community-based educational program. “By increasing minority enrollment and by giving all students experience in community health care, this program will integrate the community with the dental health-care workforce. The underserved community’s lack of dental health care, including prevention, has led to the ‘silent epidemic’ of oral diseases that the program is designed to address.”
“The college is no stranger to outreach,” noted Dr. Bruce Graham, Dean. “But this will make community collaboration an integral part of the dental school curriculum itself.”
Over the five years of the project, the College will alter its curriculum to provide community-based experiences from the first semester of dental school, including at least 60 days of such clinical experience in the fourth year alone; promote faculty and staff support of integrating community-based experiences into the curriculum; assess other community-based experiences at UIC, other University of Illinois campuses, and other dental schools to enhance the UIC College of Dentistry program; respond to expectations of the college in the Illinois Dental Public Health Infrastructure Development Plan; develop and implement initiatives to increase underrepresented minority student, faculty, and staff recruitment and retention at the college and in the state’s oral health workforce; and collaborate with community groups and health-care professionals to achieve the program’s goals.
“Community-based education will not only bring dental care to adults and children who badly need it,” Dr. Kaste noted, “but it will help us recruit underrepresented minority and low-income students into the profession. It also will get our future dental practitioners thinking not just about who is in the chair, but who is not in the chair - who needs dental care and disease prevention, and how it can be delivered.”
Before joining the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Kaste had considerable experience working on social justice in oral health. While at the Medical University of South Carolina, she started a program to train dental students to work effectively with low-income and minority groups. She served as a volunteer dentist in the Dominican Republic for 17 years. She worked with the Boston Health Link Homeless Shelters in providing dental services and promoted oral health among Native American populations as a consultant for the Indian Health Service in Arizona. Dr. Kaste has authored more than 100 papers, abstracts, and presentations on topics related to access to dental care and oral health status.
Dr. Kaste received her certification in dental public health from Harvard University and is a diplomate of the American Board of Dental Public Health, one of only three diplomates in Illinois. She is a member of the American Association of Women Dentists, American Dental Association, American Public Health Association, Hispanic Dental Association, and American Association of Public Health Dentistry, where she currently serves as chair of its education and science committee.
Dr. Kaste has received numerous honors for her research and community efforts, including the American Association of Public Health Dentistry President’s Special Recognition Award in 1999, an American Dental Association Certificate of Recognition in 1996, and the National Institutes of Health Special Service Award in 1993. Please join AAWD in congratulating Dr. Kaste.
