Answering the request of the Mississippi Department of Health, the American Dental Association and Henry Schein Inc. have dispatched "Tomorrow's Dental Office - Today!" to Waveland, Miss., to help treat Gulf Coast residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The mobile exhibit, a fully-functional, technology-driven dental office of the future, traveled to this devastated town of 7,100 and was set up at the K-Mart that has now become Waveland's new community hub. TDOT will care for residents each day through Sunday, Oct. 9.
"All of us within the dental community are proud to work together with the Mississippi Department of Health to help care for the state's citizens in this time of need," said Stanley M. Bergman, Chairman and CEO of Henry Schein.
"'Tomorrow's Dental Office - Today!' is a remarkable dental resource that incorporates state-of-the-art technology in every aspect of a dental practice. It has been used in community outreach before, typically in conjunction with major dental meetings where we can demonstrate to dentists the value of this technology to their practices. In these extraordinary circumstances, we are happy to see the capabilities of TDOT put to such worthwhile use."
"As you can imagine, a facility of this type is in high demand," said Dr. James Bramson, Executive Director of the ADA. "It was scheduled to leave from the Ohio Dental Association Annual Session in Columbus for the ADA's Annual Session in Philadelphia, when the call came from Mississippi.
"We conferred with Henry Schein and together instructed the TDOT staff to make a 900-mile detour to the Gulf Coast to arrive as soon as possible," continued Dr. Bramson. "Our members would agree that Waveland and other affected communities are where dental resources are most needed at this time."
After Hurricane Katrina hit the area on August 29, Henry Schein and the ADA immediately offered to send resources to the affected states. Because the Mississippi Department of Health was the first to follow up on that offer, Waveland was selected as the destination for TDOT.
It is supplementing ongoing relief efforts at Caroline 1, the North Carolina State Medical Assistance Team base in Waveland, under the direction of Dr. Nicholas Mosca, State Dental Director of the Mississippi Department of Health. Dr. Mosca had dental practitioners in place screening and prioritizing patients for care in anticipation of TDOT's arrival.
"We are extremely grateful to the ADA and Henry Schein for providing this remarkable resource to the people of Mississippi and the hard-hit community of Waveland," said Dr. Mosca. "Caroline 1 is now seeing more than 300 critical care and emergency patients each day, and many of them are in urgent need of dental care. The TDOT facility will enable our dental teams to provide patients with the highest quality of care even though most of the town's infrastructure has been erased."
