How the UNLV dental clinic fixed my mouth
During the summer of 2013, while I was living at the Grand Canyon, my left top molar cracked; a good-sized chunk just disappeared. I wondered if I had I eaten it. Can a person eat chunks of their teeth and live? I kept living. Two years later, in August 2015, now in Las Vegas, the cracked tooth began to hurt. Then my face started to hurt, and eventually I had a pulsating headache. I didn’t know what to do.
I had Obamacare (Nevada Medicaid and Nevada Check Up card). But the Nevada Medicaid and Nevada Check Up Card doesn’t cover routine dental care like fillings and root canals, only extractions. After the pain became unbearable, or at least terribly annoying, I went to a local hospital to see if I could get an extraction. The hospital was state-of-the-art. People were helped quickly and everyone was friendly. As I waited, two young men handed me a pamphlet for the UNLV Dental Clinic. Then a doctor gave me a prescription for pain pills. Because I have the Nevada Medicaid and Nevada Check Up Card I didn’t have to pay for the emergency-room visit, but a few weeks later I received a receipt for its cost: approximately $1,800 for 20 minutes. I didn’t think it would be so much. If the bill had been $400 or $600, I would have thought, Whatever, rich people can pay it. But at $1,800, I felt bad. I didn’t mean to take so much money, rich people.
When I got to the UNLV Dental Clinic, the waiting room was full of sad, poor people. People were complaining. One said the doctors messed up her teeth. Another looked like he had spent years living in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas.
I was brought to a room, and they X-rayed my teeth. A young man, who looked so tired he could have fallen right to sleep, begged me not to get my tooth extracted. I was too young to lose my teeth, he said, and it would only cost $800 total for a root canal and a crown. He wanted to help me, he believed that I could find the money, that I should keep my tooth. I believed him. “Okay,” I said, “let’s do it.”
The young man quickly fixed the infection and put some globs on the crack to seal it. Then I had to register and commit to several appointments in order to get help from the clinic. I agreed to the whole thing. I needed my tooth fixed, and also it seemed interesting to me, all these young science people doing things. I’m a humanities person, and all my friends are humanities people. This would be a new experience.
What I learned later was that dental students seek out patients who are reliable. In order to graduate, they must have a certain number of experiences doing each procedure. They need patients who will show up to multiple appointments, on time, over several weeks. But the people who need the clinic’s services have very limited income. Most receive government aid and a lot rely on public transportation. The students often talked about how a patient didn’t show up. I must have looked reliable that morning.
The first step was scheduling two three-hour examinations. I was given a new doctor, a young man with glasses and a caring smile. I will call him Nick. Nick started by giving me one X-ray after another. I lay in silence while he said “lingual” and “mesial” over and over, “lingual,” “mesial,” “lingual,” “mesial.” It’s the mantra of dental students.
After six hours of studying my teeth, making molds and noting every piece of calculus, it was time for the root canal.
This was done by the tired young man I met earlier. He looked a bit less tired now. It took two three-hour visits. I had to keep a rubber bag thing on my face, and a block in my mouth. For three hours. The student didn’t seem happy about root canals on upper molars. I felt bad for the guy. It seemed like he was fighting a small war with my face.
After the root canal Nick gave me a crown, which took three more sessions.
I wasn’t worried about the students messing up my teeth. Nick showed such confidence and enthusiasm, I believed he could do it. Every time I felt pain, they gave me another shot. Surprisingly, I rarely felt in pain. When Nick pulled out the mold for my crown, he looked at it in his hand with a huge smile. I understood then: This was his art, his beauty. Science kids have their art, too.
In March, the Western Regional Examination Board, which is like the bar exam for dental students, came to Las Vegas. I was asked to participate, but I had to show up, I needed to show up, on time. If a patient misses this appointment, the student has to go to Los Angeles or Phoenix to take the tests. I was scheduled for an SRP, a super tooth-cleaning, which for testing purposes is only done on one quadrant of the mouth. I would have two quadrants done. Nick would test on one, and another student I hadn’t met would do the other.
That morning, the students were nervous but excited. This was the moment, the final test. All the tests they’d ever taken, from kindergarten through their bachelors’ degrees, all the tests in their dental classes, culminated in this final exam. After each student completed his quadrant, I was led to another room, where dentists from the board would inspect my mouth to determine if the students would pass. The room was strangely dark. I was put into a seat, and three experienced dentists, all in their 50s or 60s, came over one at a time. They looked at my mouth, then at the computer screen showing my X-rays, then back at my mouth, then back at the X-rays, and made notes. It seemed like the older generation was doing its best to usher in the younger dentists, which made me feel like I was participating in something bigger than myself.
Both students who tested on my teeth passed. They’ll go on to become dentists, have careers and perform a service to our communities.
As the students spoke to me and to each other, I learned that many owed more than $250,000 in student loans. None of the students I talked with had working-class families. They may have had some tuition help from their parents but had still accumulated $250,000 in student loans. What amazed me most, as a working-class person from a town in Ohio where no one dreams of becoming a dentist or doctor, was that these students weren’t afraid of this $250,000. They had absolute faith that they would be able to pay it off.
The UNLV dental school saved me; if not for the clinic, I would have had to see a normal dentist and pay at least a thousand dollars more, which I couldn’t have done. I wouldn’t have received an SRP cleaning, and now my gums don’t bleed, and my mouth is like new. If I still lived in Youngstown, where there isn’t a dental school for 60 miles, I would have been fated to lose my teeth.
On my last visit with Nick, he told me it was his last week before graduation and that I was his last patient. He thanked me for showing up on time and being reliable.