Island dentistry is part of a project Oh and his wife, Audree Park, who has her own dental practice in Bar Harbor, started working on two winters ago. Oh, who has long had an interest in community dentistry, had seen a need for dental care for lower income families and MaineCare members. He said, “It’s hard to find dentists who are able to take MaineCare.” Serving that need and providing care for low-income patients became the mission for Oh and Park’s project: a non-profit dental clinic for children and adolescents. A truly collaborative effort: Park’s private practice funded the start-up of Oh’s Ellsworth-based Caring Hands of Maine Dental Center, which opened in August.
“This area of Maine,” says Oh, “like many others in the country, has a high rate of what we call early childhood tooth decay, which leads to bigger problems in adulthood. Addressing that problem in children will help them have a lifetime of good health.”
To help him set up the clinic, Oh engaged Seattle pediatric dentist Travis Nelson, who stayed from the end of June to mid-September. Upon his return to Seattle, Nelson continued with the practice as a consultant and will return to Maine next spring. “This clinic,” Nelson said, “is near and dear to my heart because it addresses oral health for the public and children.” He said Caring Hands provides, “the highest level of children’s dentistry available.”
Nelson and Oh aim for the best possible care for their patients with the best possible equipment and at the lowest possible price. Thanks to Oh’s training and experience in taking dentistry to the climatic extremes of the Arctic Circle and equatorial Africa, he knew how and where to find the dental apparatus he needed to reach rural Maine, including the islands.
The portable equipment Oh takes to the islands is identical to that which the military carries. But instead of paying $20,000 per unit for this equipment, Oh and Park paid a couple of thousand for each new, decommissioned military dental unit.. “The ones I bought sat in storage for seven years,” he said. “They were never even turned on. Brand new.” Each unit breaks down to a couple of boxes that fit in his small station wagon. Although a mobile unit is slightly different from the usual kind found in dentist’s offices, it has a dental chair that leans back and everything else needed. “It’s quite well done,” Oh said. “It’s perfect for our purposes.”
Donna Wiegle, director of the Mill Pond Health Center on Swan’s Island, said that Oh had been offering dental services to Swan’s for the past two years through his former employer, Down East Health Services. “He is the dentist Swan’s Island children are used to,” she said; “Dr. Oh is a good fit for Swan’s.” One time Oh saw patients during an island-wide power outage. Wiegle and her husband brought two portable generators from their house and ran them in her truck while Dr. Oh and his team, in less than optimum conditions, worked on patients all day long.
Therefore, Wiegle said she was pleased when he called this summer to tell her he wanted to continue to offer the same service through Caring Hands, and instead of coming only twice a year, he would make four trips.
Wanting to take advantage of Nelson’s expertise while in Maine, Oh suggested Wiegle put together a dental clinic for children. (Medicaid covers dentistry for children and adolescents.) She did, and the Caring Hands team, including two dental hygienists, held a children’s dental clinic for patients ages one through 20 on August 25th.
However, Oh, does not just treat pediatric patients. Robert, a retired librarian on Swan’s Island, is impressed because Dr. Oh removed a crooked tooth that had grown in sideways. Other dentists would not touch the tooth because the roots had grown into the side of his upper jaw. He reported that Dr. Oh spent two hours removing the tooth and missed his own lunch. “While I got tugged around and got tired,” he said, “there was no pain, and the man assiduously did his best to take advantage of whatever programs were possible to get the lowest possible price for his patients. And he did the same with children.” Robert concluded, “He just seemed like a very caring man. He’s a helpful man to have around.”
Oh is accepting new patients and plans to expand both the portable and stationary parts of Caring Hands of Maine Dental Center. He explained, “We want to provide similar services to other rural areas.” He has invited another dentist, Macy Hyvonen, with whom he trained in Arizona, to join the center full time in early October. He also plans to open a second dental office this autumn in Southwest Harbor to treat teenagers and adults.
FMI: Caring Hands of Maine Dental Center, 70 Kingsland Crossing, Suite A, Ellsworth, ME 04605. Office: (207) 667-6789.