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IU DENTAL SCHOOL WILL SERVE THE COMMUNITY THROUGH NEW DIVISION OF COMMUNITY DENTISTRY

INDIANAPOLIS - Thanks to a new Division of Community Dentistry at the IU School of Dentistry (IUSD) at IUPUI, dental students will learn about diverse groups of people while offering screenings and other services to the Indianapolis community.

Karen Masbaum Yoder, Ph.D., a part-time IU faculty member and well-known dental public health consultant in the state, will serve as director.

While the dental school has a long history of community service, the new Division of Community Dentistry hopes to broaden the scope of its outreach by developing long-term relationships with various community agencies. The agencies will partner with the school in its planning process and evaluation and development of students, and the school will in turn offer the services of students and faculty. Services may include dental screenings, educational programs and simple procedures such as dental sealants that help reduce decay in children's teeth. All activities will be coordinated with local dental societies.

"When our graduates settle into communities to begin practicing dentistry, they must be equipped with skills that will allow them to be fully engaged with the people in those communities," said Yoder, a Fort Wayne resident who worked as a dental hygienist for more than 15 years before her career gravitated toward dental public health education and service. "Involving students in community-based programs will help them learn to better interact with a variety of patients as well as other health care providers."

Yoder says that once the students become dentists, they are likely to encounter patients who may have the same problems as those people they will meet at community agencies. Also, by learning about community agencies and the problems they face, students are more likely to partner with them in the future.

"We want our students to go beyond standing beside the dental chair and really understand the patients and their community," said Yoder.

Yoder is already involving students and faculty in the Indianapolis Shelter Health Fair on December 4 where they will provide oral screening and treatment and other services at fourteen area homeless shelters. As part of the school's annual celebration of Children's Dental Health Month in February, Yoder has planned for students to offer dental sealants to children at the Julian Center, Coburn Place, the Dayspring Center, and the Holy Family Shelter.

Yoder also plans to develop interdisciplinary programs by collaborating with other IUPUI schools. She will seek funding for the projects from foundations as well as state and federal funding agencies.

"The creation of the Division of Community Dentistry gives our department an opportunity to advance oral health at the community level and offer our students experience providing dental care in diverse community settings," said Dr. Domenick T. Zero, chair of the school's Department of Preventive and Community Dentistry which will house the new division. "I am confident that the new division, under Yoder's leadership, will prove to be an important asset to the dental school and the university."

Yoder, whose four IU degrees include two in the area of public health, brings to the directorship an extensive background both in education and dental public health.

Yoder will continue in her role as a consultant in community dental health for the Indiana State Department of Health, a position she has held since 1979. To devote more time to her position, Yoder recently left her part-time teaching post in dental education on the IU-PU Fort Wayne campus after more than two decades of service. She has been teaching part time at IUSD since 1988.

During five years in the 1970s, Yoder initiated a dental screening and treatment program and taught health education in the public schools in Tanzania, East Africa through the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. For her Ph.D. degree, she returned to Tanzania in the 1990s to study the effect of altitude and diet on persons with severe dental fluorosis, a condition caused by excessive intake of fluoride, which occurs naturally in overabundance in East Africa.

She has long been an adviser for the Matthew 25 Health and Dental Clinic in Fort Wayne and is president of Indiana Donated Dental Services, a foundation which has provided more than $1.5 million in free dental services for low-income people with disabilities.

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