What sparked your interest in pursuing this as a research topic?
During my first year in dental school, I was selected as one of my class's Student Access and Engagement Officers. With that position, we were tasked with coming up with a four-year flagship program.
When I was brainstorming for this project, New Mexico always came to mind. I had done some work with the UNM Health Profession Symposium the year before in college, as one of the leads on the planning committee. Incorporating my outreach experience toward high school and college students with my flagship project seemed like a natural place to expand – given the unique challenges New Mexico has with a dentist shortage.
Where were the students located in the state you talked to for the project?
A lot of my studies and events were focused on the pre-dental students at the UNM Pre-Dental Society. Of those students, I surveyed which high schools they attended. A majority of them were from Albuquerque, but there were quite a few that came from rural areas such as Gallup, Las Cruces, and the Santa Fe-Los Alamos region as well.
What did you find out or what were some of those barriers to increasing the number of dentists in New Mexico?
Mentorship and resources.
Coming from both my personal experience and talking to the current pre-dental students, their current mentorship is primarily other pre-dental students guiding each other. There's not a lot of outside mentorship, which creates challenges in fostering interest and support in a career long-term.
Resources are the other one. There’s a real lack of support – take hands-on experiences, for example. There are fewer dentists available, so it becomes harder to get into offices and have any shadowing experience. You add to that a lack of a network to explore options, and it becomes very difficult to know where to go to find mentors and experiences. Conversely, universities in the state have several readily available pre-med or pre-physician assistant programs with support, but there isn’t as much currently for prospective dentists.
You mentioned that UNM has a residency program for dentists – that’s probably also difficult for these students to access for mentorship as well.
Exactly. These residents are incredibly busy. And while they’re friendly and willing to talk about their experiences, it’s still the responsibility of someone interested in dentistry to go out of their way to seek them out, versus having resources that are put in front of you.
Do you think it's important for there to be more access to rural health rotations for prospective dentists?
Definitely. As I’m going into my fourth year, I’m starting rotations at outside dental clinics as part of the Advanced Clinical Training and Service (ACTS) Program, and a lot of the sites are in rural areas, which I believe is a unique and valuable experience CU provides for their dental students.
I'm really hoping for mostly rural area rotations because I want to get more experience with comprehensive dentistry, taking on cases and problem solving in areas that have less access to care. I'm excited to experience that, especially since I believe it will be very relevant and applicable to practicing in New Mexico. And I think it's a really valuable experience for all dental students to see.
Building Connections
CU Anschutz School of Dental Medicine also offers a Rural Oral Health Track to prospective dentists. Students go to rural sites for their clinical rotations, receiving an official designation on their transcript.
Are there any changes on the horizon in expanding dental education in New Mexico?
There’s some progress. Universities are trying to increase primary care and the overall number of patients they're seeing in the next decade or so, and one avenue in consideration for accomplishing this is opening a dental school.
Touro College of Dental Medicine – based in New York – has also opened a clinical facility in Albuquerque. They opened last summer, so half of their class takes two years of classes in New York and then does their clinical years in Albuquerque. That’s a new advancement that hopefully will move things in the right direction.
Is there a key takeaway that you had from doing this research?
I think the main takeaway was that these small efforts do help in the process of New Mexico students reaching dental school. There’s still a lot of work to do, however.
I have a few faculty members who are from New Mexico, or have lived there previously. One important point they raised was: How do you get people to move to New Mexico for dental positions, or make sure they return after school? And how do you focus on retaining those dentists? Because this is only one piece of a very big puzzle.
But to that point, I think there are a lot of ways we can help with this issue. I think we should advocate for the development of pathway programs. UNM has a BA–MD program that focuses on students from rural communities, with the goal of helping them graduate and continue practicing in the rural areas they call home. Advocating for programs like that for dentistry is one way we can address this.
Do you want to go back to New Mexico and practice after you graduate?
Yes, definitely. Through this project, I've truly seen how much New Mexico needs more dentists, and I hope to be able to contribute to decreasing the shortage. I’m just beginning my exploration into jobs right now, but I've been looking into opportunities in rural areas or with public health programs, such as the Indian Health Services, as potential career options. I hope to eventually incorporate both having a practice and academia to some extent, which would facilitate advocating for structural changes to bring more dentists to the state.
Was there a particular conversation or anecdote that you remember from these conversations that really stood out and made an impact on you?
I think one of the standout moments of this project was from one of my most recent school visits where my classmates and I spoke to elementary students about dentistry as a career path. The students were asking some of the most engaging questions I had ever received. Sometimes high school students already have their minds made up, but these grade school students were so excited to learn about becoming a dentist. At the very end, the teacher asked this class of maybe 20 kids, “How many of you want to become dentists?” And at least five of them raised their hands. Now we might not get all five to become dentists, but if we get one, that’s a start. That was a heartwarming glimpse into the potential effects of this project.
