Published: November 17, 2008 03:51 pm            

Cassis Dental Center helping WV RHEP fulfill its mission

The mission of the West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships (WV RHEP) is to achieve greater retention of West Virginia-trained health science graduates in underserved rural West Virginia communities by creating partnerships of community, higher education, health care providers and governmental bodies.

Donna Bush, a WV RHEP community outreach coordinator, feels the organization is making in-roads in that mission.

While completing the objectives of their clinical rotation, health science students also participate in community service projects designed to address many of the health problems facing rural West Virginians related to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, oral health, injury prevention, etc.

In 2007, those students made over 71,000 community service contacts with state citizens. The positive effect of these contacts is impressive, Bush says. For example, since 1999, dental students have provided $10.5 million in uncompensated oral health care to rural citizens in the state.

A good example of the student participation is Valerie Perrine, in her fourth year at the WVU School of Dentistry. A 2003 graduate of Webster County High School, Perrine did two years of undergraduate work at WVU before being accepted into the dentistry school in 2005.

The local RHEP consortium, whose lead agency is New River Health Association, recently hosted her dental rotation at Cassis Dental Center (CDC) in Fayetteville. Dr. Bruce Cassis serves on the RHEP advisory board and has annually invited dental students to work with his staff.

“The purpose of RHEP is to expose students to rural life in West Virginia and to recruit them to serve in rural areas when they complete their education,” said Cassis. “About 80% of the dental students who rotate through our office locate in rural areas. The program works because of the commitment of the dental school, the rural clinical sites and the local RHEP consortium.

“Participating in the program is our way of giving back to the area we serve, the WVU School of Dentistry and the state of West Virginia.”

In 2006, Cassis hired Gabe Hubbard, an RHEP student who performed a rotation with him the previous year. Dr. Hubbard called his rotation there one of the highlights of his dental school career. “The experience that I gained during my weeks at CDC has been invaluable during the early years of my career. I felt so much more prepared to enter the ‘real world’ of dentistry after my rotation.”

Hubbard is pleased with his decision to practice in a rural setting, adding, “Being from rural West Virginia myself, the opportunity to return to a community like Fayetteville to practice dentistry has been a dream come true.”

Perrine also said she thoroughly enjoyed her rotation at Cassis Dental Center, as well as time spent in the town of Fayetteville.

“It’s been a great experience for me,” she said. “Dr. Cassis and Dr. Hubbard have served as excellent teachers. I’ve gotten to observe and perform several procedures using some of the latest technology available in dentistry.

“The staff has gone out of their way to make sure that I’ve seen all aspects of running a dental practice, and the patients were eager to let me observe their treatment.”

She also said her particular rotation site agreed with her. “You can’t beat the friendliness or the food in Fayetteville.”

For more information on health science students who are available to do community service projects in your area, call the local RHEP office at 304-465-2389.

        

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