Christy Fogarty was certified Feb. 15 as the state's first advanced dental therapist, which is reason to cheer unless you're 7-year-old Tia Seaberry.
Tia, wearing pink sequined boots and bluejeans on a recent Wednesday morning, will be forgiven for dampened enthusiasm as Fogarty prepared to extract an infected baby tooth at Children's Dental Services in Minneapolis. The procedure wouldn't have been any more welcome had Justin Bieber been doing it.
"Are you nervous?" Fogarty asked, rubbing numbing jelly on Tia's gums. "It's normal. I'm going to tell you everything. I'm going to put a little bit of sleepy juice up there. Is it making your tongue feel funny? Good. We like it to do that."
Fogarty's professionalism and soothing presence are coming in handy on another front. In February, she testified in front of the New Hampshire Senate Health, Education and Human Services Committee. New Hampshire, as well as nearby Maine and Vermont, are among nearly two dozen states looking to Minnesota for guidance in creating their own brand of dental therapists.
These midlevel professionals span the divide between the hygienist and the dentist, much like a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, both of whom met equally vocal pushback from the medical establishment.
"Minnesota is definitely a pioneer and constantly referenced in other states," said Julie Stitzel, campaign manager for the Pew Children's Dental Campaign, whose mission is to increase dental access to low-income children.
"We can actually use data from Minnesota," she said, "instead of theoretical models suggesting what we think will happen. Now we can say, 'This is what we know will happen.' "
What we know is that dental therapists fill huge holes in basic dental care for low-income patients. It's shameful, frankly, that Minnesota has a children's tooth-decay rate higher than the national average (among third-graders it's 55 percent, compared with 53 percent). It's shameful, too, that Minnesota reimburses dentists at among the lowest rates in the nation.
