Topics at a glance: Give Kids a Smile Day: Free dental care draws hundreds … UTDB employee’s hurricane experience featured on community calendar

Give Kids a Smile Day: Free dental care draws hundreds

Clinical Services Director Mary Ann Adkisson comforts 5-year-old Emily Martinez before her dental appointment gets underway. Photo by Rhonda Moran.

Nearly 200 children and mothers got free dental care at the UT Dental Branch Feb. 14 in connection with Give Kids a Smile Day, an annual event co-sponsored by UTDB, the Greater Houston Dental Society and the Greater Houston Dental Alliance.

Fifty-two Houston-area dentists, 34 dental hygienists and dental assistants, and 15 staff members volunteered their services, as did 24 Dental Branch faculty members, 12 pediatric dentistry residents, 134 dental and dental hygiene students, and 34 Dental Branch staff members. Thirty-two students from the University of Houston pre-dental group assisted as well. The GHDS worked with the San Jose Clinic, Epiphany Community Health Outreach Services (ECHOS), Communities in Schools Houston, and Friends for Christmas to identify patients ahead of time.

Co-chairs for the event were Albert Fasti, D.D.S., of the Greater Houston Dental Society and Phyllis Jennings of the Greater Houston Dental Alliance. Peggy O’Neill, D.D.S., associate dean for patient care, led the planning at the Dental Branch, and Jennifer Smith was the GHDS organizer. It was a day of excitement for many, as clowns, cartoons and even the tooth fairy made an appearance to help entertain the children as they waited to be seen. Volunteers wore specially designed red T-shirts for easy identification. At the end of the appointments, each child received a Valentine goodie bag filled with supplies to keep their smiles healthy.

Dean Catherine M. Flaitz, D.D.S., said it was especially meaningful to be able to help children. “It’s a special gift to us to be able to treat them,” she said, “and they were so well behaved and patient. It was fun to see our students working side by side with community dentists and dental hygienists. It really shows a degree of partnership as we work to address the needs of the community.”

Give Kids a Smile Day is held each February in observance of National Children’s Dental Health Month. Funding for this event was provided, in part, by a generous gift from the Susman Family Foundation. — By Rhonda Moran, UT Dental Branch

UTDB employee’s hurricane experience
featured on community calendar

Santiago Morales, son of GPR Clinic dental assistant Norma Morales, was born Sept. 13, 2008 in an ambulance during Hurricane Ike.

Norma Morales, a certified dental assistant at the UT Dental Branch’s General Practice Residency program, has a Hurricane Ike story that made headlines in her neighborhood newspaper, the South Belt Ellington Leader and is now included on a 2009 community calendar.

On Sept. 13, 2008, she and her family were riding out the hurricane at her mother’s home in southeast Houston when Morales went into labor. At 4:30 a.m., her family called for an ambulance. It was the height of the storm. “When we called 911, they initially said they couldn’t get anyone over there, but the volunteers in our neighborhood heard the call and they came,” Morales says.

A Southeast Volunteer Fire Department medic delivered her baby boy, Santiago, in the ambulance on the way to St. Joseph’s Hospital. Oddly, someone fired gunshots at the ambulance as it traveled on IH-45. No one was injured but the vehicle sustained a flat tire. It is unknown whether the gunshots caused the flat.

When she was well enough, Morales took Santiago (aka “Little Ike”) to the fire station to thank the volunteers and take photos that wound up in the local newspaper as a follow-up to the first story. Now, the Clear Brook City Municipal Utility District has a 2009 calendar featuring hurricane photos and stories, and the Morales family’s adventure is on the February page. The calendar will be a family keepsake for Norma and her husband, Heliodoro, who was by her side in the ambulance. But they have another special memory, too.

Three days after the storm, mother and baby went home from the hospital. “The instant I stepped inside my mother’s house, the power came on,” Norma says. To see the original newspaper article, CLICK HERE.— By Rhonda Moran, UT Dental Branch