HEALTH |
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Clinic program offers low cost, quality careBy Leanna Gable 
Georgia Highlands College students as well as other community residents have access to low-priced basic dental services provided by GHC dental hygiene students.
The college’s dental hygiene program is based on the Heritage Hall campus in Rome, where the dental clinic is housed. The clinic offers dental cleaning, cleaning of dentures or partials, x-rays, sealants, blood pressure screenings and many other preventative dentistry services. Costs range from $30 to $50 for adults and $20 for children 12 and under.The clinic is where the program’s students take classroom knowledge and apply it in practice. Because the setting is a dental hygiene school and not an actual dentist’s office, the students do not perform extractions, fillings or other services that many be only provided by a licensed dentist. According to Donna Miller, the director of the dental hygiene program, the dental hygiene students make appointments with patients around schedules that she arranges for them.The opportunity to work with patients in the clinic gives the students firsthand experience with people, instead of just textbook knowledge. Classroom time “is not like the real world,” says first-year student Sandra Shride, who feels the chance to work with real people and real teeth is rewarding.When working with patients, the students are constantly supervised by dental hygiene faculty, according to Miller. “This process enables the students to learn the skills necessary to deliver quality healthcare to their patients,” Miller said. The only advertising the students have to promote the clinic is fliers posted on both the Heritage Hall and the Floyd campuses of GHC, a commercial on a local television station and word of mouth.People from different counties and cities apparently find the clinic’s offerings appealing. The program appears to be “well put together,” according to Matthew Robinson of Summerville. “Everybody’s very nice” and the students are “very talented and helpful,” he said. The dental hygiene program is “very challenging, very competitive,” said Shride. About 50 people apply to be considered for the program each year. Out of those 50, the top 20 are hand-selected and then personally interviewed. Only 14 were actually accepted into the program for 2005-2006.The dental hygiene clinic phone number is (706) 295-6760. Anyone may call to schedule an appointment. |