One year after the Kingsport Dental Clinic of the Appalachian Highlands opened, its impact is clear. More than 470 patients have received care — some returning for multiple visits.
This clinic is made possible by the University of Tennessee (UT) Health Science Center's College of Dentistry in partnership with the Eastman Foundation and other local partners. It offers quality dental care in rural Appalachia on a need-based, sliding-scale fee structure. The clinic offers many services, including extractions, dentures, root canals, crowns, fillings, dental cleanings and other preventive services.
"It’s all about community,” said John Royal, the director and supervising dentist of the Kingsport clinic. “What we’re doing here will have long-lasting effects on our region, from improving the community’s overall health to having more access to dental care in Appalachia.”
Dental and dental hygiene students are supervised by practicing dentists. The clinic provides training opportunities for students in addition to patient care.
The clinic is also a training site that is supervised by Royal and other local dentists.
In its first year, the clinic hosted 41 students from the UT Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee, and 44 clinical-rotation dental hygiene students from East Tennessee State University.
Tinah Le, a fourth-year student from UT and native of Nashville, began her rotation at the clinic in August this year.
“This rotation allows us to get more clinical experience and have more control over patient care, but we still have supervising doctors here who we can go to with questions and advice,” Le said. “We’re also learning the workflow of a clinic — using the technology and equipment, working with an assistant and managing multiple patients efficiently.”
Fourth-year University of Tennessee dental student Tinah Le talks to a child about preventive hygiene. About half of the patients seen at the Kingsport clinic are children.
Three local high school students also completed healthcare rotations at the clinic, further encouraging students to consider their hometown to practice healthcare in the future.
In addition to providing dental care for the Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia region, the project also inspires students to serve more rural areas as they start their careers. This would create a positive long-term impact on areas that have the greatest need for dental services. After their experience at the Kingsport clinic, several students expressed a desire to return to the region after completing their programs.
"Students come here to Kingsport and work at the clinic, and they also get to experience what it’s like living in our region,” Royal said. “They see how nice it is, and the goal is to encourage them to start their career here, come back to this area one day or find similar rural areas in need of dental providers.”
"We're very holistic in our approach to supporting the local community, even beyond the care we provide here. We source local lab and medical gas support. We have dentists from the community who help us supervise students. Even the art on our office walls is local." — John Royal, director and supervising dentist
There are already plans to grow the clinic, with an increase from 12 to 30 patient chairs in the next phase. In addition, there are longer-term plans to host a year-long dental rotation for 12 to 15 dental students as the program matures and offer UT students the option to complete their final year of the doctor of dental surgery program in Kingsport instead of Memphis.
George Eastman’s legacy of dental innovation
Long before he founded Eastman Kodak, George Eastman watched his mother have eight teeth pulled during his childhood — all without anesthesia in their kitchen.
This traumatic memory inspired his belief in accessible dental care, especially preventive care for children, and prompted him to improve the dental health of children in the U.S. and Europe.
Eastman established the first free U.S. dental clinic for children in Rochester, N.Y., in 1901. The success of this clinic led him to build others, including in European cities where Kodak did business. Those dental clinics in London, Rome, Stockholm and Paris still exist today.
The philanthropist also single-handedly created the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Today, the Eastman Foundation proudly supports the Kingsport Dental Clinic of the Appalachian Highlands, honoring the legacy of George Eastman.
The company continues to innovate for the dental industry. Eastman offers polymer solutions used in dental aligners and toothbrushes.
