You can get your teeth taken care of for free as a student or staff member at TJC.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t know that we have a dental clinic here, and it’s obviously free to TJC students and faculty,” Kathryn Esparza said, a dental hygiene major at TJC. “I think it’s a good thing to take advantage of, especially for people who don’t have insurance.”
As part of the dental hygiene program, students are required to log a certain number of hours working with real clients.
“It’s challenging, but I think this is just preparing us for the real world and private practice,” Esparza said.
These dental services are not exclusive to the faculty and students. Although not for free, anyone can be a candidate for this clinic, even people outside of TJC.
“We are fortunate here at TJC to have an operational clinic, and it is open to the community so people can be patients outside of the TJC system.” Jennifer Johnson said, the manager for the dental studies department. “And it benefits our community, because we only charge $20 a semester, and they can come in and get services to, you know, prevent tooth decay.”
The clinic does not offer everything you can receive at a dentist however they do offer a range of services.
“We do X-rays, and we do have dentists here on staff, so they can look at those X-rays and if they notice that there is some major decay or there needs to be some more dental attention we can let the patient know that they need to seek out a dentist for that care,” Johnson said. “They’ll also get their teeth cleaned. We also do scaling and root cleaning, which is kind of a deeper cleaning. So if our patients have any kind of periodontal disease or anything like that, we can help, hopefully treat some of that with those deeper cleanings as well.”
There is a limited number of spots for people to come in as patients. Students spend a greater amount of time working with their patients because it is a hands-on learning experience, so volunteer patients may be expected to spend more time in an appointment than one generally would in a normal dentist’s office.
“Usually we’ll try to see one patient in the morning, one patient in the afternoon, whether that be the same person all day or two different people,” Esparza said.
The clinic also does head and neck screenings, preventative dental cleaning, fluoride and sealants.
For students, staff and members of the public who want to partake in this service, you can speak to an office staff member about becoming a patient. The clinic’s spring semester hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon. In the fall semester they are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday. You can go to the TJC Dental Hygiene Clinic on the first floor, not to be confused with the garden floor, of the Robert M. Rogers Nursing and Health Science Building at 1200 E 5th St. Tyler TX 75701.
