This Tri-Cities dentist makes a difference ‘delivering care in the open air’

Tri-Cities dentist Bart Roach has dedicated his life to helping underserved communities gain better access to dental care.

From work with the Grace Clinic — the only free clinic in the Tri-Cities to serve the uninsured — to nine trips to remote areas in Guatemala, Roach has fixed teeth and educated people on proper dental hygiene.

Now, he’s expanding his efforts to Bhutan in south Asia.

“I want to help them emerge into the 21st century with their dental access, including rural outreach, and then, hopefully, develop some jobs in their economy through digital dentistry,” Roach said. “The idea is to provide access with new equipment or technology that they might not be exposed to.”

He originally went to Bhutan as a side trip from Nepal, where he helped establish the Luke Michael Memorial Health Clinic of Phuleli, named after his brother who unexpectedly passed away.

In Bhutan, he met with several high-level officials in the country’s health care system.

“There’s no private dentistry there at all,” Roach said. “You have to go to India or Bangkok in order to get a veneer done, or whatever you might want to pay out-of-pocket.”

As a result there’s more demand for dental care than what dentists can provide, Roach said.

People who live in remote mountainous areas sometimes hike a full day to reach regional or nationally-sponsored medical services, Roach said.

“They do high end care — dentures, bridges and crowns — it’s just a problem of access,” he said. “There are parts of the country that are extremely rural. Roads are a new thing. A lot of the people in the hinterlands, up in the mountains. It’s hard to get to them. It’s hard for them to get to services.”

Success in Guatemala

But, Roach isn’t one to back down from a challenge. For years, he’s set up various types of dental clinics in remote Guatemalan villages. The improvement he’s seen in people’s teeth over the years is remarkable.

One little girl had a set of rotting baby teeth the first time he met her. Three years later, after those teeth fell out, she’s stayed cavity-free. That’s all thanks to teaching people to properly brush their teeth and consume less sugar.

“(Seeing her cavity-free) was the happiest day of my life,” he said.

Those pop-up clinics sparked an idea. He could help Bhutanese dentists start a similar venture, build up the country’s mobile dentistry and rural outreach.

“It’s about being able to go to where the need is,” he said. “Delivering care in the open air.”

Pop-up clinics

Ideally, with the help of Bhutan’s King, he’d like to set up government-sponsored pop-up clinics, where teams of dentists from around the world could help with care in rural areas.

Roach is traveling for a week to Bhutan in May, with two fellow dentists and staff members. They’ll give a continuing education seminar to the country’s dentists.

“I’ll probably talk to them about the current trends about what we’re doing (in dentistry) in the United States,” Roach said. “They’re still making crowns like we made them in 1950.”

Great dentistry, Roach said. But, it takes a lot of time and effort.

For example, digital dentistry allows dentists to design 50 crowns on a computer in the time it takes to design one crown by hand. A machine can mill out all of the crowns in a matter of hours, which frees up dentists to continue other work, Roach said.

“It’s about understanding the value and virtue of scale for access. Doing the old way just takes more time. It’s like industrialization, basically,” Roach said.

With just more than 780,000 people in the entire country, Roach said dentists in Bhutan could easily help a lot of people and the country’s economy.

“They could provide a whole lot of preventative care and restoration of teeth with a fairly minimal investment, from an equipment standpoint,” he said.

Roach still plans to pop into dental clinics in Guatemala. But, Bhutan is particularly special, he said. He’s drawn to the culture, all based upon communally doing the right thing, self-awareness and happiness. A good place for bright smiles.

“I’m evolving to not do all the dentistry myself (like in Guatemala). Just try to prevent it, and to teach other people to take care of it,” Roach said.