When children attend their appointments at the pediatric dental clinics associated with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Dentistry, they can receive not only care for their teeth, but also enrichment for their minds.
Through a program by the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation called A Book Just for Me, the clinic is providing free books along with toothbrushes and toothpaste for each child at the end of a dental visit. Clarice Law Eyre, DMD, chair of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Community Oral Health, knew of the program from her previous role in California and wanted to bring it here to UTHSC.
“The thing that resonated with me was that the foundation promoted health and literacy together,” she said. “When I came here a year ago, I noticed that the population that we serve fits in very much with the population that Ella Fitzgerald wanted to support.”
The College of Dentistry treats all ages of children at the Dunn Dental Building on the UTHSC campus in Memphis and at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. Most of its patients are on TennCare, which provides coverage primarily to low-income families in Tennessee.
Read more at our UTHSC news site.