SIU SDM Special Needs Patient Care Clinic Restores and Renews
The Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine (SIU SDM) Special Needs Patient Care Clinic provides quality dental care to those who need it most. The Clinic, located in Alton, meets the needs and challenges of special needs children and adults in central and southern Illinois.
It provides much needed access to dental specialists for thousands of children and adults covered under Illinois Medicaid. Board certified pediatric dentists offer complete restorative treatment for those who have been severely traumatized or who require multiple extractions.
“We see wonderful results with this program,” said Kenneth Rawson, D.M.D., associate professor in the SIU SDM and clinic director. “We work to make sure that we’re trying to treat all patients who have special needs. That may be a child who can’t cooperate for a dentist in a normal sitting, or someone who has so much extensive work that needs to be done that it requires them to be sedated.”
The Clinic is staffed by Rawson and fellow SIU SDM faculty members, associate professor Daniel Stoeckel, D.D.S., and professor Poonam Jain, B.D.S., M.S. Dental anesthesiologist and assistant professor Andrea Bell, D.M.D. provides conscious and deep sedation for simple dental treatments at the Clinic. She and the dentists perform complex treatments at Touchette Regional Hospital.
Advanced Education General Dentistry residents are provided a unique opportunity to perform restorative treatment under the supervision of a pediatric dentist at the clinic.
Upon receiving the extensive treatment needed at the SIU SDM Special Needs Patient Care Clinic, kids and adults are more likely to approach their trips to the dentist with a smile, while no longer exhibiting anxiety as they have in the past.
“This environment is much more relaxed for kids,” Rawson explained. “All of the hard work is done in one appointment. In instances where sedation is required, the patients do not remember any pain. They start to associate the dentist with a simple check up and cleaning.”
For more information on the SIU SDM Special Needs Patient Care Clinic, visit siue.edu/dentalmedicine.
