PACOIMA : Dental Students Give Free Care to Poor Youths

In the belly of “the Whale,” a supine Pedro Jimenez braced himself for an 8-year-old’s nightmare. Background noise consisted of softly whirring drills and the tinkle of metal instruments.

“The Whale” is what students from USC’s Mobile Dental Clinic call the large trailer where Pedro and two other children from the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima were about to receive severely needed dental care Wednesday, at no cost to their parents.

Three other, slightly smaller mobile units, each with its own cargo of quivering patients and stoic dentists in training, were parked next to the Whale on the blacktop.

USC sent 11 fourth-year dental students to work on the Vaughn students this week, after health officials screened the 1,200 students at Vaughn to determine those most in need of dental work.

Pedro, who lives in Pacoima, was one of 120 kids selected for the program, which is a collaboration of the Los Angeles Unified School District, United Way North Angeles Region and the Los Angeles Educational Partnership.

Some would say he was lucky. Pedro, wearing a purple “Lion King” T-shirt, plaid “Lion King” shorts, white socks and high-top shoes, might not have agreed.

“Pedro, please open wide,” said Mel Gomez, 26, of Northridge, who will graduate from USC in a few months. He then plans to move to San Francisco to take over his uncle’s dental practice.

Wearing rubber gloves, a surgical mask, white shirt and shorts, Gomez picked up a long syringe and inspected the level of anesthetic while trying to block his young patient’s line of sight. Suspicious, Pedro craned his neck to see.

“OK, Pedro, put your head all the way back and open wide.”

Swiftly, Gomez raised the syringe and plunged the needle into Pedro’s lingual nerve on the lower left gum. Instantly, Pedro emitted a low wail and began crying.

Twenty agonizing seconds later, the toughest part was over; the boy’s gum was numb, and Gomez was soothing his wounded charge. Later, Gomez began drilling to fill a deep cavity in Pedro’s second primary molar on the lower left side of his jaw.

Meanwhile, two USC dental school instructors shuttled between trailers, inspecting the work.

“This gives our students a chance to really see what it’s like,” said Charlie Hsieh, one of the supervisors. “We try to do a patient an hour, starting at 9 a.m. until we finish in the evening. It’s a tough, realistic pace.”

Hsieh said USC has expanded its mobile dental program, which helps lower-income families, from nine weeklong clinics last year to 18 clinics this year, providing an estimated $70,000 to $100,000 worth of care per clinic.

Dental student Michele Chartier, 24, of Palos Verdes said one of the most important aspects of the program is educating the youngsters.

“A lot of these kids don’t even know how to brush their teeth. Well, we show them how. Or, some parents will give their kids candy as a kind of pacifier. You can see what happens,” she said, tapping a jagged, deteriorated tooth inside the mouth of Andres Garcia, 9.

“Looks like this one’s gotta go.”