Volunteer to help at our next Clinic |  www.dentalaccessdays.org 
March 2017 
News from our most recent clinic
CLINIC #10

Our most recent clinic took place at the Levy Senior Center. We treated a record number of patients, 137. This was the 6th clinic staged at Levy. Both Brad Weiss (Friday) and Chad Freund (Saturday), who triaged and routed our patients, noticed the patients we worked with had healthier mouths, needed fewer procedures, and so spent less time in the chairs. Its very gratifying to know we are having an impact at that level. Here are our results:



Our Partners
As in the past, we worked with the Evanston Park District and Health Department to get the word out to the patients in greatest need. The staff at Levy did their regular terrific job supporting our effort. We really couldn't ask for a better partner. Other organizations that helped get the word out were the McGaw YMCA, Thresholds, A Just Harvest, and Trilogy
New This Time
We added 2 more fully equipped chairs for a total of 10. Paul Nadeau and SMT Dental Lab donated two fancy hygiene stools to go with them. This added capacity is another reason for our higher number of patients seen.

Our equipment manager, Scott Decker, purchased a higher volume compressor and rigged it in tandem with our previous one. That allowed our pneumatic delivery systems to maintain peak performance when everyones hand pieces and suction were operating at the same time. As Geeky as that may sound a number of dentists commented on how much better the hand pieces (drills) were working.

Scott also purchased a 3rd Cavitron and low suction delivery system so we were able to increase our daily number of hygienists to three (actually 4 on Friday due to some last minute shuffling)

Our supply sergeant Kelly Kowalski became Kelly Bahmandeji a few weeks before the clinic. We were all relieved to find out she wasn't going to hyphenate her new name with the old one. Kelly made some changes to our supply layout that received high marks from our providers.

April Lehman of Ivoclar evaluated our hygiene instruments for sharpness weeks before the  clinic. Chad Freund from Nolan Freund in Glenview did a similar function for the dental instruments and burs. Nordent Manufacturing in Elk Grove Village, at NO charge, sharpened the dull instruments and Komet, with the aid of their rep Bill Clancy, donated lots of burs that filled the gaps in our supply.  That again drew compliments for a good improvement.

With everyone working so efficiently, our two autoclaves became a bottleneck. So April Lehman contacted a friend at Henry Shein Dental and Shein sent over a Statim 2000. That's a high speed autoclave that sterilizes instruments in 6 minutes instead of 45 minutes.

On Saturday, Kimbra Bloom brought in two ultrasonic cleaners - one for instruments and one for dentures (she and Spencer donated the denture cleaner permanently). That made cleaning the instruments prior to sterilizing much more effective and eliminated our use of bleach which was rusting some of our stainless steel instruments (I know, rusting stainless? Surprised us too).
Our results




Next Clinic - April 20 & 21 2018
We are hoping that it will be at the Willye White Rec Center 1610 Howard in Chicago. But so far,despite our success there last March, the city is refusing approval because we lack insurance to protect them. At this point we are going to go for the date and work to find a viable venue.

Despite this being early, please consider volunteering now and blocking out your schedule .   Here's a link to the registration form on  our website  www.dentalaccessdays.org or on Facebook at Dental Access Days . Be sure to include your email. That's the primary means we use to communicate.

Going for 3 in 2018
We're looking to add a 3rd clinic date in 2018. Most likely on the north side of Chicago or near suburb. We have lots of prospects for locations. But the deciding factor will be building up our volunteer base of providers. Most of our dentists come back to us year after year. But filling our roster for more events will, no doubt, wear out our welcome. So.....
We'll be recruiting volunteers at the Mid-Winter Dental Meeting Feb 20-22



The MidWinter Dental Meeting, held at McCormick Place, organized by the Chicago Dental Society, is the biggest commercial dental event in the Mid-West. CDS is gifting a 10ft booth space and Benchmark Imaging & Display will gift an attention grabbing display so we can recruit more professionals and connect with other professional organizations and suppliers. 
Heather and I thank all of you for the help and care you made possible


This work we do is as much a blessing to us it as to those receiving treatment. It takes 50+ volunteers and the cooperation of municipal governments, social agencies, and dental supply companies to make a Dental Access Days clinic happen. Each time it does we get a short glimpse of what our world looks and feels like when healthcare is defined as loving your neighbor.


Dental Access Days | 847-290-0002 | dentalaccessIL@gmail.com |   http://www.dentalaccessdays.org
221 Lively Blvd
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007