Gerald Ferretti crusades for healthy teeth in children
New pediatric dental chair strengths role in medical
education, community
November 15, 2005
| For more information: Susan Griffith 216-368-1004
Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine’s new chair
of pediatric dentistry, Gerald Ferretti, would like to see school buses rolling
to a stop at the doors of Case’s dental school clinics on Emergency Drive.
It is all part of his vision to help children with a lack of access to dental
care maintain good oral health.
Ferretti recently came to Case from the University of Kentucky College of
Dentistry, where for more than 20 years he was a professor of pediatric dentistry
and also director of Physicians Oral Health Education in Kentucky.
Officially joining Case October 1, Ferretti readied for his new faculty position
with a strategic plan that includes education and community initiatives to
reverse the early loss of teeth and tooth decay in children.
While baby teeth are eventually lost to make way for permanent teeth, Ferretti
cites many reasons for preserving their health:
- Losing baby teeth due to infections can cause disease in the new teeth
forming.
- Children can fall behind in school because of days missed from toothaches.
- Oral
infections can impact the child’s health later in life, with
known health links to heart disease, diabetes and preterm labor.
- The early
loss can also have long-term economic consequences and impact job prospects
by altering appearances with unhealthy or missing teeth.
As part of his
campaign to save those first teeth, Ferretti envisions strengthening the
graduate program in pediatric dental medicine and integrating oral health education
into the curriculum and training of medical students and resident doctors
at the Case School of Medicine and at University Hospitals of Cleveland’s
Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.
“We need to enlist non-dental personnel in our strategies,” he
said, “because physicians and nurses see a child 12 to 14 times before
a child may have its first dental visit.”
This initiative also reflects one of the major focuses of the U.S. Surgeon
General, who wants oral health education integrated into medicine.
Ferretti also plans to increase the number of graduate dental students from
six pediatric dental residents to eight. These graduate dental students obtain
their specialized training in the Irving and Jeanne Tapper Pediatric Dental
Clinic at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. He also sees a boost
in the clinic’s staff to accommodate expanded hours of operation.
While Tapper Clinic staff treats the oral health needs of children undergoing
bone marrow, heart surgeries, cancer treatment or other health threatening
illnesses, this hospital-based clinic also serves families seeking the specialized
care of pediatric dentists or referrals from the family dentist for special
oral health needs.
“The other part of my job is to give Case student dentists an excellent
experience in pediatric dentistry in the student clinics in the dental school,” said
Ferretti. “We want students to understand behavioral and development
issues of children and to know how to treat all aspects of their dental diseases.”
Continuing education for the 50 area pediatric dentists is another priority
and a vital part of his new role at Case. He plans to host professional meetings
at the dental school every two months for dentists interested in new pediatric
research and professional training.
Ferretti’s initiatives reflect his background in dental medicine and
public health. One public health problem he would like to conquer is “baby
bottle decay” that comes from the pooling of milk or juice behind the
baby’s teeth when going to sleep—now cited by the U.S. Surgeon
General as a contributor to an epidemic of early childhood caries.
Some children will suffer from such severe oral health problems that they
need surgery to treat their oral infections, said Ferretti.
He would like to institute a national initiative at Case that treats preschool
children in Head Start programs with a new fluoride varnish material that seals
the baby teeth and reverses infections to rebuild these first teeth.
While at Kentucky, he trained teachers, school nurses and others in the user
friendly treatment process, which is easily applied several times a year in
a familiar setting like the classroom or doctor’s office.
Ferretti oversaw the fluoride varnish training of approximately 1,000 public
health nurses over two years that has resulted in some 5,000 applications done
monthly in Kentucky. An average application of fluoride varnish costs $10 per
application, and compared to a $5,000 visit to the operating room by one child,
Ferretti says, it is cost effective.
“We can treat quite a few children for what one operation costs,” he
explained.
Early intervention is the key to healthy teeth. Efforts to apply the fluoride
varnish program coupled with the intervention efforts of the Healthy Smiles
Sealant Program under the direction of James Lalumandier, Case dental school’s
chair of community dentistry, will preserve teeth, he said.
With intervention programs for preschoolers, Ferretti said he hopes to eliminate
most of the dental infections that Case student dentists find in second-graders
they examine in the Healthy Smiles program.
Lalumandier and Case dental students visited 98 schools last year for the
Healthy Smiles Sealant Program in the Cleveland Municipal School District.
The sealant program provides free dental examinations and sealants to healthy
first permanent molars of second and sixth grade students. Children with dental
needs are referred to a network of community dentists or the Case dental clinics.
The new pediatric dental chair trained for his doctor of dental science at
Georgetown University, with his master’s of dental science from the University
of Connecticut and a master’s of science in public health from the University
of Kentucky.
In addition to his efforts in the areas of education and community outreach,
he also plans to continue his research in the area of public health services.
About Case Western Reserve University
Case is among the nation's leading research institutions. Founded in 1826
and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western
Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research,
service, and experiential learning. Located in Cleveland, Case offers nationally
recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering,
Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work. http://www.case.edu.
|
