Spring 2000

UNC-CH Development

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Carolina dental students will provide care to needy patients across the state through a three-year, $228,000 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. The grant to the Dental Foundation of North Carolina and the School of Dentistry will help fund the school’s Dentistry in Service to Community program (DISC).

The DISC program allows dental students to provide preventative and restorative dental care to low income, minority, disabled, aged and youthful patients.

The DISC program will introduce 150 future dentists to non-private practice dental careers primarily in North Carolina’s rural areas. Every year for the next three years 50 dental students will be selected to serve in county health departments, community health centers and other state institutions. Practicing dentists monitor student performance in the clinics.

"The DISC program will help further the school’s mission to serve the people of North Carolina – all of the people," said Ron Strauss, chairman of the school’s department of dental ecology. "It will further our efforts to broadly promote the health of the public."

In the past, only seniors were required to complete off-campus clinical assignments. But by the senior year many students have formed ideas for their dental careers. Strauss said the added assignments would help guide younger students who have not yet formed those ideas. "It will expose students to underserved populations and encourage them to include disadvantaged persons in their future dental practices," he said.

The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust was created in 1947 by the will of Mrs. William N. Reynolds of Winston-Salem. Three fourths of the income of the trust is designated for use for health-related programs and services across North Carolina and one fourth for the poor and needy of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.

—Lindsey Emery ’01

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