A new decade can herald fresh beginnings and new starts, but this decade has begun instead with enormous tragedy in Haiti and ongoing problems in the US.

Here in Wisconsin, a new study released by the WDA announces and predicts a continuing shortage of dentists treating low income patients.  The study was funded by Delta Dental of Wisconsin and conducted by U. of Conn. researchers.  It puts the number of dentists in the state at 3,142, with a quarter of them treating people on Medicaid.

Our Dentist Placement Program is part of many attempts to improve this situation, since we seek to find dentists for the federally qualified community health center dental clinics that treat everyone, regardless of insurance or income.    We are currently working to fill openings around the state.  Some are very rural spots, but others are in metropolitan areas.  We urge  dentists who want to provide quality care with professional support staff in fine facilities to contact us for details.  We especially want to hear from dentists with five years experience. My email is siik@wisc.edu.   So this year we won’t say Happy New Decade, but ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’, which is a good Midwest idea.  May your decade improve quickly!