RALEIGH, N.C. — Wake Tech is getting new money to train more dental hygienists and assistants. The Raleigh community college is among the first groups to receive funding from the Delta Dental foundation of North Carolina, which announced a $1 million statewide commitment Thursday at Raleigh’s Alice Aycock Poe Center for Health Education.
The college says its share will buy simulation tools and equipment for its Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting programs. Demand is the issue: Wake Tech gets more qualified applicants each year than its dental programs have room for, and it is working to add capacity. It is also planning night classes so dental assistants who are already working can go on to become hygienists.
The foundation says the need reaches across the state. Although the number of dentists in North Carolina has nearly doubled in 20 years, more than half of them work in just six counties, and every one of the state’s 100 counties is listed in whole or in part as a dental health professional shortage area. Four rural northeastern counties have no dentist at all.
Beyond Wake Tech, the commitment will support community college hygiene and assisting programs, university dental schools and community groups that offer oral health care and education.
Dental hygiene is also part of the college’s proposed Workforce Forward Bond, which would pay for work on the hygiene clinic, the simulation lab and the dental lecture hall at the Perry Health Sciences Campus. Wake Tech, the state’s largest community college, serves more than 76,000 adults a year.
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