Dr. Swann

I was introduced to dentistry by my Mom. As a young Mother with three sons, she applied and got accepted into a dental assisting training program; I assisted her by drawing her tooth diagrams. She successfully completed the course and was hired to work as an assistant and front desk person, in a practice that included a dentist and a primary care physician. 

On my first ever visit to the dentist at age 12, I had 13 cavities.

As I thought about career choices, I considered engineering, dentistry, and agriculture. I wasn't the best at Math so I took engineering out of the equation, and since agriculture was not available where I attended school, dentistry became my focus. I took a pre-med curriculum and majored in psychology. I was then accepted into the University of California at San Francisco School of Dentistry. 

In addition to the required dental and medical courses, I was very active in community dental outreach programs. I volunteered every chance that I got and eventually became the student coordinator. Upon graduation, I was selected for a fellowship program in Malawi, Africa, but the apartheid relationship with South Africa worked against me due to my race and principles. So the program was switched to Jamaica, West Indies where we trained dental assistants, worked with a farming community, and built a new dental clinic.

I started working in the public sector from Jamaica to East Palo Alto, California, and then into private practice where 1/4 of my patients were always public health recipients. This trajectory lasted 25 years. I began leading groups of dentists and teachers in Africa and realized that I had lost interest in the business of dentistry and wanted to devote my career to the public sector, full-time. 

I needed to learn the language of public health and how to conduct research, advocacy, and policy and to understand a multidisciplinary approach toward health. 

After I was accepted to the Harvard School of Public Health, and joined the faculty at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, I began calling myself an oral physician. I learned about "group" dental appointments and began to become more innovative with that method to design group denture appointments and pregnancy groups for oral health. I began outreach programs in 3rd world countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, and many countries in Africa such as Rwanda and Ethiopia to have a role in starting their first dental schools. I also joined the RAM team (Remote Area Medicine) to provide emergency treatment to underserved communities across the United States. I have worked on refugee populations in Lebanon Greece and Morocco. 

Currently, I direct a Native American program with the Wampanoag Tribe on Martha's Vineyard and work with another tribe, the Cherokee Eastern Band in North Carolina. I am a father with six daughters and I live on a farm in east Tennessee. 

It's difficult to explain, but somehow it's working.

COVID showed us what can happen if chunks of our community are sick, it spreads. Oral health is similar, but the spread is different. The association of dental disease is associated with other diseases that will cause people to suffer and eventually die. We are training more dentists, and then an equal number of them will retire. And most dentists will not treat poor people or those without health benefits or much money.

  We need to create a different model in this country so everyone can have a dental home. Our training institutions encourage graduates to repeat the same models with large populations left out in the cold. We can do better and health professionals should learn about integrated models that are inclusive of all aspects of our communities, which include the elderly, the disabled, homeless adults and children, migrants, and more. Health care needs an overhaul and your generation has to use their innovation and technology to educate more people to prevent diseases before they start because it's too expensive to pay for treatment.

Editor: Lisa Maruyama