Marquette University School of Dentistry opens southside clinic

Event Information
Date: Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007
Time: 3 p.m.
Place: Parkway Clinic, 2906 S. 20th St.

The Marquette University School of Dentistry will host an open house at its newly opened southside clinic on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 3 to 5 p.m. Marquette University President Robert A. Wild, S.J., Tim Elverman, president of the board of the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, and MUSOD Dean William K. Lobb will speak during a brief program at 3:30 p.m. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has also been invited. Guided tours of the new clinic will be offered.

The Marquette University School of Dentistry Parkway Clinic occupies nearly 4,000 square feet on the lower level of the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center’s Parkway facility, located at 2906 S. 20th St.

The 10-chair clinic serves adolescents and adults four days a week and children under 12 on Wednesdays. A full-time faculty member oversees the state-of-the-art clinic, which is also staffed by part-time clinical faculty members in general practice dentistry and dental hygiene and specialists in endodontics, pedodontics, periodontics and prosthodontics. In addition, dental students see patients at the clinic under faculty supervision. The clinic is expected to serve more than 1,000 patients annually.

“We are delighted to be partnering with the 16th Street Community Health Center in order to provide dental services on the southside,” Father Wild said. “This facility was made possible through the extraordinary efforts not only of Marquette University but also the bipartisan efforts of the Wisconsin State Legislature, the Governor’s Office and through the generous financial and in-kind support of several private sector benefactors, including Sullivan-Schein, Pelton & Crane and Delta Dental of Wisconsin.”

MUSOD received $1 million from federal income augmentation funds made available through Wisconsin’s Department of Health and Family Services for the build-out of two clinics designed to provide dental care for low-income residents in Milwaukee. The university is negotiating a lease for a northside clinic.

Dr. Lobb said the clinic plays a critical role both in providing for the oral health care needs of low-income residents and in expanding the clinical opportunities for dental students. “For more than 25 years, Marquette’s School of Dentistry has been a key provider of oral health care in our community, both through the clinics on campus and through our satellite clinics which provide convenient access to patients,” he said.

Marquette’s School of Dentistry is one of the state’s largest dental Medicaid providers, serving more than 6,700 Medicaid patients alone annually.  Marquette dental clinics serve nearly 20,000 total patients statewide with more than 80,000 patient visits each year. Many of these patients were on Title XIX or without insurance.

Media interested in attending the open house, please contact Christopher Stolarski in the Office of Marketing & Communication at (414) 288-1988 or christopher.stolarski@marquette.edu.