MedCity morning read for Tuesday, March 3

A shortage of dentists has gotten so bad in Maine that medical educators in the state are training doctors to pull teeth, according to The New York Times.

Primary care doctors who do their residencies in the state are learning to lance abscesses and perform other basic dentistry under a program begun in 2005.

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“Doctors typically approach the mouth from a distance,” Dr. William Alto, a doctor at the Maine Dartmouth Family Practice Residency in rural Fairfield, told the Times. The family practice conducts one of two dental clinics for medical residents in the state.

“They say ‘say aah,’ take a look at the back of the throat and are done,” Dr. Alto said. “Many physicians, even family physicians, have given up that part of the body because they don’t have the skills.”

Maine has one dentist for every 2,300 people, compared with one doctor for every 640 people, according to the Times. And that gap is expected to widen as both doctors and dentists retire.

Nationwide, there is one dentist for every 1,600 people.

Maine has trouble recruiting dentists because many young graduates don’t want to work in rural areas. Training doctors in dentistry provides a safety net for the rural poor who have never had one, the Times said.