Celebrating the BOHCA program are (L-R) Davyn Aguero, registered dental hygienist from the Gateway Community Health Center; Deon Clerc, BOHCA student; Magda de la Torre, BOHCA director; Belia Vargas, student; and Angie Luna, student.
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Three dental hygiene students from the Health Science Center spent several weeks at the Gateway Community Health Center Inc. in Laredo polishing their craft while providing care to area residents who might not otherwise have received oral health services.

The students are the first to participate in the dental hygiene department’s “Building Oral Health Care Access” program (abbreviated BOHCA). The program name is a play on “boca,” the Spanish word for “mouth.”

Sixty-three patients received, at no cost, 741 dental hygiene procedures valued at more than $35,000, said BOHCA program director Magda A. de la Torre, assistant professor of dental hygiene at the Health Science Center. “Everyone received a full mouth set of X-rays, and 81 percent of the patients received periodontal (gum) scaling,” de la Torre said. “Webb County is a Dental Professional Shortage Area, so we were very pleased to be able to launch this program.” The BOHCA program also introduced students to area environmental issues through the Health Science Center’s South Texas Environmental Education and Research program.

Forty-two percent of the individuals said this was their first dental cleaning, de la Torre said.

“One of my patients had severe gum disease, but he was trying,” said student Belia Vargas, who was in Laredo five weeks. “He liked the care he received and told me in Spanish that he wanted to know where I worked in San Antonio so he could come get care from only me. That was one of the little ways the patients said thanks.”

The program will send four more students to Gateway next spring.

Funding for the program has been provided by a grant from the Center for South Texas Programs.

“We greatly appreciate the funding that the center has given us,” de la Torre said. “Without the center’s assistance, this program would not be possible.”

Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: (210) 567-2579
E-mail: sansom@uthscsa.edu