LCC Dental Clinic in new home

Published 5:00 pm Sunday, April 6, 2014

Lane Community College’s Dental Clinic moved from its dim quarters beneath a campus building to a remodeled top floor of a medical building on Willamette Street across from Capella Market.

Now the LCC Dental Hygiene Clinic wants to show off its new digs to prospective patients, prospective students and the community at large at an open house next week.

“People walk in and it’s open and spacious and full of light,” said Sheryl Berman, dean of the college’s division of health professions. “It’s like wow, they are very impressed.”

The LCC facility is a teaching clinic for dental assistants and dental hygienists, and it offers screenings, cleanings — and even fillings and other restorative work — to about 4,000 largely uninsured patients a year.

The clinic is on the second floor of a building that once housed Oregon Medical Group’s Southtowne Family Medicine.

LCC’s remodeling work opened up the exam rooms, somewhat, to allow visibility for teaching while retaining some privacy for patients. The result is 4,000 square feet with 19 dental rooms and eight X-ray rooms. The clinic moved in last September.

The clinic is home to 70 students, about 25 faculty members and 10 professionals, including dentists, dental hygienists and dental assistants.

The building is owned by Dr. John Polansky, an ophthalmologist whose offices occupy the building’s ground floor. Polansky bought the property in 2007 for $2.5 million, although the assessor pegged the value in 2013 at $953,020.

LCC couldn’t immediately disclose the terms of its rental agreement with Polansky.

The LCC program was homeless for about six months after its former clinic in Building 4 on campus suffered a resurgence of a longstanding “sick building” problem.

Over the years, occupants of Building 4 complained of difficulty breathing, chest congestion, allergic reactions, sinus problems, nasal congestion, headaches and other neurological reactions.

As a result, in February 2013, the college scattered its dental students across Eugene and Cottage Grove, with students learning and working in private dental offices, rather than spending full days in the old, troubled building.

Now, the campus is reclaiming the clinic space in Building 4, Berman said, by converting it into high-tech, multipurpose classrooms. The first is set to open in the fall of 2014.

The college thoroughly cleaned all the dental patient chairs and other equipment and moved it to the new clinic, she said.

The silver linings are: Clinic patients no longer have to compete with the whole LCC student body for parking spaces, and students and staff have more plentiful lunch options.

“The students love it here,” Berman said. “It’s a great area to be in. Willamette (Street) is wonderful. It’s great walking distance to so many things.”

The clinic’s two-year dental hygiene program graduated 24 students last year and its one-year dental assistant program produced 27 — and most of them are working.

“Even in this economy, 98 percent of our students have jobs, which is amazing,” Berman said.

Under the supervision of clinicians and faculty, the students provide services to everyone from young children to the elderly.

The clinic hopes for adults who haven’t seen a dentist in at least two years.

“Hygiene students have to see a certain number of people who have situations that have not been maintained in order to get their licensing,” said Leslie Greer, coordinator of the dental assistant program.

The services are low-cost. An office visit is $40, for instance, although the clinic expects to adjust its prices in the future. It will remain very low, Berman said.

The clinic, Berman said, is preparing to take on a new role: dental care provider for enrollees in the federal Affordable Care Act.

Treating ACA patients means more paperwork for the clinic but it’s definitely worth it, Berman said.

“We want to make sure people have access to dental care in our county.”