Program offers dental care to patients with anxiety and financial barriers

Taneisha Picou isn’t the biggest fan of the dentist. Between dental anxiety and the costs associated with dental work, it can cause a lot of stress. But the University of Alberta’s Mike Petryk School of Dentistry’s IV Conscious Sedation program offers a solution to both issues.

The program offers free dental work for patients facing financial barriers or dental anxiety. Patients can get cleanings, fillings, extractions, and basic check-ups. At the same time, it offers dentists the opportunity to be certified in IV conscious sedation. 

Picou has participated in the program about four times. She came across it while looking for dental coverage options when she didn’t have dental benefits. 

“It’s super important … I think it’s really great because it’s accessible for people who don’t have benefits, and then also people who have dental anxiety,” she said. 

The program runs about seven times a year now, and each time approximately 100 patients get access to dental care. Each student has to complete 21 cases across the span of a week.

Antonella Trache, an instructor in oral surgery, emphasized that they are teaching dentists worthwhile skills.

“A lot of people are scared to come to the dentist. They have high anxiety,” she explained. “So if I’m able to teach the dentist to provide IV sedation, which in turn will reduce the anxiety of the patients coming to receive treatment, I think that’s a worthwhile situation.”

“It took a lot of things to make it happen,” Yacyshyn says

James Yacyshyn is the director of continuing dental education at the U of A and created the program over 20 years ago. 

“There’s no shortage of dentists that need to be certified in sedation dentistry,” he said. “We built [the program] for them to be able to serve that endless group of nervous, anxious patients, no matter where they are.” 

He explained that dentists from across Canada come to be certified in IV conscious sedation dentistry. 

Yacyshyn said that the program wouldn’t be able to function without the support staff that assists the entire process. He also noted that the program has had many U of A students access dental care through the program.

“Without the schooling, you wouldn’t have it. Without the right people, you wouldn’t have it. Without the right structure to the program, you wouldn’t have it,” he explained. “It took a lot of things to make it happen, and for it to be going this number of years, it’s pretty cool.”