Katrina Mattision-Chalwe, dental director at Piedmont Health, return to her native Orange County after dental school in Nashville, Tenn., to find her dream job.
“I was born and raised here and just wanting to help people,” she said. “So, I always knew I was going to come back home.” She calls working at PHS a “dream come true” because of its mission to provide quality health care to anyone who needs it — whether they have insurance or not.
Oral care, especially for children, has become a focus for Dr. Mattison-Chalwe because it is an opportunity to further education parents when their kids a younger. For example, pacifiers are good but only until the child reaches 12 months of age. After that, a pacifier can actually begin to cause harm. Safety measures and precautions are important as well, such as having a bathtub nozzle cover in case a child slips in the bathtub, since they could potentially hit their mouth on the bathtub faucet. “We try to broaden the spectrum of what parents think about,” she said.
In 2020, Piedmont Health will roll out its mobile dentistry program, with a new vehicle that will provide full dental services to people who cannot access a dentist.
“We have a migrant farmer work program, so we can actually go out to whatever farm they are working on,” Dr. Mattison-Chalwe said. The mobile unit will also service elementary schools and middle schools in the PHS four-country service area. The new mobile dentistry vehicle will be on the road by August.
According to Dr. Mattison-Chalwe, one of her proudest moment at PHS has been providing a women who had lost all of her teeth with dentures. She said the woman had lost most of her facial structure, but when fitted with the dentures looked about 20 years younger.
“When she saw herself in the mirror, she started crying. It was instant gratification for her as well as us. It did my heart good and it did her good to be able to help her get her smile back,” Dr. Mattison-Chalwe said.
“Reflections” is a recurring series on Chapelboro.com sponsored by Piedmont Health Services that will highlight local healthcare professionals striving with purpose and passion to keep our community happy, healthy and thriving.
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