Only on ABC-7: Dental school’s impact on El Paso’s health

Texas Tech Health Sciences Center announced nearly a month ago that it will open a dental school in El Paso. ABC-7 wanted to find out what the next steps are ahead of the opening of the Woody L. Hunt School of Dental Medicine, and how a dental school will change the health of El Paso residents.

Dr. Richard Lange, the president of Texas Tech, told ABC-7 in an exclusive sit-down interview that the university has hired one of the first faculty members: Dr. Richard Black, a local dentist with an extensive resume of serving the local and state dental community.

“We’ve hired Dr. Rick Black … He will help provide expertise and leadership,” Lange said.

According to his website, Black is a member of the American Association of Orthodontists, the American Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. He is the former president of the El Paso District Dental Society as well as the Texas Dental Association. Lange said Black was also on the board of trustees of the American Dental Association.

A Sun City native, Black left his home more than 40 years ago for the University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston, but he returned and has been practicing orthodontics in East El Paso for 38 years. He told ABC-7 that he is thrilled that El Paso’s future dentists won’t have to do the same thing.

“To have a school here that will train local people as well as other people from Texas and the region — the fact that they have a chance to stay here and practice is going to be wonderful,” Black said.

Black is eager to begin teaching, though he told ABC-7 he is not sure what his specialty will be. He is excited that the dental school comes at a time when he said more attention and research is focused on oral health.

“We know that if we can get you to take care of your mouth, we can solve lots of problems,” Black said. “We’re finding out that oral disease is linked to disease in the rest of the body.”

Black also said he’s excited that of the students, a large percentage — 25 to 30 percent, according to Lange — will be El Pasoans.

“There’s certainly no shortage of people who are qualified and want to go to dental school,” he said, adding that they will help the school promote the importance of cultural competence that Texas Tech promotes in its medical and nursing schools, and plans on instituting at the dental school. “Wouldn’t it be better if we had our own local people here, taking care of those needs?”

Lange said all dental students will be required to learn Spanish — something already required of medical and nursing students.

“It’s important to learn the culture as well,” Lange said. “Because we’re going to be trying to affect healthy lifestyles, and if we don’t understand the culture, it’s going to be very difficult to do that.”

The dental students are expected to be immersed in the culture while running dental clinics in the county. Texas Tech is looking to partner with the city’s health department to staff clinics with the students — meaning that residents who may not have visited the dentist for a check-up will have the opportunity to do so.

“We know that a lot of people in this area are underserved,” Black said. “We know that they don’t go to the dentist for one reason or another, but one of the reasons is that they don’t have a place to go.”

The school will open in 2020 with about 20 dental students.

Read ABC-7’s report about the next steps to bring the dental school to fruition.