From Texas to the tundra: Aggie dentist answers call to serve the underserved in Alaska

There comes a point in every dental and dental hygiene student’s career when they have to ask themselves an important question: What’s next? What comes after dental school? For Richard Rodriguez ’21, his answer to this question took him to “The Last Frontier,” where he serves as a public health dentist in Anchorage, Alaska.

Rodriguez is a staff dentist with the Southcentral Foundation, a Native-owned nonprofit that serves roughly 70,000 Alaska Native and Native American people living in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and nearby villages. On an average day, he sees at least eight patients, often more, providing basic dental exams, extractions, root canals and delivering removable prostheses. Twice a year, he also travels to St. Paul, a small island in the Bering Sea, where he offers dental services two weeks at a time. Only a few hundred people live on the island, and he said his visits provide the only dental care most of them ever receive.

Finding a path

Rodriguez has been interested in dentistry since he was a kid. He had a great dentist when he was growing up in Odessa, Texas, who initially sparked his interest in dentistry. His mother was also a nurse, and he became interested in her textbooks and what she did at work every day.

“It was always a question of ‘dentistry or medicine?’” he said. “Then my older sister decided to go into dentistry. Maybe it was just me being lazy, since she did the groundwork of researching how to become a dentist, but I decided to follow her path.”

Prior to enrolling in Texas A&M School of Dentistry, he participated in the school’s Summer Pre-Dental Enrichment Programs, which provide rising 10^th graders through post-baccalaureate students training in the basics of dentistry, college and dental school prep, and guidance on pursuing various oral healthcare careers. When Rodriguez began considering dental schools, the choice was easy. He’d had such a good experience, he wanted to continue at Texas A&M and further build on the relationships and contacts he had established.

“It just felt right and natural,” he said.

Rodriguez said he made one of his most significant contacts his first year when he met Peggy Timothé, an associate professor in public health sciences.

“My first year of dental school I was going to study through lunch, as is very common in dental school,” he said. “My friends invited me to this lecture session hosted by the SNDA (Student National Dental Association) with free food. They introduced Dr. Timothé, and I learned more about her very impressive career and her passion for public health. I sent her an email after that, and a few weeks later we had an in-person meeting.

“I talked to her about my passions and goals and my own interest in public health … so we found each other at the perfect time.”

Rodriguez said Timothé was an inspiration to him and a vital mentor throughout his dental school career. With her help, he sought to learn more about dental public health and founded the school’s student chapter of the Amerian Association of Public Health Dentistry. This student organization aimed to introduce the concept of public health policy to students.

“That was my second year of dental school,” he said. “[The organization] focused on how we could serve our patients better, but we also learned about how policy and our electoral system can have an impact on people’s health or access to care.”

Although Timothé had tried for several years to form a student chapter of the AAPHD, she said it really needed to be student-led, not faculty-led, so she was pleased Rodriguez took on the challenge.  She found in him a kindred spirit and shared passion for this field of medicine and said she was learning from him, even while teaching him.

“I learned a lot from Dr. Rodriguez regarding leadership and successful methods for motivating students,” Timothé said. “Because of his efforts, the school has a student group dedicated to working on community oral health issues.”

Rodriguez said public health issues desperately need more attention, not only in Texas or Alaska, but also across the country. More people need to understand how outside factors such as economic status, location and other real-world circumstances can impact a community’s health just as much as germs or cavities.

“I didn’t know what public health was until my senior year of college, but I realized very quickly that there’s so much that affects our health on the day-to-day outside of access to clinical care,” he said. “As a provider in health care, when I see people struggling with an issue—whether it’s oral health or another kind—I often see there are factors impacting that issue beyond my control. It’s important for people to realize that these factors exist, and it’s important for more people to understand how we can invest in prevention. There will always be disease, but we can reduce the workload on health care providers.”

Exploring the ‘The Last Frontier’

Rodriguez first began to consider Alaska as a place to launch his career between his third and fourth years in dental school, he said. As he perused the list of externships, most of which were in the Dallas area, he came across a listing for Barrow, Alaska. Unfortunately, he was unable to pursue that opportunity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the idea of Alaska lingered in the back of his mind.

After earning his DDS in 2021, Rodriguez attended Yale where he earned a master’s degree in public health in 2022. Shortly afterward, he found an opportunity to combine his passions for dentistry and public health in the state that had captured his imagination. The rest, he said, is history.

“As I dove into my master’s and learning about oral health policies, I learned that a lot of interesting things happen in Alaska,” he said.

He noted that Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska, and it’s a good transition from big city life to a more rural setting.

“Then there’s the excitement of working in a different state and different part of the world,” he said.  “Also, I was sick and tired of sweating all the time!”

Looking to the future, Rodriguez said Alaska has captured his heart, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to leave it. However, he said he’s never stopped seeking new adventures or new opportunities for continuing education. He takes life a day at a time, he said, and tries not to worry about following the stereotypical paths.

“Explore and take chances,” he advises students. “I’m really passionate about carving your own path in dentistry. Sometimes what is taught in school is not necessarily what might work for you. Dental school isn’t everything. Once you get out of school, there’s a whole world to explore. Don’t be afraid to explore and find what works for you.”

This story originally appeared in Dentistry Insights.