Lasting Impressions | Fall 2016

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 3 BY JOHN DOLEN If there’s such a thing as dental angels, then surely there was one over the shoulder of NSU’s Ana Karina Mascarenhas, B.D.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H., that day in 2011 when she and Joyce Lawrence, M.D., hatched an idea to serve schoolchildren in Miami-Dade County. At the time, children from three elementary schools in North Miami were being provid- ed preventive dental care, including sealants, in a program funded by a grant from the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation. At the time of their meeting, Lawrence was involved in a similar mission with the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation to help provide health care to nine North Miami schools. Her program covered nurses and physicians serving the schools. As the two profession- als conferred on a new grant proposal, a key twist came up that married the two e orts. What if Mascarenhas and her cadre from NSU’s College of Dental Medicine trained the school nurses and physicians under Lawrence’s purview? Could they not then conduct Healthy Starts