Training dentists. Increasing access to care.

Ohio State makes dental care more accessible while giving students the experience they need to become great dentists. The runtime of this video is just over 2 minutes.

Ten-year-old Ryker Heatherly likes school. Ryker likes his cat. Ryker likes dinosaurs. Ryker does not like the dentist.

Or rather, he didn’t like the dentist. 

“He’d never been to the dentist except for when they come to his school,” says his mom, Brandy Wolford. “They didn’t explain anything to him; they just dove right in.”

Dr. Keira Ankrom and the team at the Miami County Dental Clinic changed things for Ryker.

Ankrom—or “Cool Dr. K” as Ryker calls her—and the team there are able to see as many as 30 patients a day, 500 a month, because of the support she receives from the OHIO (Oral Health Improvement through Outreach) Project, an initiative run by The Ohio State University College of Dentistry.

Fourth-year dental students spend a minimum of 43 days at private practices, health departments, hospitals and mobile dental units to get firsthand experience with patients.

“Dr. Keira, she was so patient with him, so kind,” Wolford says. “It was like she was showing her own child. She took him under her wing and said, ‘Let me show you. This is what we’ll be doing.’ Step by step by step. I felt like I was part of the family and so did my children.”