Page 34 - Dentistry Magazine 2022

34 DENTISTRY 2022
Michelle Arnett, MS, RDH
Yvette Reibel, EdD, RDH
Bothra’s research, surveys orthodontists at eleven dental schools about their experiences caring for transgender patients and the steps they have taken to improve those patients’ care. She hopes to gather better data about what happens when patients take hormones and guide the future of equitable care.
“I hope we can better understand how teeth move when a patient takes hormonal supplements so providers can recognize the need for different protocols and aid in those conversations from the moment a patient arrives in the office,” Bothra explained. “Even if a dentist is asking about medications, they need to know what kind of care methods to use based on that.”
Bothra also hopes her research leads to more compas- sionate care. “I want to recognize and identify any gaps that we have in making patients feel welcome and included,” she said.
Providing for practitioners
As Bothra worked directly with orthodontic providers, a dental therapy student is gathered information on cur- rent students in the hopes of shaping the next generation of inclusive oral health care providers.
Reibel and Arnett were impressed by the Vo’s review
of the literature, calling it a “very timely and under- researched topic.” Together with Vo, they revised and prepared the article for publication. The article was published in Dimensions of Dental Hygiene in September 2020.
“We thought that the audience of Dimensions of Dental Hygiene would benefit from the information on this particular topic,” Arnett explained.
Vo hopes providers can learn from her discoveries and change the way they approach patient-centered care. “Providers need to recognize the social determinants
of health: things like gender identity discrimination, vulnerability in the community leading to adverse health outcomes, and increased barriers to oral and general healthcare,” she explained.
Looking at care
Palak Bothra, BDS, MPH, former dental data manager at the University of Minnesota, has always been interested in disparities in care. She began to notice the same lack of information on caring for transgender patients— especially when it comes to orthodontia.
Bothra recalled one particular case where an orthodon- tist did everything they thought they could in treatment, but wasn’t seeing results. The orthodontist finally discov- ered that the patient was on hormonal supplements that impacted the patient’s response to treatment. Bothra is working to explore what dental clinics do now—and what they can do better in the future—to support transgender
patients undergoing hormone replacement therapy.
PALAK BOTHRA