Students put rivalry aside, join forces for good cause
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 12, 1997 9:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 13, 1997
ACTIVISM:
Schools unite, offer free dental care for impoverished
childrenBy Peggy Shen
Daily Bruin Contributor
The sun is shining, children are smiling, and UCLA and USC
students are working side by side.
The scene described may be a little hard to imagine, but it
actually represents a typical Saturday for anywhere from 20 to 100
Bruin and Trojan dental school students.
For more than 25 years, groups of mostly 2nd and 3rd year UCLA
and USC students have volunteered their time on weekends at mobile
dental clinics to provide free care to impoverished children
throughout the state.
While the mobile clinic was originally founded by USC faculty
members, UCLA students were invited to join in 1971 and have been
involved ever since, working as volunteer dental care providers in
USC trailers.
An all-day clinic at Madison Elementary School in Pasadena this
past Saturday, however, was a special event, as the two schools
dedicated a new mobile unit that includes both USC and UCLA on the
vehicle’s signage for the first time.
"They are actually recognizing us by putting our names on the
mobiles," said Koren Borland, a fourth year student at the UCLA
School of Dentistry.
In the new trailer, UCLA’s blue and yellow colors are on one
half of the dental units, while the USC red and yellow are on the
other half, she said.
Dr. Ed Maggiore, a UCLA faculty advisor for the mobile clinic
program, said he is pleased with the venture because it gives UCLA
some visibility and cements its presence in the clinic.
"After years of collaboration, it is recognized that UCLA is an
integral part of the program," he said.
The Mobile Clinic Program was created in 1965 by Dr. John
Ronnau, a USC oral surgery professor who took students down to
Mexico to provide free dental care.
They did not even have any trailers, said Dr. Charlie Goldstein,
clinical professor and chairman of the Section of Community
Dentistry and Public Health at the USC School of Dentistry and also
founder of the "modern" clinic.
Goldstein became director of the program in 1970 and officially
expanded it to a more comprehensive state. He invited UCLA students
to join the program under the suggestion of his neighbor, Cal
Kurtzman, a doctor of public health at UCLA.
UCLA students did not pass up the opportunity.
"It is very difficult to start a program," said Maggiore. "It
made a lot of sense to have a larger program and join it."
Since then, UCLA and USC students work together on Saturdays on
a strictly volunteer basis, while USC students can work in the
mobile clinic during the week to receive school credit.
"One of the nice things about having UCLA work with us is that
we have different schedules," said Goldstein, director emeritus of
the mobile clinic program, allowing UCLA students to volunteer when
USC students may be more busy and vice versa, thus maximizing the
number of volunteers at the clinic.
UCLA is now contributing more than faculty and students by
putting its $50,000 grant from Delta Dental Plan of California into
the purchase of the first USC/UCLA mobile unit.
Having already used its grant from Delta Dental to buy trailers
and equipment for the mobile clinic, USC matched the funds with
donations from its support group of former students called the
Mobile Clinic Committee of 500.
The mobile clinic’s regular operating expenses are funded by
grants, counties and different agencies. Nevertheless, according to
the program’s faculty advisors, it is the dedication and efforts of
the students that truly make the mobile clinic run as well as it
does.
"Students are what makes the thing go," said Goldstein, adding
that "both the UCLA and USC students get along beautifully."
"There is a little bit of harassment now and then," said Todd
Arndt, a fourth- year UCLA dental school student and representative
for the mobile clinic. "Since it is not undergraduate, it changes
things a little bit," he said.
"Even though we disagree on (how things are done)," said
Borland, "we all have fun together at the end."
GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
Graduate students Anjali Patel (l.) and Charles Kao, both in the
UCLA School of Dentistry, volunteer their time to perform dental
work on a boy.
"the UCLA and USC students get along beautifully."
Dr. Charlie Goldstein
Mobile Clinic Director
