Dental Hygiene Students Serves Vets from MWSU Campus Watch on Vimeo.

The dental hygiene program hosted it’s annual “stand down” event, which gave local veterans the opportunity to have a dental cleaning free of charge. Senior dental hygiene student, Kaci Morris appreciates the difference of demographic during this week of appointments.

“Anywhere from like thirty to fifty, we’ll see those a lot. But it’s rare that we get to see the older population to come in and see us,” Morris said.

Morris says this week not only helps the students meet their requirements, but it also gives them a chance become personal with their patients who have served our country.

“Definitely getting to talk to them, I mean it’s a benefit to us, really getting to talk to them and seeing what they went through and just really to help them out. I mean normal everyday patients we don’t get to do that with, so it’s awesome to get to help,” Morris said.

Help they did.  Veteran Jimmy Raeder was one of the many veterans who showed up to get the free treatment, and he says he is very grateful for the opportunity.

“It’s been great so far! These ladies in here are taking real good care of me,” Raeder said.

For this years event the dental hygiene program requested patients who have not seen a dentist in two or more years make sure to come in. These patients would be more of a challenge for the students because they would need more than just your standard cleaning. Raeder fit this criteria and he was given the works for his visit.

“They’ve picked at my teeth, they’ve taken some x-rays, I believe they’re going to be cleaning a couple teeth. I’ll come back in a month and have a few more teeth cleaned, and in a few more months have the rest of them cleaned,” Raeder said.

This was Raeders first visit and he says he plans to come back again next year.