Jax Times-Union smiles at FAMU’s dental school proposal

FAMU’s proposal for a College of Dental Medicine has received an enthusiastic endorsement from a major state newspaper.

The editorial board of the Jacksonville Times-Union thinks FAMU is the right institution to run Florida’s second public dental school. It says the new college “would give FAMU a chance, as it did with its pharmacy school, to expand on its reputation of excellence in health programs, as well as bolster the state's woefully low supply of dentists.”

FAMU already runs a pharmacy school satellite campus in Southside Jacksonville. The city would likely be a top choice for one of the future dental school’s clinical training sites, as well.

From the Times-Union editorial board’s “FAMU: Building smiles for kids”:

When it comes to the future, Florida A&M University is looking westward.

There are no dental education programs in the Panhandle, but lots of people - children especially - are suffering from dental problems in that largely rural area.

Their struggles are probably one of the reasons behind the F that the Pew Children's Dental Campaign recently gave the state for not doing enough to meet their oral care needs.

FAMU already has plans to do something about that.

Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, and Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, have filed a bill to establish a dentistry school at FAMU.

Its dental education program would cater to the underserved in Northwest Florida.

Many of them have to travel as far as Gainesville for care, its president, James Ammons, recently told The Times-Union's editorial board.

If the Legislature approves, it hopes to take its first students in five years, he said.

A dental school would help children and adults in the Panhandle take better care of their teeth.

And it would give FAMU a chance, as it did with its pharmacy school, to expand on its reputation of excellence in health programs, as well as bolster the state's woefully low supply of dentists.

That's a formula that is bound to leave everyone with a healthy grin.