Bhakti worked to improve the oral healthcare of the patients at Cahaba Valley Healthcare Clinic by providing oral health education to the patients at the Sunday clinics and setting personal goals for the patients to accomplish in the span of a month. This project later expanded to a free medical clinic (Equal Access Birmingham) where Bhakti continued to provide oral health education and is working to implement screening care for the patients, as well.

As a result of the program:

• 81 patients received counseling regarding preventive oral healthcare and treatment options
• 67 patients achieved their individual oral health goals within one month. These goals ranged from increasing water intake and decreasing sugary beverage intake to improving their current oral hygiene practices by, for example, brushing twice a day.
• Created a bi-lingual oral health education curriculum centered on preventive oral healthcare.
• Created a smoking cessation handout for Cahaba Valley Healthcare Clinic to use as needed

Bhakti will transition this project to the Academy of General Dentistry chapter at UAB as an ongoing service project.

“This experience has taught me the importance of patient-centered care and tailoring treatment to the individual patients specifically. Taking the time to actually listen to patients and understand where they are coming from can make an incredible difference in the treatment goals for that patient.”