The Arkansas Advocate takes an in-depth look into the Lyon College School of Dental Medicine
By Antoinette Grajeda, Arkansas Advocate
The head of the state’s first dental school is hopeful the institution will spark generational improvement in Arkansans’ oral health and increase access to care once it opens this summer.
Dr. Burke Soffe, founding dean of the Lyon College School of Dental Medicine, said there’s a huge need for providers and a better distribution of them given the rural nature of the state. Arkansas had 41.24 dentists per 100,000 people in 2023, the least of any state, according to a report from the American Dental Association.
Because Arkansas is one of 14 states without a dental school, students study at out-of-state institutions like the University of Tennessee in Memphis and often don’t return home, contributing to the Natural State’s low dentist-to-population ratio.
“Our state has several dental provider shortage areas, and it is our hope that an Arkansas-based dental school will recruit local students and train dentists who want to work in those higher-need areas,” said Kerry Krell, statewide program supervisor for the Arkansas Department of Health’s Office of Oral Health. “Increasing access to oral health care for all populations would positively impact our state’s oral health.”
Lyon College is still working through the accreditation process, but anticipates welcoming its first class of 80 students in June. Students will participate in the first three-year program to start from scratch since the 1970s, Soffe said. While the majority of dental schools offer four-year programs, Soffe said Lyon’s unique year-round program that can be completed in three years will save students money and better prepare them for the life of a dentist.
“Because unless dentists have really made a killing, they’re not taking summers off and they’re not taking really long breaks, because who’s taking care of their patients,” he said. “So we believe that we will have a very efficient program that will get these graduates out into their communities earlier and with less debt.”
Tuition and fees are $102,000 per year for a total of $306,000 over the three years.
Lyon College’s main campus is in Batesville, but the private school’s dental school will be located on seven floors encompassing approximately 127,000 square feet of the old Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Little Rock’s Riverdale neighborhood. Lyon has signed a long-term lease and should the need for additional space arise, the college will explore opportunities to lease space for expansion at that location, Director of College Communications Carol Langston said.
Lyon College will have invested more than $25 million in construction and equipping of the Riverdale campus, with construction of two clinical floors, a 100-unit simulation clinic, multiple classroom and collaboration areas, and faculty and administrative offices, Langston said. The project is being supported by a $15 million federal appropriation secured by U.S. Sen. John Boozman last March, according to a press release.
Being centrally located will give the school the ability to reach areas of highest need in neighboring counties, and the dental school plans to partner with other organizations, Soffe said. Lyon and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, for example, signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022 that agrees to identify opportunities for joint teaching, research, education and professional development, according to a press release.
Lyon College is also working with the Arkansas Department of Health and the Arkansas Health Coalition to increase awareness of oral health in Arkansas. In April 2024, ADH’s Office of Oral Health and the Arkansas Health Coalition partnered with Lyon to sponsor an Oral Cancer Awareness night with the Arkansas Travelers baseball team, Krell said.
ADH’s Office of Oral Health focuses primarily on preventive measures. From July 2023 through June 2024, ADH distributed more than 62,000 oral health kits and worked with partners to place over 7,200 preventive dental sealants, Krell said. Meanwhile, the state’s local health units provided more than 7,600 fluoride varnishes, averaging over 600 children 18 and younger per month.
“Another focus of the ADH OOH is improved care coordination between medical and dental providers through education, emphasizing the importance of discussing the oral health and systemic health connection with patients for improved health outcomes,” Krell said.
Access to care and oral health literacy are two factors leading to Arkansas’ poor oral health outcomes, Soffe said. Lyon College aims to tackle both issues by placing providers in communities in need and casting a wide net to improve oral health literacy, he said.
Specifically, Soffe plans to have dental students in K-12 schools because “cycle breakers” are needed to address the culture of oral health, which comes from parents and family and can be perpetuated for generations.
“We really need a generational impact, we need a generational change where we’re reaching the younger generations to develop cycle breakers where they recognize it is important to go to the dentist every six months,” he said.
Cost of care
Although it’s entirely preventable, tooth decay is cited as the most common chronic disease among children, Krell said. According to the ADH Office of Oral Health’s 2023 Basic Screening Survey, of the 3,500 students in 51 Arkansas schools surveyed, 59.4% had decay experience, while another 17.7% had untreated decay.
Other factors, such as a comparatively high smoking and tobacco use rate, contribute to poor oral health outcomes for adult Arkansans, Krell said.
Lack of access to oral care and education as well as fear can all prevent people from seeking dental care. The challenge with dentistry is it’s progressive, so a small issue that’s ignored can become a bigger issue that results in limited, more expensive options, Soffe said.
Nationwide, one of the biggest reasons people don’t go to the dentist is finances, he said. Soffe said Lyon College hopes to address this by providing cost-efficient alternatives.
“We hope to do a lot of community events and make sure that we are a safety net clinic for the underserved, and that’s the long game,” he said. “The long game is making that change in people’s lives that they recognize it is important for them and it is important for their kids and their loved ones.”
In 2024, Soffe participated in Arkansas Mission of Mercy, a two-day charitable event hosted by the Arkansas State Dental Association with support from Delta Dental of Arkansas. The annual event provides free dental services to around 2,000 patients, ASDA executive director Billy Tarpley said.
While much is made about Arkansas’ low dentist-to-population ratio, Tarpley said the better question is what’s the ratio of dentists to the population that desires dental services because not everyone wants it.
“So often even dentists in areas that tend to be underserved still have empty chair time,” he said. “Why? Because the people in that area don’t value oral health or they think the cost is too high. But as we’ve seen, even with Medicaid that’s free, they still don’t go or still don’t take advantage of the services that are available to them.”
Arkansans on Medicaid can access free dental care that’s sometimes more comprehensive than what’s available on private insurance, but Medicaid recipients don’t visit the dentist at a higher rate, Tarpley said.
To better educate the public about oral health, Tarpley said he’d like to see information about babies’ oral care incorporated into efforts to improve maternal health outcomes in the state.
Even if better oral health education leads to additional people seeking dental services, Tarpley said more still needs to be done to keep dentists in Arkansas and entice them to work in underserved areas.
“If we really want to drive dentistry into the rural parts of the state and address some of those issues, we would come up with some sort of repayment program, but it would have to be generous enough to make it an overwhelming choice,” he said.
Soffe said he’s excited and humbled to be part of the process of creating the state’s first dental school and is hopeful it “creates the impact that we’re looking for.”
“We have great people in the state, people that have been trying to start a dental school for over 20 years, so this is a long time coming and frankly really exciting and historic for the state,” he said.
The American Dental Association’s Commission on Dental Accreditation is expected to vote on Lyon’s status in January and Soffe said officials anticipate notification of the group’s decision in February.
Featured image: Lyon College School of Dental Medicine
The Arkansas Advocate is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to tough, fair daily reporting and investigative journalism that holds public officials accountable and focuses on the relationship between the lives of Arkansans and public policy.
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