One of America’s top 10 phobias, some experts say, is going to the dentist — a prospect only slightly less attractive than pumping the septic tank or cleaning the oven. For a good share of Minnesota’s and North Dakota’s most vulnerable, though, it’s a long-awaited blessing. Two thousand of them, young and old, will be waiting in line when the sun …
“It’s not about the numbers.” That was the mantra heard daily — sometimes several times a day — from Dr. Bernard Quebral and some of the other 100-plus Minnesota volunteers on a medical mission last week to Mariveles District Hospital in the Philippines. It was heard Sunday after a “soft opening” that was meant to screen 300 patients who were there for surgeries that …
Out came the teeth, 12 in all. The extractions would at least temporarily stop the pain of one Filipino man, but it was emblematic of a nationwide crisis that yanked at the heart of an American dentist. “He’s 28. He has two children, and this was the first time he had been to a dentist,” said Dr. Kordie Reinhold, a Minneapolis dentist. “I …