Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 1

29 Issue 1 | 2020 | I ssues and P eople W hen Dr. Shelly Stack signs “toothbrush” in American Sign Language (ASL), she holds her right index finger up to her teeth and moves it up and down. The sign for “flossing” involves both hands, each holding one end of an invisible length of floss, which she holds up to the top teeth on both sides of her mouth. When she signs, Dr. Stack’s face is expressive and animated, and her hands move elegantly in the air in front of her. Dr. Stack is one of only a few dentists in Canada who can communicate directly with Deaf and hard of hearing patients. She says that there aren’t many ASL signs for dental vocabulary, so she often co-creates them chairside, “on the fly,” with patients. “We have computers in the operatories so we can show X-rays and pictures, which helps communicate visually,” says Dr. Stack. “I can point to an image and then explain what a cavity is, why it happened, and what we will do to treat it.” Dr. Stack grew up in North Carolina, worked in a dental office part-time during high school, and started a degree in hygiene when she was 18. “But I didn’t really know what I wanted when I was that age,” she says, and she didn’t finish the program. Instead, she took classes at the Sharing a Language Using American Sign Language to Communicate with Patients