Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 4

(L. to r.) Dr. Heidi Rabie and dental assistants Nora El Behery, Ivana Bradovic and Winnifred Saunders, delivering boxes of toothbrushes to women's shelters in Calgary. Public Health Following graduation Dr. Rabie practised as a general practitioner in the Outaouais region of Quebec. She got married, had a child, and got divorced. At 29, she was a single mother to a two-year-old while trying to carve out a career as a dentist in private practice. Then in 2008, she saw an advertisement for work in a public health clinic in Calgary. Public health had always been something that piqued her interest, and for a single mom it made a lot of sense in that it offered stable employment with hours that were childcare friendly. She applied and got the job and moved to Alberta. And although her decision was largely driven by practical needs, it wasn’t long before Dr. Rabie realized that public health was something close to her heart. “Being able to work with vulnerable populations spoke to me on many levels,” she says. “Having experienced such upheaval when I was young gave me a glimpse of what it’s like to not be able to afford private dental care. I found working with vulnerable populations to be very rewarding. It gives instant gratification. There is so much need out there.” The Alberta Dental Foundation Dr. Rabie also serves as a board member of the Alberta Dental Foundation (ADF), a brainchild of the Alberta Dental Association and College created to improve access to dental care for underserved and low-income Albertans. Her role includes the vetting of grant proposals, the coordination of fundraising, and collaboration with other foundations in the interest of dental health. Recent initiatives include a collaboration with the University of Alberta to purchase dental equipment for underserved areas, and the Brush-Up Alberta Campaign that raised $22,000 and distributed over 38,000 oral health kits to people in need during Oral Health Month in April 2021. Although still in its infancy, the foundation ( albertadentalfoundation.ca ) offers much promise to Alberta, where the ADF estimates that 25% of the population do not receive dental care on a regular basis. It is an initiative that Dr. Rabie hopes will grow across Canada: “There is a lot of volunteer work being done in dentistry, but we don’t seem to have a collective front where we can gather funds and address important issues like access to care. The ADF is just the beginning. Hopefully in the future we can join other dental foundations in other provinces and form a larger foundation.” In public health, people are often presenting at a late stage of the progression of disease. There is a lot of pain and there is a lot of infection. By the time we see the patient, it is often an emergency. Fast forward 13 years and Dr. Rabie is now clinical chief of Public Health Dental Clinics in Calgary where she runs two clinics that provide care for socioeconomically marginalized populations. This includes people who are homeless, refugees, people suffering from addiction or mental health issues. People who have “fallen through the cracks” and are experiencing barriers to care. In order to maximize the impact of what they do, the clinics provide a basic level of care—perhaps extractions rather than root canals or crowns. In a typical year, Dr. Rabie and her team will perform in the region of 3,000 extractions, many of which are referrals from local emergency departments for patients who are in terrible pain. “It’s a public health approach. You can’t do the ideal all the time. We would love to do more root canals and crowns, but it’s just not feasible. The priority is to eliminate pain and infection. Retain what functionality we can and meet our patients where they’re at.” I ssues and P eople 27 Issue 4 | 2021 |