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Kansas City University (KCU) broke ground for a new facility for the College of Dental Medicine on its Joplin, Missouri campus.

KCU said in a press release that the Dental College is being established to meet the oral health needs of the four states of southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas, northeast Oklahoma, and southeast Kansas. 

The region, like many rural areas in the United States, does not have enough dentists. Almost all counties within 125 miles of Joplin are qualified as Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas (DHPSAs) by the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

In Missouri alone, 376 additional dentists will be needed to remove the DHPSA label. Oklahoma needs 166, and both Arkansas and Kansas need more than 100 to address that shortage. 

In addition to modern teaching aids, the dental university will open a dental clinic where the population can be treated.

The first class with 80 students should sit in August 2023.

The cost of building the dental school is more than $ 80 million. The university has allocated $ 40 million for the project; the rest should come from donations.

The KCU opened its Joplin Medical Faculty campus in Joplin in 2017. The first class of Osteopathic Physicians graduated last month.

(06/20/2021) Views: 666
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