Northcentral Technical College in Wausau is preparing to train new dental therapists through the state’s first dental therapy degree program.
According to the National Partnership for Dental Therapy, dental therapists focus on routine dental care, such as cavity fillings, and are “specifically trained to extend routine care into chronic shortage areas.”
They’re trained similarly to dentists but on fewer procedures.
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Statewide dental therapy licenses became available in January as part of an effort to redress the shortage of dental professionals in rural areas of Wisconsin.
Laura Ahonen, Associate Dean of Allied Health & Human Services at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that $2.2 million in grant funding from the state is allowing the school to make the changes necessary to launch the program.
“We have actually moved very quickly,” Ahonen said. “Alongside [developing] the curriculum … In January 2025 we completed constructing a classroom that will seat 20 students and house 12 simulators that provide real high-definition and high-tech learning environments for students.”
When talking to “Wisconsin Today,” Ahonen also explained more about the school’s next steps in welcoming its first cohort of dental therapy students.
The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Kate Archer Kent: Can you talk about what stage you’re at in enrolling and recruiting students?
Laura Ahonen: The Commission on Dental Accreditation requires us to obtain initial accreditation status before enrolling students, so we’re waiting for the review of our application before we can enroll students in our dental therapy program.
We hope that we can enroll 12 students every fall semester. We’ll primarily recruit within our Northcentral Technical College district, but if we are not able to find 12 students here, we’ll expand that outreach to anybody within the state of Wisconsin. Then, if capacity allows, we can open it up to out of state students.
KAK: You’re launching at a time when the dental care profession, especially in rural areas of Wisconsin, is seeing a loss of dentists. Will a program like this be able to improve that situation?
LA: Absolutely. That is the reason that this program is so important. A dental therapist will function similarly to a physician’s assistant in how they provide mid-level medical health support.
If a person goes for medical care and they are treated by a physician’s assistant, there really isn’t any difference in coverage from the insurance standpoint, and so we anticipate it will be very similar in oral health care.
Whereas a dentist is trained in approximately 400 procedures, a dental therapist is trained to the same level as a dentist in about 95 procedures. The primary goal of dental therapists would be to provide restorative care, such as filling cavities and simple extractions of teeth that will allow an individual to eat foods, live pain-free and have a better overall quality of life.
We hope that dental therapists will allow for faster access to dental care and provide more equitable oral health care within the state of Wisconsin, including uninsured or underinsured patients.
KAK: Do you think patients will be ready to see dental therapists, or will they have reluctance about not being able to see a dentist?
LA: We know that one of our biggest challenges is to build awareness and to educate both the public and the dental community about the role of dental therapists.
I think it will take time and a lot of outreach education, but we will also partner with our local clinics and dental facilities to help educate patients and dentists as to what dental therapists can do.
KAK: Will Wausau community members be able to achieve better oral health because of the expansion of your dental clinic?
LA: Absolutely. We’ve had a dental hygiene program for many, many years. Right now, we have over 400 patients on our dental hygiene waiting list, and that’s not including those phone calls where we can’t even put them on a waiting list because the person needs an extraction or a filling. Since we don’t have a dental therapy program yet, we currently cannot provide that service. It’s been very difficult to turn those patients away.
We’re really looking forward to the day when those phone calls come in and we can say, “Yes. We have a dental therapy program, so we can meet that need for you.”
We get hundreds of phone calls a month from patients who don’t know where else to call. We are really looking forward to the time when we can provide some assistance for those people. With such a long wait list in Wausau, I have no doubt that this is a needed service. This is long past overdue.
