Working

Heidi Philley, RDH

Heidi Philley, RDH, has spent much of her career traveling abroad and providing oral health care to people in need. She has worked in Germany, Australia, South Africa, and in the Andes Mountains in Peru. In February, she will head to El Salvador, hoping to establish a fluoride varnish program there.

Philley earned an associate's degree in applied sciences from Erie County Community College in Buffalo, New York in 1964. Following graduation, she moved to Australia and worked in two practices, one in orthodontics and one in a general setting on the edge of the outback. Philley says her presence in Australia meeting with different dental groups, especially in Sydney, and answering their questions, influenced the important decisions about oral health care, at the time. "I helped them decide between the dental hygienist and the dental nurse," says Philley, explaining that, in the 1960s, Australian dentists were trying to decide between employing a dental hygienist with a focus on prevention versus a dental nurse, who focus more on restorative services--especially with respect to treatment for children. "The money spent on education programs [for both dental hygiene and dental nursing] was too costly," Philley says, adding that ultimately "They went with the dental hygienist."

Philley continued her travels, working in clinical practice in Germany and returning to the United States for a brief period, before joining the World Health Organization on projects in South Africa and in South America. "[Dental hygiene] is a great profession for traveling and working in other countries," she says. "You can get a visa almost immediately, which is uncommon with most professions."

Yet, it was a volunteer commitment at home in New York that led Philley to her current staff position as coordinator of the preventive dentistry program grant for the Oneida County Health Department. She encourages dental hygienists from other components to seriously consider taking the time to help with their community health assessment programs. "It is a wonderful way to raise awareness about access [to care] issues and how the dental hygienist can help to meet the access to dental health care issues."

"I'm energized by being busy," says Philley, who also serves as president of the Mohawk Valley component and as a board member for the Dental Hygienists' Association of the State of New York and works two days a week in clinical practice.

In her current position, Philley is in charge of reporting statistics for Oneida County, which includes data on residents' oral health status over the past five years. She also tracks 10 years' worth of other information relevant to the condition of oral health for the county. These statistics help the health department assess specific health care needs and determine how government funds will be distributed throughout the state and the county.

Such grant money was used to establish the Oneida-Madison County Dental Coalition to meet the oral health needs of people in both counties. With the support of the coalition, Philley, in her current position, has instituted numerous programs to meet those needs. "Partnered with the mid-York library system, the coalition created the dental health story box," she says. These boxes contain oral health literature and home care aids, and people can obtain them through the local library. "Also, [the coalition has a program for] adapting oral health materials to the immigrant languages in the area," Philley says. "We have the third-largest refugee center in the United States."

Philley has also been associated with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) State Oral Health Plans. "New York is one of 13 states that received funding to create the oral health plan," says Philley. "We received five million dollars from CDC to set up a statewide oral health plan."

Philley has also been a part of a preventive dentistry grant and coordinator of a sealant program for the state. And because of the excellent execution of the program, she says, Oneida County has since increased funding from $37,000 to $90,000 for its sealant program.

Amidst all of her responsibilities, Philley says that she is considering going back to school to complete her bachelor's degree in public health. "I'm looking at a bachelor's degree using the framework for the dental hygiene advance practice particularly in public health, geriatrics, and dental hygiene clinical skills," says Philley. "I don't think enough [dental hygienists] are aware of public health and the different ways we can be [utilized] especially in access to care."

This edition of Working was prepared by Nicholas C. Olsen