Bad Teeth at King Drew Dental Clinic
From Ben Adair
| Part of the Pacific Drift Individual Pieces series
| 00:06:20
Producers: Ayala Ben-Yehuda
If healthcare has become a luxury in the US, dental care is an extravagance. More than the color of your collar, teeth have become our nation's clearest indicator of where someone's from and where, exactly, they are going.
Ayala Ben-Yehuda spends a morning on the Dental Divide at a dental clinic of last resort in South LA's King Drew Medical Center.
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Review of Bad Teeth at King Drew Dental ClinicIf the thought of going to the dentist makes you wince, think of the pain suffered by people with dental problems who need to go to the dentist but can't afford to. Ayala Ben-Yehuda visits Los Angeles' King/Drew Medical Center, an "institution of last resort" for many without dental insurance. Ben-Yehuda interviews patients about a subject that many people are not comfortable talking about, and shows how dental problems can affect many aspects of patients' lives. Dental Director Joseph McCorder describes the "barrier of financial access" that causes relatively minor problems to develop into more serious dental issues. There is a variety of voices in this piece. You can hear the pain in some of the voices, but there is also some laughter. There is good ambient sound throughout the piece, and of course there's the sound of the drill... For different reasons, this piece can be hard to listen to sometimes, but like going to the dentist (if you can afford to), you'll be better for it. |
Broadcast History
This piece was originally produced for and broadcast by Pacific Drift on 89.3 KPCC, Pasadena, Calif. Original broadcast date: April, 2006.
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Additional Information
- Produced: Apr 01, 2006
- Added to PRX: Jan 23, 2007
- This piece is in English
Anthea Raymond
Posted on May 24, 2007 at 07:24 AM | Permalink
Review of Bad Teeth at King Drew Dental Clinic
Los Angeles's King Drew Medical Center is known nationally for embarassing and deadly lapses in care. But dental disturbances have been left out of the mix.
This hooky dramatization brings dental treatment at the troubled urban hospital to life -- and, perhaps, to the forefront.
The six-minute plus piece is narrator-less. A swirl of patients? voices at the top defines the issue: our teeth hurt and it?s hard to get them fixed. The collage bounces nicely off the guiding ?official voice? of the piece ? that of, Joseph McWhorter, head of Dental services at the hospital. He's got his own source of pain -- watching how the patients suffer. Within 40 seconds, the back and forth between expert and patient shaping the piece gets established.
The dense mix of urban voices and ambiance never lets up. The producers do an excellent job of interviewing. Patients and McWhorter are impressively specific about dental illness and how it affects nutrition, work, family,and mental health.jobs,
Healthcare is an issue that won?t go away. Dental care ? and lack of it ? are consistently undercovered. This piece is worth adding to any discussion of urban healthcare -- whether on the web or airwaves.
Anthea Raymond
Former PRX Editorial Board Member
Los Angeles
May 24, 2007