Ep 44 S4/8 A Life Pivot to Combat Oral Health Inequities One Mouth at a Time

Open wide and say “AHHH-Mazing”! That’s what Ange and Lez thought of the revelatory information Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes shared.  Dr. Nicole is a longtime friend and a New Jersey based pediatric dentist who is saving the lives of marginalized children, one mouth at a time.

Oral health is the gateway to total health and is a number one preventable disease. Poor oral health can lead to diabetes, heart disease, low birth weight newborns and other conditions that few would link to the mouth as the source. Seeing the inequities of a broken oral healthcare system firsthand, Dr. Nicole established Kindersmile Foundation in 2007. Kindersmile has treated and educated more than 40,000 children at its 3 locations in NJ and throughout the world.

This episode explores the tragic stories that touched Dr. Nicole deeply and led her to pivot from a profitable private practice and why she feels joy from knowing that she has transformed the trajectories of children and their families. Stay tuned for her documentary, Toothache: The Painful Truth About Oral Healthcare Inequity premiering on Oct. 21, 2023.

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