Schweitzer Fellow Dhara Shah DMD 13 Creates Dental Initiative

Dhara Shah DMD 13 is working with mentor and Director of School-Based Programs Corinna Culler to create a dental initiative from the ground up at Early Intervention’s Harvard, Massachusetts location starting this May. The proposed project is supported by a Schweitzer Fellowship Shah received this month.

The Early Intervention organization offers supportive services at sites throughout Massachusetts to children up to three years old who have special needs. The Harvard location sees approximately 500 children, with most of them treated on home visits.

“The goal is to make the dental initiative easily sustainable and easily duplicated,” says Shah. She hopes that at the end of her one-year fellowship, Early Intervention can implement her program at its centers throughout the state and even the U.S.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” she says. “The organization wanted a dental initiative and it’s something that we could provide without much difficulty.”

If it seems odd that Shah plans to take on this impressive project “without much difficulty,” it’s because she has a lot of experience in the field already. While completing an undergraduate degree at Michigan State University (MSU), Shah interned at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Back at MSU, she attended local public health events with her mentor, a county medical director.

At GSDM, she learned about the connection between oral health and overall health in the interdisciplinary class, Leading Community Health Initiatives: Public Health, Medicine, and Dentistry as Partners. Students from all three Medical Campus Schools work together, with a faculty mentor, to identify and solve a problem for a local health organization.

The Schweitzer Fellowship’s Boston arm is the oldest of 13 in the US. According to its website, it is “dedicated to developing a pipeline of emerging professionals who enter the workforce with the skills and commitment necessary to address unmet health needs.”