Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America - Sarah Thomas

 

Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America is a great nonfiction book for anyone who is interested in sociology, public health, law, or human biology. 

The author, Mary Otto, explains how dentistry evolved from a simple trade to a healthcare profession. She describes the great gap between dentistry and medicine, how the mouth is seen as separate from the body. Otto brings our attention to the inequality in healthcare by showing us how many individuals struggle to get the oral treatment they need. The author shares all aspects of dentistry, from public health to cosmetics, to help you understand how important the field of dentistry is to overall health and wellbeing. After reading this book, I could see the field of dentistry in a different way. Dentistry is much more than just pulling teeth. 

One of my favorite things about this book is that Mary Otto uses the stories of real people to explain facts about dentistry. So instead of just reading paragraphs on the days of early dentistry, I could read the life of Chapin Harris, an ordinary person who founded the first dental school, turning dentistry into a profession. And Mary Otto does not just tell us that many people in America lack access to professional oral health treatment. Instead, she shows this problem through real stories of people who struggled to get dental care in time. These people include children, like Deamonte Driver, and adults, like Kyle Willis. These are all people who had to get hospitalized for serious medical issues all because of one infected tooth. Sadly, the people could not get dental care because of lack of insurance or no insurance at all. In the stories, Otto highlights how people would rather endure pain than to face a dentist and confess that they do not have the money to pay for a dental procedure. Although this is a very grim part of dentistry, the author also includes hopeful statistics about states in the US making insurance more available to people and prioritizing dental care. 

The book contains the voices of dentists, dental therapists, dental hygienists, lawmakers, government officials, and patients. Some politicians think that giving dental care to the poor is a lost cause. Other lawmakers want laws to be passed that make dental care more accessible. While some dentists are eager to go out into the field and help the poor, still others see dentistry as a business and will only treat richer patients so they can earn more money. Many dentists fear that dental hygienists and dental therapists will take over the field, while others see the new professions as ways to make oral health more accessible. And finally, there are the patients, who have different views on dentistry. Some fear the dental field, while others use it to improve their smiles and feel better about themselves. These different opinions lead to conflicts between dentists and federal agencies, sometimes even resulting in investigations and court cases. 

I also liked how Mary Otto did not just tell these stories in chronological order. She starts a story, stops it, and then starts telling a different story. She picks up on the original story a couple of chapters later. Although this may seem confusing, it helped me to see the big picture, instead of just focusing on one person’s life. It also made the book more interesting. And when I came back to a previous story, I was able to read it from a different perspective. 

Being a nonfiction book, Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America, contains many statistics and facts. Often, while Mary Otto is telling a story, she throws in some statistics as well. At first, the statistics would confuse me, because different chapters would have similar, but slightly different, statistics which I found a little repetitive. But the statistics helped me to see the actual state of oral health care in America. 

Overall, my favorite part of the book was reading the stories of different individuals, including: Chapin Harris, Miss Maryland USA winner Mame Adjei, dental hygienist Tammi Byrd, and much more!