Working

Arlene Glube, RDH

Arlene Glube, RDH, is the supervisor of dental programs for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health in California. She is responsible for all of the department's oral health programs, and while she oversees many types of projects, Glube says her primary focus is on children who come from low-income families.

A native of Canada, she graduated from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a four-year degree in dental hygiene; at the time, there was not yet a baccalaureate program. Following graduation, Glube stayed in Halifax and got a clinical dental hygiene job.

A year later, Glube and her husband moved to California so that he could attend a PhD program at the Claremont Colleges. While waiting for the California board examination to be offered, Glube taught math at a small private school. After she was licensed in the United States, Glube went back to work as a clinical dental hygienist for the next 10 years.

One day, while at work, Glube was asked to volunteer her help with the initiation of a school-based oral health care screening program. Her work with the program involved going into schools to provide oral health screenings, as well as giving oral health care demonstrations to the children. As the program expanded, Glube was eventually recruited on a more permanent basis and began working with the children once a week. Around the same time, a similar school-based oral health care pilot program was introduced in the San Bernardino County School District, for which Glube also volunteered. In 1979, the program became funded by the administration of the Democratic governor, Jerry Brown. It was renamed the Children's Dental Disease Prevention Program, and Glube was hired as a part-time employee.

The program still exists today and includes a sealant program, which Glube supervises. Her part-time job quickly evolved into a full-time career in which she is responsible for overseeing every public health oral hygiene program in San Bernardino. Glube also oversees the San Bernardino School Readiness Program, which provides preschool-aged children with free classes that will prepare them for the transition into kindergarten. The program is funded by a grant from the San Bernardino County "First Five" Commission, which has brought the state millions of dollars by adding a 50-cent tobacco tax on every package of cigarettes sold. This money helps fund programs that focus on children under the age of five, says Glube, adding that the program provides parent education, oral health care screenings for children, follow-up dental visits, and a fluoride varnish program for all of the preschool children the county's school districts.

Glube also works as the primary dental hygienist for the Child Health and Disabilities Prevention program (CHDP), aimed at providing wellness physicals for children from low-income families. The program has a large dental focus, even though it is physician-based. "The child receives a well-child physical from a physician," Glube says. "That physical must include an oral assessment." Her role in the process is to train the physicians to complete the oral assessment section of the physical. She also helps the physicians with oral health care referrals.

Glube is also involved with C-Tap, another program funded by a tobacco tax, which provides follow-up care for children from low-income homes. "This program will see a child who has decay," Glube says, "[and it] will cover the cost of the dental care." Under this program, she oversees a nurse and a clerk who check the billing invoices for primary care services to determine what follow-up care a child might need.They then process the paperwork to ensure that the child actually receives it.

Glube works with foster care nurses, public health nurses, and any other partner agencies, in addition to doing all of the grant writing. "If a light bulb goes off in my head and I decide that I want to follow through on it," she says, "the only way that I can really fund that program is by writing a grant."

Also, Glube recently vacated her four-year term as chairperson of the Dental Health Foundation (DHF) in California. "DHF is California's number one private, nonprofit organization with the mission of dental health for all," she says. "[They] have a very distinguished and well respected board, [and] I have always loved participating. I can't even [begin to] tell you how satisfying and exhilarating [that position was]."

While it has been many years since Glube worked as a clinical dental hygienist, she is still active in the profession. "I am strictly a public health dental hygienist," she says. "After 25 years, I love it. I would never, ever have changed a bit of it. It was the right thing for me."

- This edition of Working was prepared by Nicholas C. Olsen.