Working

Debbye Krueger, RDH, BS, is a public health dental hygienist. In addition to this, she presents educational sessions Sunstar Americas in dental hygiene schools and to dental hygiene components. She helped to establish and to operate a free clinic for both adults and children at her church, and she is the alumni coordinator for the Citizens’ Police Academy of the Salisbury, N.C. Police Department.

Krueger didn’t originally plan on being involved in so many facets of dental hygiene when she started her career. At the time of her graduation, she said, the professional life of a hygienist was between two and three years.

Krueger is employed full-time as a public health dental hygienist for the state of North Carolina, a position she considers her true love. She started in this position in 1972, when the state of North Carolina decided they were not going to be able to conquer dental disease with a treatment program. They eliminated one dentist position, hired three hygienists with that money and instructed them to do whatever they thought needed to be done. Each of the three hygienists did something different. Thirty-five years later, it’s a much more structured program. Krueger is not a clinical hygienist; she goes into the schools and does a calibrated decayed/missing/filled teeth (DMFT) survey on kindergarten and 5th grade children to check for disease and the amount of care that’s being done. She’s been involved in setting up three different clinics; part of the public health program involves bringing in dental equipment to provide free sealants in the school setting. She also sits on the school advisory board to make decisions about dietary issues for the children’s lunches, and she works on smoking cessation, accident prevention and childhood obesity campaigns.

Krueger travels throughout North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to give patient communication and product recommendation presentations to junior dental hygiene students, as well as a much more detailed and specific program on pain management for seniors. In addition to that, she speaks to ADHA constituent and component groups.

During her professional life, Krueger worked for the state of Tennessee as well. Part of her public health position was drug and alcohol rehabilitation for youthful offenders. Because of that, she was able to take the famous “Body Farm” forensics course taught by William Bass, PhD. This fueled her interest in forensics and police work.

Currently, Krueger volunteers within the police department in The Citizen’s Police Academy, a program geared towards giving citizens a better understanding of police work. It is a 12-week program with different topics each night, such as homeland security, domestic abuse and crime scene investigations.

One of Krueger’s colleagues, a school nurse, had invited her to South America to provide public health services to underprivileged children. Family health problems and financial issues prevented her from participating; however, the invitation got her thinking: it’s great that people go overseas to offer health care, but what about at home?

Krueger and colleagues decided to bring the portable equipment used in South America to children in Salisbury. They then took that a step further, and Krueger was able to obtain various equipment from dentists around town. Also, the Religion, Youth and Education Foundation (RYE) donated $5,000, which they used to buy additional supplies. Patterson Dental Supply, Sunstar and 3M also donated materials.

Krueger’s church runs a medical clinic on Thursdays. Krueger, the school nurse, and the dentist who was going on the mission trip were able to squeeze in and set up their equipment to provide care. At first they provided only sealants; now, they have expanded to provide periodontal care for patients with diabetes.

“It’s all free, we don’t charge anything,” said Krueger. “I don’t care if you make a million dollars a year or nothing at all, nobody gets charged. We do actually have a tin can where we ask people to make contributions if they’d like, and the suggested donation is one hour’s pay. We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to keep going.”

One incident in particular has influenced her outlook and career.

“In 1974, when I was working in Raleigh, North Carolina in public health, we had a child on Medicaid who came to the health department with an abscess. We didn’t treat her—gave her a prescription for antibiotics and she was supposed to come in a week later, on a Thursday afternoon. I was paged on Saturday, and they had admitted her to the hospital with septicemia. I went in to see her, and here lies this tiny little 4-year-old child with IVs in her arms; she had been trying to get the IVs out and they had duct-taped her arms to the bed. It broke my heart. I am very child-oriented and it broke my heart to see such a young child like that.

“On Sunday morning, I couldn’t think of anything but her, so I walked downtown to Woolworth’s and bought a little koala bear to bring to her, hoping it would calm her down so she at least wouldn’t have to be taped to the bed. When I got there, she wasn’t in her room, and I had hoped they’d moved her because of the tape issue. I went to the nurses’ station and asked where she was. They told me they’d been trying to page me all morning, but I had turned my pager off because I was in church.

“The nurse told me the little girl had died that morning. It just made me feel so guilty that that child had died because it wasn’t that she was misdiagnosed, or prescribed the wrong medication, or had an adverse reaction to the medication. What had happened was one of the mother’s neighbor’s had told her not to bother with it, that it was just a baby tooth. So actually, what I felt was the thing that killed that child was the parents didn’t understand the importance of oral health, and the oral-systemic link.”

Educating and informing people of this link has become a driving force in Krueger’s life ever since.

“I tell that story especially when I speak to junior and senior dental hygiene students. I think that when you’re a student, you work more on the didactic dental hygiene and less on the patient communication; this is a case where patient education might have saved that child’s life.”

Krueger’s investment in her career has brought her numerous benefits and a great deal of variety.

“I never feel bored,” said Krueger. “Every day is a challenge; I’m always looking for new topics to speak to students or components about, trying to come up with ways to improve the health in my school system, to find new people to partner with. I really get up every morning excited about my job.”

This edition of Working was prepared by Meghan Washington