Working

Tracy Brookshire, RDH, BSDH

Tracy Brookshire, RDH, BSDH, has been a dental hygienist for 19 years. In addition to working part-time in private practice and teaching at her alma mater Parkland College in Champaign, Ill., she is also a volunteer for the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team (IMERT).

Brookshire has been involved in disaster response with IMERT since 2006, but she got her first experience with disaster relief after one of the instructors at Parkland coordinated a service-learning trip to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

“We took 20 dental hygiene students down to New Orleans and did relief a year after Hurricane Katrina,” she said. “We did about 125 prophies and 75 fluoride varnishes the next day. We were also working with a church and distributing food to about 300 people. They were living in FEMA trailers and trying to rebuild their lives. From then on, I have been passionate about [disaster response], and I started seeing avenues where dental hygienists could fit remarkably well into it. Around the same time, I joined IMERT and I started training and participating in disaster drills with them.”

Last June, Brookshire was deployed for five days to the Mississippi River after it flooded. She, along with IMERT, provided medical support to about 1,000 National Guardsmen who were sandbagging the river. Since she was working with personnel, she tracked incoming and outgoing team members, assisted in organizing schedules for them to do site visits to the levees and built teams for their 24-hour triage.

“With disaster response, the role of a dental hygienist is a little bit different,” she said. “It’s more allied health, dealing with health histories, vitals, monitoring patients, etc. It’s still an interesting area for a hygienist to help out in, and it’s one where I think our skills allow us to be readily used in a disaster.”

At Parkland, Brookshire co-developed and instructs a course titled Disaster Preparedness and Forensics for the Dental Professional, which combines two of her fairly new interests. She said that although she is staying active in disaster relief, her focus is slightly shifting gears into forensics.

“I’ve had the opportunity to do a little work with the county coroner here in Champaign, and I’m actually providing some materials for his office to help educate the coroners and the deputy coroners in dental anatomy and charting,” she explained. “I’m on a list with the coroner’s office to be called in case there is a need of forensic identification.”

As a dental hygienist in forensics, Brookshire says that she would assist the dentist and odontologist in doing the dental charting and radiographs on a person who is deceased. She would also help in attaining previous dental records of the person and assist in transposing dental charting and radiographs to common forms.

Brookshire will be presenting disaster response and forensics at CLL at ADHA’s 86th Annual Session. “I know a lot of dental hygienists are very interested in forensics, and I’m really advocating they look at disaster response as well. Dental hygienists are a wonderful resource that can be used as allied health care professionals in the event of a disaster.”

As for her goals for the near future, Brookshire said that she has applied to be a member of the federal disaster team Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) and wants to complete certification to become a trained FBI coder, in addition to completing her graduate degree in dental hygiene education. Even with her new endeavors, she said that she will probably remain in private practice and be involved with disaster response for the rest of her life.

“I thoroughly enjoy my patients, and I don’t think I’ll ever quit private practice,” she said. “I think [disaster response] has made me a better hygienist. It gives you a different direction and a renewed exhilaration about your job when you help people in need.”

Tracy Brookshire, BSDH, may be reached at tracyrdh@att.net or (217) 621-9490.

This edition of Working was prepared by Frances Moffett.