Mississippi
Local Hero: Dr. H.

Dr. H is a Quitman County native who has been in practice in Marks, Miss. (population 1,800), for 34 years. The only dentist in a county with a population of 10,000, Dr. H volunteered for DDS shortly after the program started in Mississippi in 1995. His most recent DDS patient was a young man from his church who had been in a severe automobile accident. According to Dr. H., when the patient came home after several months in the hospital, “His mouth basically was a wreck. To start with, he needed maxillofacial reconstruction to get his jaws and teeth back to where they were supposed to be.” The team coordinated by DDS included an Alabama lab; Dr. S., an oral surgeon from Jackson; and Dr. P., a periodontist from Oxford. “Going through the surgery and restorative work has given him a new lease on life,” says Dr. H. He concludes, “Most of the DDS patients are very appreciative of what we do. I live in a community where we don’t have much third-party insurance coverage. I saw a need out there to help people who were either underprivileged, or who didn’t have the money to be able to provide the service for themselves. It gives me satisfaction to restore those people to as good oral health as we can. It’s a way to give back.”