March 28, 2024

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He was a dentist in Afghanistan. Today, he’s filling a gap in the Fox Valley’s dental health workforce

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Dental assistant Mohammad Azimy, left, works with Dr. Heather Hassell on a patient's May 25 at Partnership Community Health Center in Grand Chute. Azimy ran his own dental clinic in Kabul before evacuating Afghanistan and moving to the Fox Cities last winter.

Dental assistant Mohammad Azimy, remaining, performs with Dr. Heather Hassell on a patient’s May perhaps 25 at Partnership Community Health Centre in Grand Chute. Azimy ran his own dental clinic in Kabul prior to evacuating Afghanistan and moving to the Fox Cities past winter season.

Being a dentist in Kabul retained Mohammad Azimy chaotic.

In addition to managing his very own clinic in Afghanistan’s funds town, he also furnished dental services at a neighborhood hospital and skilled dental students at a university. He frequently worked until finally 8 or 9 p.m.

It all disappeared in a make any difference of times last August as the Taliban took the region about and he and his wife and child ended up pressured to flee.

It was clear anything was wrong the early morning of Aug. 15, Azimy remembered, but he nonetheless headed to function at the hospital like typical. When he arrived, he reported he observed people today jogging away, fearful. Police experienced deserted their weapons in the streets and were being currently being taken away by taxi.

Associated: 180 Afghan evacuees have moved to the Fox Valley. Here’s what will come next for them.

Similar: Church volunteer groups welcome refugees as very last of 200 Afghan evacuees get there in the Fox Valley

Later on that day, he discovered the Afghan governing administration experienced collapsed and the Taliban had captured a village about 10 miles absent from his house. He and his wife, who labored for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, started pondering about a way out.

Azimy and his family are between virtually 200 Afghan evacuees who have settled in the Fox Valley. Practically nine months soon after he experienced to go away residence, his capabilities are filling a hole in dental health treatment in Appleton and outside of.

As he prepares to turn out to be capable for his dentist’s license in the U.S. — a procedure that can consider two or a few a long time — Azimy is performing as a dental assistant for Partnership Neighborhood Health and fitness Middle, which has dentists’ workplaces in Grand Chute, Oshkosh and Waupaca.

One particular of handful of dental clinics in the region that accepts Medicaid, they serve about 6,500 sufferers per calendar year, mentioned CEO Kristene Stacker. Lots of of those people clients have elaborate dental needs simply because they haven’t previously been capable to afford care.

Regionally, Partnership has been going through a scarcity of dental assistants, who perform a crucial job making confident the client is at ease, taking X-rays, having applications all set for the dentist and discharging the individual the moment the appointment is about.

Simply because a dentist are unable to get the job done without an assistant, Stacker said the shortage pressured them to reduce the amount of appointments they could offer for each working day in fifty percent.

Azimy and a handful of other Afghan evacuees are having element in a coaching software Partnership staff members produced that they hope will each remedy their workforce difficulties and deliver significant work opportunities for people today who require it.

A hard journey finishes with a stable job and a safe area to call property

When Azimy and his wife realized the Taliban ended up close to Kabul past summertime, they tried using to ruin any files linking them to the U.S. authorities. He recalled working papers under h2o in the sink rather of burning them to avoid smoke that would bring about their neighbors to check with issues.

A handful of times later, they have been explained to they could appear to the airport to catch a flight out of Afghanistan. But when they tried using, Azimy stated, so numerous men and women crowded the airport that no a single could get inside of. They returned residence.

One more couple of times handed and they gained a next message from the Embassy. If they could get to the airport, they’d be evacuated, it mentioned if they chose to keep, the Embassy could no more time assist them.

Mohammad Azimy is a dental assistant at Partnership Community Health Center. He is pictured here May 25 at the dental clinic in Grand Chute.

Mohammad Azimy is a dental assistant at Partnership Neighborhood Well being Middle. He is pictured here May 25 at the dental clinic in Grand Chute.

Their next excursion was profitable and they boarded a aircraft to Germany, and about a week later on, to The us. A working day just after they remaining, the airport was bombed, killing more than 180 persons.

Azimy and his loved ones spent about three months at Fort McCoy, a armed service foundation amongst Tomah and Sparta that housed 1000’s of Afghan evacuees prior to they had been resettled throughout Wisconsin. He known as the foundation “a tricky put,” but mentioned military customers who staffed it were being performing their best to deliver care.

They moved to Menasha in December, and he tried using to protected a job as a dentist before discovering that his license from Afghanistan would not enable him to practice in the U.S.

He was also using courses at Fox Valley Technical School, where by he appeared in a Tv news section that caught Stacker’s eye when he mentioned he was a dentist.

Azimy’s employment at Partnership via the dental assistant education application fell into spot in limited buy. And it was just in time, also — he was about to give up his lookup for a task in his discipline and begin doing the job at a manufacturing facility.

“I definitely was happy,” he stated of the Partnership supply.

Dental assistants in superior demand from customers

Numerous well being treatment fields are dealing with workforce troubles in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the shortage of dental assistants has been constructing for about six a long time, explained Maria Jacobson, Partnership’s human assets coordinator.

They’re not positive what the root of the difficulty is, but its effects is crystal clear: personal observe, general public well being and company dentistry applications are all competing for the similar shrinking pool of dental assistants. At Fox Valley Tech, for case in point, there are just eight freshmen in its dental assistant software, Jacobson claimed.

Dental assistants rank amid Wisconsin’s hottest work opportunities in a checklist compiled by the Division of Workforce Improvement of occupations with the optimum projected expansion.

Partnership had been producing an in-household education plan for the place considering the fact that previous calendar year, but it picked up speed about 4 months in the past when they employed a complete-time trainer. Of the 30 dental assistants on staff at Partnership, almost 50 percent have gone by way of the training program, Jacobson stated.

Trainees get paid even though they total the software. Azimy used 4 weeks in Oshkosh first and is finishing up observations at the Grand Chute clinic before he’ll start off functioning with patients.

Since most of the devices he utilized for his practice in Kabul was built in the U.S., there was not as well substantially new to learn, he reported, other than for the ins and outs of Dentrix, an digital scheduling and affected individual care administration application.

Besides Azimy, a 2nd Afghan evacuee is presently part of the software and two extra are established to commence soon, Jacobson explained. One particular, like Azimy, experienced been a dentist in Afghanistan, and one more experienced nearly finished dental college when the Taliban took over.

There are others who received their dental qualifications in other countries in the system too, Stacker stated. It ties into the organization’s mission.

“We feel that our capacity to hire and prepare and support not only Afghan evacuees but other foreign-properly trained pros, as very well as citizens, is making a healthier group by giving them the chance to find out a ability that can turn out to be a occupation for them,” she explained.

Of training course, it was previously a job for Azimy — a person he hopes to return to as soon as possible.

He submitted applications final 7 days for three dental faculties: a person in Boston and just one in Chicago, as nicely as Marquette University in Milwaukee. He’ll also have to move the national board examination for dentistry, for which he stated he’s started studying.

In the meantime, nevertheless, he explained settling into lifetime in Wisconsin has been likely effectively. He credited Great Neighbor Teams, a plan from World Aid Fox Valley that recruits nearby church users to welcome refugees.

“We have never felt that we are missing anything,” Azimy stated. “It really is since of the great individuals of Wisconsin, I think.”

Make contact with reporter Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or [email protected]. Adhere to her on Twitter at @madeline_heim

This article initially appeared on Appleton Put up-Crescent: Afghan evacuees filling gaps in Fox Valley dental health workforce



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