ROOTSTOWN TOWNSHIP, Ohio – This fall, 50 future dentists will begin classes at the first public college of dentistry in northeastern Ohio.
And college leaders hope they choose to practice in Ohio after they graduate.
Northeast Ohio Medical University’s Bitonte College of Dentistry will open this fall in Rootstown. Dr. M. Frank Beck, inaugural college dean and a dentist, says about 1,800 people applied to the college – from every state except Montana.
“Our intent and design is to be about 80% from Ohio,” Beck says of incoming students.
That could help address a shortage of dentists statewide.
The Ohio State Dental Board annual report, released in December 2023, noted 7,442 dentists in the state in 2023, up from 7,082 in 2022. Ohio’s population, according to July 2024 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, is approximately 11.9 million.
NEOMED President John Langell says in a statement that the Bitonte College of Dentistry will become an essential resource for improving dental care in northeastern Ohio.
“This is particularly important for rural and urban communities where children and the elderly are at risk of developing systemic health issues due to a lack of proper oral hygiene,” he says. “Our commitment to training future dentists who will serve vulnerable populations is a game-changer in Ohio, creating a positive impact on health care and the economy.”
To serve those underserved areas and to ensure dental students learn a breadth of procedures and techniques, the dental school is partnering with community sites across the state including several in the Mahoning Valley.
“When you take into consideration the fact that the Ohio Department of Health identifies the No. 1 unmet health care need of Ohioans as dental – unfortunately, that’s been that way for the past 25 years,” Beck says.
And the first, third and 12th most frequent reasons patients go to hospital emergency rooms are for nonurgent dental conditions such as a toothache or an abscess.
The community partner sites, which Beck calls mini outpatient surgical centers, will serve those people who turn to an ER for dental needs and will also allow training for dental students.
“So, the Bitonte College of Dentistry has been built upon that foundation,” Beck says, adding that its reach will be statewide.
“We will have a state-of-the-art, 30 [room] dental clinic here for our 50 students, but we’ll have 600 chairs distributed throughout the state at sites where the patients that need those services – the federally qualified health centers, community health centers, dental residency programs, county, city and state health departments that have dental programs – are all becoming partners with us.”
Bitonte Family
The new dental school is being built within NEOMED space rather than new construction. DeSalvo Construction of Hubbard is one of the contractors. Of the $25 million cost, $10 million came from a donation from the Dr. Dominic A. and Helen M. Bitonte Family Foundation. Dominic Bitonte and his brother, Robert, were dentists who operated an office in downtown Youngstown for about 40 years, says Dr. Gary Bitonte, the late Dominic and Helen’s son.
Dr. Gary Bitonte and his brother, Dr. David Bitonte, both retired physicians, serve as foundation directors.
“My parents have always valued education above everything else,” says Gary Bitonte, who lives in Columbiana and serves part-time as a clinical associate professor of anatomy at NEOMED. “And everyone who wished to advance their education, they felt should have that opportunity. And there is a large need for dentists in the state of Ohio.”
Although he and his brother are physicians, they come from a family of dentists. Besides their father and uncle, Gary Bitonte’s daughter, Gina Bitonte, is a dentist in Cleveland.
Dominic Bitonte served on the Ohio State Dental Board for many years, appointed by two governors. He also served on a national licensing board for dentists for 29 years. Helen Bitonte served as president of the state and local auxiliary to the dental societies.
“And so, when NEOMED was contemplating adding a dental school, my brother David and I decided to honor our parents with the lead donation to get the campaign off the ground,” Gary Bitonte says.
The Bitonte College of Health and Human Services at Youngstown State University is named for the couple, as is an atrium at NEOMED. The family foundation also gifted $2 million to the OSU College of Dentistry and the skywalk at the Butler Institute of American Art also bears the family name.
Only two universities in Ohio, The Ohio State University in Columbus and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, have dental schools. Case is a private university.
Dr. Rajiv Taneja, whose dental practice is in Austintown, sits on the NEOMED Foundation, and on its dental college steering and admissions search committees. He is a member of the Corydon Palmer Dental Society, an affiliate of the American and Ohio Dental associations, which includes about 300 dental practitioners and serves families in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.
He says it’s important that more dentists remain and practice in Ohio to serve those who are underserved.
Health Impact
If people don’t receive dental care, it adversely affects many aspects of their lives, he says. First, if someone is in pain, they can’t eat.
“It’s a trigger effect for your whole psychological, physical and medical” health, Taneja says. “Infections can go to different parts of your body. It affects you in every way: physically, facially and medically.”
He became a dentist because of his father.
“Our family is a family of dentists back in India where I grew up,” Taneja explains.
He came to the United States because his uncle lived in Ohio. After graduating from the Boston University School of Dentistry, he decided big city life wasn’t for him and moved to Ohio.
Among reasons for the shortage of dentists in Ohio is the cost, Taneja says.
“It’s a lot more expensive than going to medical school or veterinary school,” he says. “The kids come out with a debt cost.”
Beck, the inaugural dean, says the debt burden is part of the reason many dentists opt for a specialty or choose to practice in a suburban area rather than a rural or urban one. He says NEOMED wanted to lessen that burden. Annual tuition at the Bitonte College of Dentistry will be $57,500.
“As we said early on, we wanted to make it affordable, so that the students would be able with their burden of debt to actually practice in the areas we want them to practice,” Beck says.
Marla Morse is the executive director of Oral Health Ohio, a coalition that advocates for improvement of the oral and overall health of Ohioans.
She says lack of preventative dental care leads patients to seek help only when their problems worsen. Then they go to emergency rooms which can’t offer comprehensive dental treatment, Morse explains.
“And when people don’t have access to a dentist, they’re living in pain,” she says.
That can lead to infection which may cause other health problems.
“Children can’t learn when they’re in pain, and adults can’t work when they’re in pain,” Morse points out.
It’s an economic issue as well, she says. When people don’t get needed dental care, their teeth decay and break. “And it’s very clear they’re missing teeth, and then it becomes an economic problem for the family, because they can’t get employment,” Morse says.
Part of the reason for Ohio’s shortage of dentists is that for many years, the state’s reimbursement rate was low for dentists who accept Medicaid, she explains. In 2023, Oral Health Ohio worked with the Ohio Dental Association to secure the first increase in Medicaid fees in 20 years.
People with Disabilities
Morse adds that people with disabilities are among those who are underserved. Pediatric dentists are trained in behavior management and know how to manage a wiggly child in the dental chair.
“But when these kids age out of the pediatric system and go into the adult system, general dentists are not trained in behavior management, so our adults with developmental disabilities in Ohio can wait several years to get in to see a dentist,” she says.
The wait is because they require sedation if a dentist isn’t trained to manage a behavior. Morse says NEOMED’s Beck is a close partner with the coalition and she’s excited about the new dental college.
“He is so committed to having the dental students be trained in safety net clinics to expose them to what is happening within the safety net system and to kind of relieve some of that pressure of those long wait lists,” she says
Beck says patients on the autism spectrum are among the most underserved, but NEOMED’s Bitonte College of Dentistry will include a sensory waiting room and five soundproof sensory examination rooms to serve them. In 2027, the NEOMED Bitonte College of Dentistry will open clinics to the public like its medical college offers. “This clinic will be open to all, absolutely,” Beck says.
Pictured at top: Dr. M. Frank Beck, dean of the Bitonte College of Dentistry at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, in a classroom under construction at the new school. Classes will begin in August.