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Spotlight New Jersey: The Committee GNO and the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation

Spotlight New Jersey: Guided Collaboration Collective

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News 12 Staff

NJSpotPt2819_2023-08-19-09-27-55

My guest today is Doctor Sophia Webb. She is a pediatric dentist and dental surgeon at Brilliant Smile, pediatric dentistry in Newark. Good to have you here. Love it. Love what we're talking about so far. Yes, I'm having a great time. You have a partnership with the Newark Museum. Yes. Uh This has been just such a joy. Uh Myself, I grew up going to camp at the Newark Museum. Um I've had the esteemed pleasure of having the director of the museum come to my office to view some the artwork. And through that uh budding relationship, we are uh going to be doing a collaboration for a Diy children's shirt that'll be sold in the gift shop. A diy T shirt. What a great idea. Now, look at, describe the artwork as we take a look. So currently in my office, we have artwork from some local artists to Newark, such as Kevin Damai. Uh We also have a Besa Butler quilt that actually is not in the office right now. It's on loan at the Museum of Art and Design, but we also have some artwork from other artists such as Hebrew Brantley, uh Harmonia Rosales who has her work inside of the Smithsonian African American Museum of Art. We also have Genesis Tremain. So we have a combination of original pieces as well as uh prints and sculpture that we are able to share with our patients and their families. It's been wonderful. How do you find all this art work? You know, I, I have been collecting for eight years and most of the things that I've collected early on were things that I wanted to place in my practice. You founded this practice right before COVID. Yes, we opened a month before COVID. So it was grand opening. Grand closing. Oh, what was that like? How did you manage through the pandemic? You know, it was very interesting because right after we reopened, we saw a patient, they came in and they wrote a beautiful review for our office on Google. And they also posted us in a group called Black New Jersey. She did that on a Friday. We came in on Monday and we had 100 voice mails of people wanting to come and become patients. So because of that family and her little name, her name is Nubian because of Nubian and her mom, we have just, we have taken off since we haven't done any marketing. And in our first year being open, which was high COVID time, a total of seven months, we serviced one 1039 patients. So they were a blessing. Yes. Yes. They were, they were my blessing for sure. Yeah. Tell us about your other blessings. Yes. Well, my other blessing. My main blessing is my grandmother, Eunice. Uh, she loves News 12 and she has been my supporter from the very beginning. She, uh, worked at Rutgers law School, which was near Saint Philip's Academy where I went for elementary school school and she would drive me to school every day and every day we would have our chats and she always poured into me. And so now to have my grandmother be able to come to my practice, to see the things that I'm doing and to see me on news 12, I am just overly thrilled and I cannot wait um for her to uh chat with me about how she feels about me interviewing with you. This is amazing. This is major. Uh I hope she's so proud of you. And Dr Webb, your grandmother is gorgeous. Doctor Webb talks about providing school based dental care for Children coming up at noon.

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NJSpotPt3819_2023-08-19-12-42-56

Doctor Sophia Webb is a pediatric dentist and dental surgeon with brilliant smiles, pediatric dentistry in Newark. She is the guest that I'm talking to today. Now, let's talk about the fact that you provide school based dental care because you saw a need for high quality care for Children there in Newark. Yes, as a pediatric dentist, I'm constantly focused on prevention. In addition to being a dentist, I'm also a public health professional and so it is always my mindset to prevent the disease from occurring. And so I partner with the head start program, they have 19 sites. And so what we do is we go into the school and we see Children at school after their parents have signed a permission slip, we do a dental exam, we do a cleaning and a fluoride treatment right there on the premise right there in the school and the Children go home with a dental health report card. They parents will know, hey, look, everything looks fantastic. You're doing a great job or hey, we see that maybe there's some problems that are going on. Please give us or any other dentist if you're choosing a call or listen, this is a red alert. There's some issues that, that need to be taken care of right now. And so with this program, we, I I would say the first month that we did it, probably 80% of the Children that we screened had dental caries and a lot of them ended up becoming my patients in my practice. So this is a successful thing to do to take dentistry to the community. Absolutely. We want to reduce the barrier to care if the barrier is mom can't get off work or mom doesn't get off work early enough because my office closes at four, we just come to them and we serve as head start Children typically between age three and five. And because you provide this preventative care, do parents follow up with their Children? And if they, if they don't call us, we call them? Oh, I like that. Absolutely. Why was it so important to get this into the schools? Well, prevention is key if you know, as a pediatric dentist, I mean, obviously, I love to uh to do restorations. I love to fix teeth. But even more so than that, I love to teach families how to keep their child smell healthy from the first tooth. Now, how do you go about uh administering that preventative at home care to maintain everything they get done in your practice? Ok. So I always like to tell people what I do at home with my four year old, her name is Eden and obviously she's accustomed to brushing her teeth. But our routine at home is the same thing that I share with my other families as what they can do to help prevent their child from getting carries. But most importantly, to try to make it fun for their kid. Right. Children don't want to do things that aren't fun and brushing teeth can get pretty monotonous. So I always like to, you know, give them tools that they can employ at home to get the job done. Well, how early should you start taking your kids to the dentist? Dr Webb answers that question in our next segment tomorrow morning.

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NJSpot820Pt4_2023-08-20-06-27-51

We are back with Doctor Sophia Webb, pediatric dentist and dental surgeon with brilliant smiles, pediatric dentistry in Newark. How early should you start taking your child to a dentist? The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry both recommend their first dental visit no later than age one. Ok. That's pretty early. It's very early and some Children don't even have teeth at one. But that first dental appointment, aside from getting a cleaning and a dental exam is really for what we call anticipatory guidance. I like to meet the families. I like to understand what they're currently doing at home. And I like to make any corrections when necessary because again, preventing any dental disease and preventing dental fear from occurring is at the top of my priority list. So when they're coming at age one, they may not even sit in the chair, right? A lot of parents are reluctant to bring them so early because they don't think that they'll cooperate. However, I always encourage parents to still come because we do something called the lap exam where the child can be comfortable on the parents lap and they'll lay back into my lap that way, me and the caregiver can get a good look inside of the child's mouth. See how all you're doing at home and give you strategies to keep up the good work or to improve. Since you say a lot of them don't have any teeth at that age. It's important, I guess as well to check the gum. Absolutely. To check the gum, to check if there's any tongue ties, if there's any pathology in the mouth. But really, it's to really educate the parent and to get them on board for a lifelong of a healthy smile for their child. Why a pediatric dentist as a pediatric dentist, you have to go to school for two additional years after dental school. And what we learn in that two years is behavior management. We learn a bit of child psychology, we learn growth and development and so we can have a more robust conversation with the family about what's currently going on with their child as well as what to expect, going forward. What can they expect going forward, going forward? They can expect uh when the teeth are gonna fall out, they can expect to understand more about if their child needs any sort of intervention, whether it be speech therapy, uh whether the child has large adinos. So a pediatric is an integral part of the health care team. We work very closely with pediatricians. I myself work very closely with pediatric cardiologist uh pediatric oncologists. I uh am a professor of pediatric dentistry at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center where I was born and I do the cardiac clearances uh for those patients, I treat uh patients from the hemophilia clinic as well as doing some of the clearances for Children undergoing chemotherapy. Doctor Webb always wanted to open her practice there in Newark. She explains why in our next segment coming up at nine.

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NJSpot5820_2023-08-20-10-28-54

Doctor Sophia Webb is a pediatric dentist and dental surgeon with brilliant smile, pediatric dentistry in Newark. We're talking about her practice and why you felt it was so important to open it in Newark with the artwork that line your walls. Well, firstly, I am a product of Newark. I was born and raised in New York, born at Newark, Beth Israel and I've worked all over the state. I've worked as north as Sauna and as south as Millville, New Jersey. So I've worked everywhere and I've loved treating all of my patients, but it was been really a thrill to come back home where I was raised and treat people that I see randomly in the street. You know, it's not uncommon to see me at nato's downtown Newark or to see me at Marcus P. I love being in the community uh and living where I work treating patients that I see on the regular. It has really been a pleasure to be able to do that and having the art work there is just a bonus, right? I think a lot of people come to me because they've heard some people just walk in just to see the art and I'm always shocked by that. They come in without a child and I'm like, hello. How are you? Oh, I heard you have art here. I wanna see it and they come in, they take a look and it's great. And what's really incredible. And that's coming up is Newark Arts Fest is coming up this October and my office is actually considered a stop on the fest. So we are going to be holding a studio opening for people to come and view our art and we have new pieces coming. So for people who have been great, but you're gonna see some new stuff if you get to come during uh the fest. So it's an introduction to the world of fine art right there in the neighborhood right there right there. You said you were born in Newark Beth Israel? Yes. So you came full circle then. Absolutely. Oh, that must absolutely. How does that feel to you to know you've done that? I mean, it feels tremendously good. My grandmother lives around the corner from the hospital and I was actually a resident at that hospital when I first finished dental school in 2009. And so I would go home and get lunch from my grandma's house and then go back to work. What inspired you to go into pediatric dentistry? Uh A teacher of mine, I growing up, I wanted to be an attorney or AAA Health care provider. And so after matriculating through high school and going into college, I said, you know what I really wanna pursue health care and I ended up going on a mission trip to Guatemala and I got to work with a dentist there. Her name is Doctor Myra Wade. And what she did was she, he introduced me to how flexible my personal life can be as a dentist. And so I said, you know, this sounds pretty good. You know, I kind of just, you know, just took a chance and I fell in love with it. And one of my professors, I went to Howard University College of Dentistry, uh Doctor Janice Mercer, she told me Sophia, you would be a great pediatric dentist. And I said, you think me, you know, I don't know if I have the patience and she said, no, you would be amazing at it. And to this day parents always say, oh my God, Dr Webb, you are so patient. And I think in the back of my mind, she was right. Yes, she was right. Have you seen her since then? I have, I saw her this weekend, I went to Washington DC for my birthday. And what did she say? She gave me a big hug and she said, I told you and happy birthday, by the way. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr Webb is also working on two big state and local projects that's next at Noon.

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NJSpot6820_2023-08-20-12-43-26

The owner of brilliant smile, pediatric dentistry in Newark will be working closely with the state on public health here in New Jersey. Doctor Sophia Webb is also spearheading a back to school head start event in Irvington. Governor Murphy appointed me as a, I'm a part of the New Jersey Public Health Council. I'm the only dentist that sits on that council. Also I just partner with Irvington Department of Health. We have a back to school event where I'm gonna be seeing 305 Children providing 100 and five of those Children with head start forms to go back to school because uh anyone in head start in the state of New Jersey has to have a dental clearance and I'll be providing that for 100 and five of those Children uh seeing 100 middle school Children and 100 high school Children doing dental screening and providing nutritional counseling. And why is this event so important? Well, this event is so important because number one, again, there's always a rush at the beginning of the school year to get these back to school school forms, these health forms completed. And so lots of times what happens is number one, the parent can't get off work to get the child in, in time or their form is so delayed that they can't start school or they have to stop. And so me being able to go into the community and provide this service to them as you know, kind of like an ambulatory service that they can come in and get their form filled out without having to take off work. It is an evening event and so it doesn't interfere with if the Children have already started school or doesn't interfere with uh a work schedule from a parent or a caregiver. And how will this position with the state allow you to expand your mission in dentistry? So, um as a member of the New Jersey Public Health Council, um my charge is to uh give advice uh and to help uh with the decision making just uh for all New Jersey participants, not just on oral health, um and not just Newark, but just New Jersey as a totality. So that has been an esteemed pleasure to have that appointment uh from Governor Murphy. Um The other thing, the last thing that I'm actually doing is uh I have a grant with the New Jersey Department of Health. It's a nutritional counseling grant. So we screen Children age 5 to 18 for caries risk assessment. If these Children have moderate or high carries risk, they are a part of the Medicaid program uninsured or under insured between the age of five and 18, we provide nutritional counseling to them. This is a phase two of a grant that started because phase one of that grant talked about whether there was a linkage between childhood obesity and dental caries and it was found that that it is. And so the second part gives nutritional counseling to help to prevent childhood obesity, but also to record any amount of school hours that are missed due to dental pain.

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Dr. Suffiyah Webb joins this week’s Spotlight New Jersey to talk about her office’s combo of artistry and dentistry, along with much more! 

Spotlight New Jersey: Brilliant Smiles Pediatric Dentistry

Dr. Suffiyah Webb joins this week’s Spotlight New Jersey to talk about her office’s combo of artistry and dentistry, along with much more!

More Stories

Spotlight New Jersey: Answer the Call

Spotlight New Jersey: Singer-songwriter Spencer Philip

Spotlight New Jersey: GPS Empowerment

Spotlight New Jersey: The Grapevine Mobile Bar

Spotlight New Jersey: The Committee GNO and the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation

Spotlight New Jersey: Guided Collaboration Collective

Spotlight New Jersey: Answer the Call

Spotlight New Jersey: Singer-songwriter Spencer Philip

Spotlight New Jersey: GPS Empowerment

Spotlight New Jersey: The Grapevine Mobile Bar

Spotlight New Jersey: The Committee GNO and the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation

Spotlight New Jersey: Guided Collaboration Collective

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