The Citizen Project: Dr. Kenneth Wright
A citizen of London for most of his life, Dr. Kenneth Wright says that important life lessons served as a catalyst for his family to begin volunteering, leading him to creating a new community dental clinic to serve marginalized communities
By Jennifer Parraga, BA’93
As a citizen, I believe I have a responsibility within society to make life as comfortable as I can for my neighbours. It’s why our family has always been so involved in the community, and something I have always hoped I could develop amongst the students I have interacted with.”
Dr. Kenneth Wright remembers very clearly the conversation that first inspired him to provide greater access to dental care for marginalized populations in London.
“As a citizen, I believe I have a responsibility within society to make life as comfortable as I can for my neighbours. It’s why our family has always been so involved in the community, and something I have always hoped I could develop amongst the students I have interacted with.” — Dr. Kenneth Wright
“It’s a funny story,” he said. “I was walking out of church one Sunday and a parishioner approached us asking about getting better access to dental care for low income community members. I told her to leave it with me, and I would figure it out.”
A citizen of London for most of his life, Dr. Wright says that important life lessons served as a catalyst for his family to begin volunteering.
“Our daughter has Down’s syndrome, and she’s been a real pioneer with her education and career paths,” he said. “It’s really thanks to her that my wife and I began volunteering with organizations supporting people living with developmental disabilities.”
A few years later, it was a patient who inspired Dr. Wright to get involved with United Way.
“Early in the 1970s, a patient chastised me and my dentist peers for not being more supportive with United Way,” he said. “It struck a chord with me, so I volunteered to run the campaign with the dentistry sector.”
Dr. Wright says that these two events really put his family on the road to helping the community.
Years later, he would have that memorable conversation at his church, leading to the creation of the Dental Outreach Community Service (DOCS) program based at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.
After doing some research and working closely with the leadership at the University, clinic dates were set up at the School. Unfortunately, the clinics didn’t really work out as planned. Getting to campus and the often multiple visits required to complete a procedure were obstacles for many pati-ents and fewer and fewer attended the clinic dates.
It’s then that Dr. Wright realized that the clinic would be more effective it if was based in the community and with some lessons from a similar program at McGill University, he created the DOCS program.
In 12 years, DOCS has hosted 180 clinics, treated more than 2,680 patients and provided more than 14,100 volunteer hours in the community.
“DOCS is great, however, it scratches the surface in terms of providing the amount of care that is needed,” he said. “It has helped to identify the need for a community dental clinic and to establish such a service.”
Determined to see the clinic become a reality, Dr. Wright has spent the past few years advocating with the City of London and local charitable organizations to create the stand-alone dental clinic to provide care for marginalized and low-income community members.
With the dream now becoming reality, Dr. Wright will be directing his attention full time to the Glen Cairn Community Resource Community Dental Clinic beginning in the fall of 2020. Once operational, he hopes to be able to provide care to approximately 800 to 1,000 patients annually who, on average, will receive at least four treatments each.
This change in focus means that after 52 years, he will be retiring from his academic position with Schulich Dentistry.
He says he still plans to reserve some spare time to continue serving as honorary coach of the Mighty Dents hockey team.
“The relationships I’ve formed with the students in the clinic and on the ice has been one of the great joys of my career,” he said.
Arriving at the School in 1968, Dr. Wright has been a teacher to every single graduating class at Schulich Dentistry.
“Students are pretty much the same today as they were when I started,” he said. “Each class has a character of its own – some are more serious, others more sociable, but basically they are the same.”
What has changed, he says, is the extraordinary amount of material students have to learn. “It’s a completely different world, and they are learning so much more than I did.”
“The relationships I’ve formed with the students in the clinic and on the ice has been one of the great joys of my career.” — Dr. Kenneth Wright
He hopes that the DOCS program and other community outreach activities continue to factor significantly in the curriculum for students, as it helps students to build empathy and understand some of the health challenges that exist in the London community and beyond.
Reflecting on his more than half-century career, Dr. Wright chuckles as he shares the story about waking up his wife in the middle of night to tell her he decided he was going to dental school.
He had been a salesman with IBM for nearly seven years when his interest in dentistry was piqued. After conversations with his own dentist and the Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill, he made the decision to do whatever it took to become a dentist. After talking to his wife in the wee hours of the night, he headed to Columbia University to take courses in organic chemistry, botany and zoology. He had an early scare getting 33 per cent in his organic chemistry course – but soon was able to achieve the marks he needed and was accepted into the program.
Dr. Wright is excited to see the plans for the dental clinic come to fruition as he begins the next stage of his career – firmly focused on the community.
