Dentistry isn’t the first thing that pops into one’s mind when it comes to sailor and submariner readiness. But having to be taken via medevac off a vessel in the far-flung Pacific Ocean because of an abscessed tooth wouldn’t be the best way for a sailor to get on their commander’s good side.
The Navy’s Dental Corps is made up of about 1,300 active-duty and reserve dentists who are experts in 15 specialties. Their work is necessary to ensure sailors can spend months at a time on deployment without having overt issues that might temporarily derail a mission.
Nowhere is that more evident than at Naval Hospital Bremerton, Washington, and its three health clinics, where personnel delivered dental care to over 12,300 active-duty beneficiaries in 2023, including soldiers and airmen from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington.
“Our mission is readiness, which means we keep sailors and warfighters ready to go … on a moment’s notice,” said Navy Cmdr. Doug Steffy, an oral and maxillofacial radiologist assigned to Navy Medical Readiness Training Command Bremerton. “The goal is to get them to where they will not need any dental services for at least 12 months.”
Steffy is one of only 11 oral and maxillofacial radiologists in the entire Navy — there are even fewer in the Air Force and Army — so he spends a lot of his time reading advanced digital imaging for Bremerton and its clinics, as well as other commands.
“I get scans for the whole Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t matter whether they’re Army, Navy or Air Force,” he said.
Bremerton’s clinics, which Steffy commands, treat only active-duty service members, many of whom are submariners between the ages of 18-24. All of the patients are classified into four groups:
- Class 1: These patients have zero dental needs and are 100% healthy.
- Class 2: There are no dental needs that will cause a problem in the next few months.
- Class 3: There’s a significant enough problem, such as a cavity, that could potentially cause the patient problems in the next year and interrupt their deployment.
- Class 4: The patient hasn’t had a dental visit in more than a year.
“Our goal is to get everyone to Class 1,” Steffy said.
Within the military, Class 4 is a rarity. Unlike civilians who like to avoid the dentist, service members don’t get that choice.
“We can force you to come,” Steffy said. “You can’t go out to sea unless we say you’re ready.”
That requirement to be seen has helped discover some serious issues early on, Steffy said, such as tumors that patients couldn’t feel growing.
“We’ve had multiple cases of patients coming in and us identifying an abnormal area of their head and neck, their bone, and then doing biopsy follow-up work and catching a truly malignant lesion, cutting it out and solving the problem,” Steffy said. “If they were to wait a few more years, who knows.”
The Navy Medical Readiness Training Command clinics in the Pacific Northwest are able to do great work thanks to advanced digital technology, including computer-aided drilling and milling machines that can print dentures, implants and other dental objects. Root canal and crown procedures, for example, are completed much faster using the tech, and they save a significant amount of money.
“[For a crown], it used to take 10 to 14 days — you’d come in, get the procedure done, we would put a temporary [crown] on you and send you away. You’d come back in about two weeks, and we would cement a final product,” Steffy said. “Now, they can come and be gone in two hours with the final product.”
Fit to Serve: They’re the Best of the Best
One notion Steffy would like to dispel: The care provided by active-duty Navy dentists is somehow substandard to that of civilian dentists.
“All of us are trained the exact same way every private practice dentist in the whole world is trained,” said Steffy, who went to dental school at UCLA and did his residency at the University of Texas, San Antonio. “There is no military dental school. … The difference is I’m not trying to sell you a treatment. I’m just telling you what you’re going to get.”
Military dentists keep up with private practice standards and meet the advancements in technology that are found in schools and institutions.
“I’m not licensed by the Navy. I’m licensed by the state of Washington, so I have to maintain the exact same standard as every dentist in the state,” Steffy said. “We’re also subject to the same disciplinary problems. … Actually, we’re probably held more accountable than private practice because we have peer review, which means every month, some other dentist has to evaluate five of my procedures and say, ‘Yes, these are up to the standard of care.'”
A Network of Expertise & Leadership Opportunities
Steffy, who’s a married Marine Corps veteran with three children, said his family loves the experiences that come with moving duty stations every few years. But he knows he’s in the minority when it comes to military dentists. He said most who enlist get out after their four-year obligation, so finding capable dentists who are willing to stay in the service is always a priority.
“They’re always looking to move talent up through the ranks and retain good clinicians and people to fill top leadership roles,” he said. “I would encourage people to not be afraid to consider military service, as far as health care goes.”
Steffy said private practice has its downsides, including feelings of isolation and having to maintain a business on one’s own. In the military, however, there are plenty of peer professionals to reach out to for help, advice or to learn a new skill.
“I have direct access to a surgeon, to radiologists, to comprehensive dentists who’ve been doing this for 20 years and we’re not competing with each other for patients or money,” he said.
Another benefit — he’s learned valuable lessons in leadership.
“Mentoring all these different people ages 18-55 and helping us all accomplish our goals together has been rewarding for me,” he said.
