Dentistry student delves into Canadian Dental Care Plan

Dental student Malea Penner’s research found that while the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) is having a positive impact, it’s not yet achieving equitable access across all areas of dental care.  

As part of the bachelor of science in dentistry B.Sc. (Dent.) program, Penner set out to study how the new CDCP has influenced treatment patterns at UM’s dental college clinic. She wanted to know what types of treatments people with no insurance received after the introduction of the CDCP, when they became covered by the plan.  

“The main findings were that simple, basic, essential dental care increased in this patient population,” said Penner, a fourth-year dental student at the Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry. “Things like fillings, cleanings, extractions, root canals, those treatments increased and that’s a really positive result.”

However, Penner said that larger treatments, such as dentures and crowns, did not show the same increases

“Likely one of the main reasons is that those procedures require preauthorization from the CDCP. We examined the results of the preauthorization and we found that those numbers were very low, which may help explain why increased coverage did not translate into greater access to these more complex treatments,” she said.  

The results of Penner’s study will be published in the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association by the end of 2026.  

The B.Sc. (Dent.) program allows dental students to spend two summers – following their first and second years of the four-year doctor of dental medicine degree – immersed in research.

UM Today sat down with Penner to learn about her experience as a B.Sc. (Dent.) student at UM.

Why do you think it’s important for dental students to gain hands-on research experience?  

Research is what moves health care forward. If you look at all the advances we’ve made in medicine and dentistry, it’s from people who do research. So many of the advances we benefit from in medicine and dentistry are the result of people asking questions and pursuing them through research.  

Becoming involved as a student helps us understand how that knowledge is developed and gives us a foundation to pursue further research, whether in graduate studies or throughout our careers. 

How do you think this research experience will help you as a future dentist?  

This experience has helped me become a more critical and informed reader of scientific literature. Before, I was a bit naive to how research was conducted and how people write research articles.  

So, I think that’s a really positive takeaway as well. As a future dentist, that will help me evaluate new evidence and make informed clinical decisions.