Anchorage Daily News

For Amanda Gaynor Ashley of Barrow, skiing to work in polar bear country with .44 Magnum strapped to her hip was a bit of a departure from her East Coast upbringing. Training for a Denali climb in a place as flat as Kansas was tricky, but she managed by doing a ton of StairMaster with a heavy pack and going camping in a blizzard at 60 below.

Now that she's a mother of two, she doesn't have as much time for such things. She's just training for a half-marathon is all.

But it's her day job that's been the most challenging. As a dentist, Ashley is in the process of transforming a generation and its relationship with the toothbrush.

The evidence is on the wall of the dental clinic she runs at the Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Barrow, where kids who pass their exams with flying colors get their pictures posted on the "cavity-free kids" bulletin board. Years ago, that board was mighty lonely; there were maybe two kids up there. These days, it gets so crowded, pictures have to be swapped out several times a year.

Ashley's prevention programs and other accomplishments got the attention of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Out of 532 nominees, she was one of 10 health care professionals to receive the foundation's Community Health Leaders award, given annually to those who "overcome daunting odds to improve the health and quality of life for disadvantaged or underserved men, women and children across the United States."

The awards were presented last month in Washington, D.C., and come with big bucks. Ashley will receive $105,000 for her dental program, and $20,000 for her own professional development.

She hasn't decided yet how best to spend the money.

"Even with the award ceremony and everything, it still hasn't sunk in," she said.

Of the 173 recipients in the award's 16-year history, Ashley is one of only four dentists to be honored, and only the second Alaskan. The first, Victor Joseph, won in 2001 as director of the Tanana Chiefs Conference's Recovery Camp Program, a substance-abuse program based on Native ways, values and strengths.

In addition to getting kids brushing at school, Ashley has developed training programs that allow Barrow's dental clinic to be staffed by locals, and not a revolving door of outsiders. She's made the clinic cheery -- a fun place, rather than a frightening one -- for children. She's redesigned traditional oral health programs to fit Inupiat culture, including working schedules around the whaling season. And that's despite being a vegan.

DRAWN TO DENTISTRY

Growing up in Utica, N.Y., Ashley, 34, always wanted to be a doctor. After living as a high-school exchange student in Finland with a family whose father was a dentist, she knew what kind.

"It's very easy to be influenced by people who love what they do."

She liked how he could fix people up, and even better, how he could prevent dental disasters in the first place. She liked his balance of work and home life, which left plenty of energy for playing outdoors.

Plus, in dentistry, nobody dies.

When Ashley graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Dentistry in 1999, with a master's degree in education on top of her doctorate, she was looking for adventure and challenge, and asked the Indian Health Service where she could be of most use.

Barrow, was the answer.

Steve Schroeder, former president of the RWJ Foundation, toured Barrow some years ago, and can attest to that.

"I have traveled all 50 states, and I can't recall a place that had greater dental needs."

Although it varies family to family, like in many rural Alaska communities, not enough brushing was going on. And too many kids were growing up on soda, with the equivalent of 10 sugar cubes in each 12-ounce can. Oral health care was even more scarce in the villages, which were lucky if a dentist dropped in once or twice a year.

Ashley signed on, figuring she'd stay a year or so and move along. She hadn't counted on falling in love with the place. She soon realized if she wanted to make a difference she needed to do what many before her had not -- stick around a while.

Those back home weren't sure what to make of that. So her entire extended family, all 12 of them, from her parents to her cousins, came to visit after she signed on for an additional year. It almost looked like an intervention. But once they saw the place and met the people, they got it.

It's a good thing she stuck around, too. And not just for the benefit of other people's teeth. Because a couple of years later she noticed some tall, blond guy poking around the tundra outside her house, wondered what he was up to, and went out to ask.

He was trapping Lapland larkspurs for his University of Washington doctoral research. He's now a wildlife biologist in Barrow, and her husband. She and Noel Ashley married in 2006, and have a 2-year-old son, Asa, and a 4-month-old daughter, Sabine.

Before kids, it wasn't unusual to put in 14- to 16-hour days. So it helped that work and adventure often overlapped.

Like the time she took a few days off to do a 70-mile ski trip with friends to the village of Atquasuk, only to find the villagers had heard she was coming and were waiting for her. She ended up doing dental exams in her ski boots.

And early on, flying about in small, single-engine planes to do clinics in the villages was always exciting. Sometimes too exciting.

One time, flying back from Kaktovik, they hit a big storm and the plane's instruments froze up. Ashley had to climb out of her seat and pick away at the quarter-inch of ice built up on the inside of the windshield as the pilot radioed ahead to say they were in trouble.

"I used to think those near-death experiences were really cool," Ashley said. "I couldn't wait to call my parents and tell them I nearly died. Now as a mom, it's all going to come back to haunt me. (The kids) will probably become professional sky divers or something."

TAKING ON THE FEAR FACTOR

Ashley has made Barrow her home for 10 years.

After her first two as a staff dentist, at age 24, she was named clinic director. Although she landed in Barrow full of ideas, until then she'd mostly let them simmer and instead immersed herself in the community and the culture. She watched. She listened. She learned to pay more attention to the seasons than a clock. So by the time she was in charge of the clinic, she was ready to make some big changes.

For the most part, the clinic was a place people went when they couldn't stand the pain.

"It was heartbreaking that people were coming in and their teeth were really beyond the point where you could save them," she said.

She needed to change the dentist-as-evil-extractor image. That meant persuading people to come in for preventive care rather than just damage control. To make the biggest difference, she knew she had to reach kids.

For starters, the posters had to go. When you walked in, that's what greeted you, these blown-up pictures of tooth decay and periodontal disease.

"I mean, they were right in your face."

Now, when kids come into this sunny, compact, six-chair clinic, the first things they see are puppets. Cartoons are playing. And there's a fun-house mirror in back.

"We also have a ton of prizes and toys and giveaways," Ashley said. "I mean, we'll load them up."

Although the clinic had been donating toothbrushes to local schools for years, it's now working with the North Slope School District to get kids actually using them.

Ashley also launched an after-school "Kids Clinic," three-month recalls for checkups, and a "junior dentist" job-shadow program.

Arnold Brower Jr., school district chairman, credits Ashley for taking away much of the fears kids have of dentistry.

Bobbi Quintavell, chief executive of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., says the difference Ashley's made is "enormous."

In the old days, when her nieces and nephews would spend the night, Quintavell was the one who supplied toothbrushes and played brushing enforcer. Now it goes without saying that the kids pack their toothbrushes and brush before bed.

Ashley also pushed to get fluoride added to the city's water supply, and trained aides to do fluoride treatments in the outlying villages where that's not possible.

She created a course through Ilisagvik Tribal College to train local dental assistants, so now when people come to the clinic, they see their relatives and friends working there. She also established an externship program that brings fourth-year dental students to Barrow to see if they might like working there someday. The program got 80 applicants this year.

Joanna Hopson, 24, credits Ashley for motivating her to do more with her life. Hopson dropped out of college after one week, and ended up back in Barrow unsure what to do. After going through the dental assistant program and loving it, she's now studying to be a dental hygienist at the University of Alaska Anchorage and plans to return to Barrow after graduation.

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, chief executive of the RWJ Foundation, visited Ashley's clinic a few years ago and was struck by all she's been able to accomplish.

"I was so impressed by her commitment to do whatever needed to be done," she said. "She stood out in my mind as a person who was going to make a difference in people's lives."

Find Debra McKinney online at adn.com/contact/dmckinney or call 257-4465.

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