THE DENTAL DIVIDE
Rural America has an oral health crisis—but there’s a way to help.
TWO AND A HALF hours west of the Twin Cities, where the Minnesota and Chippewa rivers meet, is the prairie village of Montevideo, Minnesota. Downtown consists of a post office, railroad tracks, a few storefronts, and a dentist’s office called Main Street Dental Care. From the outside, the clinic doesn’t look like much. But on the bitter February day I visited, inside it was buzzing with activity.
Down the hall from the full waiting room, bent over her dental chair, Brandi Tweeter had a full
