Like Dr. Earnshaw, a growing number of dentists are finding opportunities to take their act on the road by working temporary assignments in a variety of settings. The trend is being driven by a national shortage of dentists and mirrors a similar development in medicine, where tens of thousands of MDs work as locum tenens each year. In the field of medicine, private practices, hospitals, community health centers, correctional facilities, military facilities, and other providers are using locum tenens physicians to maintain services when permanent physicians can’t be found. This often takes place in federally designated Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) where the ratio of practitioners to the population falls below the standards set by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

There are over 6,000 HPSAs in the U.S. today where the number of primary care physicians falls below HRSA standards. At over 4,000, the number of dental HPSAs is not far behind. Companies like Staff Care, which for years specialized in the placement of locum tenens physicians, are being asked to find temporary dentists to fill openings around the country.  

Dr. Earnshaw, for example, worked as a locum tenens in a private practice, substituting for a doctor who was recovering from hip replacement surgery. He also worked temporary assignments at community health centers and correctional facilities that are chronically short of permanent dentists. Other dentists, such as Dr. Alton Walker of Rockport, TX, filled in for dentists who were deployed overseas by the military. He also substituted for a dentist who had to temporarily quit working due to injuries from a car accident.