CLEVELAND (NBC 26) — A nearly $1.2M expansion at Lakeshore College in Cleveland should be ready for dental assisting students by the end of June, but that's not the only positive development coming from this project.
Construction crews have been hard at work to expand the existing dental assisting classroom clinic into a bigger space where more dental students can improve their skills.
"Yeah. Very exciting, very exciting! We have lots of different plans for new dental simulators to use in the lab for students to practice with, and just the atmosphere here at Lakeshore is very excited to have this new clinic space," said Lakeshore College Dental Program Coordinator, Christina McGinnis.
"Yeah, it's very exciting that there will be something right here in the Cleveland area," said Lakeshore Dental Assisting student, Kyle Burgess.
McGinnis and Burgess say they're both excited about the expanded improvements, because the bigger space will be able to accommodate more students, but they say they're mostly looking forward to the school's new dental hygiene program that administrators are hoping to have accredited by the fall of 2026.
"A little bit of both! Yeah, definitely a state-of-the-art facility is going to be great. You get all the fancy machines and everything like that, and a lot of that updated equipment makes it easier for learning," Burgess said.
McGinnis says she hopes the expansion and new hygienist program will help address the region's shortage of dental professionals.
"And, so we're very excited to have new providers in the area and stay local to many of the rural clinics as well to have more access to care for patients in the community," McGinnis said.
