Most kids don’t look forward to getting braces. But when Cyndell Prewitt learned she’d soon sport a mouthful of metal, she shed tears of joy. “I was wondering, ‘Wow, how could I be so lucky?’” she recalls.
For years, Prewitt’s crooked teeth and overbite left her so self-conscious that she’d avoid smiling or opening her mouth when meeting new people. And she encountered many unfamiliar faces. After her mother lost her job, the two moved frequently and even spent some time being homeless.
Even after they settled outside Chicago in the suburb of Palatine, Ill., orthodontic bills fell out of their reach. “Growing up poor and in the suburbs, kids were getting their braces in late elementary school and early middle school,” Prewitt recalls. “I was like, ‘Oh, when am I going to get mine? When am I going to have my perfect smile?’”
Enter Dr. Barry Booth and the Smile for a Lifetime Foundation of Southwest Chicagoland. During her sophomore year in high school, Prewitt applied for—and received—a “full scholarship” for orthodontic care through the nonprofit, which Booth, ’82 DENT, DDS ’84, MS ’86 DENT, ’80 UI, established in 2011.
Now 19 and studying international relations at nearby Lake Forest College, Prewitt says her straight teeth already have opened more doors than she could have imagined. She earned a scholarship to school, and plans a career in diplomacy and politics, which will take full advantage of both her debate skills and her glowing grin.
Dr. Barry Booth and Cyndell Prewitt during a recent checkup at his office in Homer Glen, Ill. Prewitt is a recipient of a “scholarship for orthodontic care” provided by Smile for a Lifetime of Southwest Chicagoland, a local chapter of a national nonprofit organization, founded by Booth. To date, the foundation has provided scholarships to more than 30 children and teenagers. (Courtesy of Barry Booth)
Thirty-four children and teens now have benefited from the Smile for a Lifetime Foundation of Southwest Chicagoland, a local chapter of a Colorado-based national nonprofit. Each patient receives care from Booth and hardware from dental supply manufacturer Ormco Corp., together worth about $6,000—but the effect on their lives can’t be so easily quantified. “When you think about unlocked potential in these young people who might not have a good self-image—I think it’s invaluable to get those kids started in the right direction,” Booth says. “You see them come out of their cocoons and become confident people.”
From the first day to the best day
Spend a single afternoon in the busy offices of Booth Orthodontics, located in the Chicago suburb of Homer Glen, Ill., and you’ll see patients at every stage of life and smile repair. A tween soccer player dutifully does “jaw gymnastics,” opening and closing on command for her initial evaluation. Then there’s Prewitt, in her Lake Forest College hat, dropping by two years post-treatment for a retainer fix.
One young patient listens intently as a clinical coordinator explains what foods to avoid and how to use an electric toothbrush on her brand-new brackets and wires. “Now, more than half the people at my lunch table have braces,” the girl says, running her tongue across the unfamiliar bits of metal. Around the corner, a teenage boy snaps his last silver-toothed selfie while sitting on the waiting bench before sliding into the chair next to hers. “The best day ever: when you get your braces off,” Booth declares, giving the patient a high-five and flashing his own electric grin.
Watching Booth work, it’s clear why his practice has thrived. (He had a barbecue this past June to celebrate his 30th anniversary.) With the lean physique and endurance of a distance runner, he strides quickly from patient to patient, pausing only long enough to snap on a new pair of bright-blue rubber gloves. (In fact, Booth has completed seven marathons, including the prestigious Boston Marathon.) He chats with students about the Chicago Blackhawks and spring break plans; while repairing the retainer of a woman with a neat gray ponytail, he asks about her husband and kids.
What you won’t see is any difference in attitude or procedures between Prewitt and other patients. She’s treated exactly the same, with the exception of not receiving a bill at the end. “No one ever made a point of saying—‘Oh, this is the girl who has the scholarship,’” Prewitt says. “As a teenager, you appreciate that kind of thing because you don’t want people to know you can’t afford this.”
Booth began his practice 30 years ago in an office leased from a local dentist. His current facility—which he helped design—opened in 2001. (Photo by Lloyd DeGrane)
Turning challenges into opportunities
Booth grew up the youngest of seven children in the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, Ill., about 20 miles from his current office. To his parents—who, as a teacher and an estimator for a gas company, stretched to pay for all their children’s schooling—the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign represented a high-quality education at an affordable price.
As an undergrad at Illinois, Booth developed an interest in science and a plan to attend medical school. However, externships with an emergency room physician and an orthopedic surgeon opened his eyes to the reality of long hours and near-constant availability. “One doc had to leave his daughter’s birthday party to take a call,” Booth recalls. “I realized, that’s not really what I want to do.”
Dentistry offered a similar intellectual challenge, but a more balanced lifestyle. So Booth applied to dental schools, including UIC, and earned admission to several around the country. Love kept him close to home; he’d begun dating an artist named Jane Elston, ’80 UI, who after graduation had landed a job designing exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry. “We were going to get married soon,” he says. “We had income, and it was a good fit, so I stayed local.” Booth did a mini-residency in orthodontics as he earned his DDS and graduated ready to go directly into what he calls “a terrific field.”
“It’s all fun, it’s all positive—everyone gets better, everyone gets cured,” he says.
Booth Orthodontics is known for state-of-the-art technology such as i-Cat 3-D imaging, which provides more comprehensive images with lower doses of radiation than conventional medical CT scans. (Courtesy of Barry Booth)
After graduation, Booth worked as an associate in another orthodontist’s office. For three years, he spent one day a week on-staff at Cook County Hospital, a public facility where he treated patients with birth defects and traumatic injuries. Booth also began laying down roots in Homer Glen, Ill. He borrowed $15,000 from his father, and, from a local dentist, subleased the use of an office, installing a cephalometric X-ray machine in the wall. Booth saw patients there on nights and weekends—when the dentist wasn’t working—until he heard that a nearby orthodontist was planning his retirement. The two worked together for three months before Booth bought the practice, just five years out of dental school.
Although he felt proficient in treating patients, taking the helm came with a bit of a learning curve. “You have basically no business skills,” Booth explains. “You enter practice and [find yourself] the HR person, the quality-control person, the trainer, the staff manager.” He threw himself full-force into learning, taking business courses and attending workshops on orthodontic office design, which came in handy when he built out his current space 15 years ago. “When something is difficult, you can either look at it as a challenge or look at it as a burden,” Booth says. “I always think it’s fun to get after it and try to get it done.”
His efforts have paid off, according to those on his staff, who say they feel like part of one big family. “Working for him for 21 years has been terrific,” says Melinda King, office manager and treatment coordinator at Booth Orthodontics.
Financial Coordinator Linda Lundquist, a 19-year veteran, agrees. “I have never worked for somebody who is grateful and thanks you for the little things you do,” she says. “And he’s great with the kids.”
In addition to his kindness and charm, Booth has a reputation for embracing the latest techniques and technology. “He was one of the first in our area to treat children at a young age,” says Dr. Jeffrey Cantor, a longtime friend and pediatric dentist in nearby Orland Park, Ill., who has referred hundreds of patients (including his own son) to Booth. “He was one of the first in our area to use imaging and digital technology to robotically bend [bracing] wires,” which reduces treatment time.
Unlike many orthodontics offices, Booth’s has an in-house lab, where a technician custom-crafts many of the appliances he prescribes. Another innovation he offers uses vibration technology to stimulate bone cells and reposition teeth about 40 percent faster. Instead of medical CT scans, patients receive i-Cat 3-D scans, which provide more comprehensive images with smaller doses of radiation. And in place of impressions made with gag-inducing, goopy moldings, technicians often use a 10-minute radiation-free digital scan, creating a 3-D image that then gets zipped to the lab to create an acrylic mold for fittings.
Despite all this technology, the Booth Orthodontics office still feels comfortable and inviting. Abundant light streams through large windows etched with subtle, geometric, stained-glass patterns. Framed images of wooded landscapes and a large jungle mural—all painted by Jane Booth—bring a touch of nature indoors. And soon, another Booth creation will feature prominently in the building. Barry and Jane’s oldest son, Ryan, dds ’14, 28, who is finishing his orthodontic residency at the University of Colorado, will join the practice in January 2017.
The facility operates its own in-house lab, which custom-crafts many of the appliances Booth prescribes. It also uses digital scans to create acrylic molds of fittings. (Photo by Lloyd DeGrane)
A successful clinician gives back
Booth’s clinical skills have bolstered his reputation among patients and dentists; he now treats hundreds of people a year, almost all referrals. But as he entered his 25th year of practice in 2011, one issue still troubled him. Even in private practice in an affluent suburb, he encountered many patients who couldn’t afford treatment.
For years, Booth worked with some on a case-by-case basis—but he yearned to do more and for a more formalized process to ensure that aid reached the right people. So when an Arkansas orthodontist started the national Smile for a Lifetime Foundation in 2008 and put out a call for local chapters, Booth jumped at the opportunity.
The foundation fills a crucial hole in access to orthodontic care, says Cantor, who serves on its board of directors. Medicaid places significant restrictions on treatments such as braces. Dental schools sometimes offer reduced fees for teaching cases, but Illinois has only one orthodontics program (not to mention a severe budget crunch). Cantor wasn’t surprised when Booth stepped up to meet the need. “He cares about people,” Cantor says. “The community has been good to him, and he’s the type of person who wants to show his gratitude.”
Students ages 11-18 can submit applications, which require tax returns, essays and two letters of recommendation from adults. Finally—and most importantly—potential patients must describe how they intend to fulfill the foundation’s “pay it forward” requirement of 20 hours of community service. “When you are given something that changes your life so much, to be able to change someone else’s life in return helps it stick with you a lot more,” says King, who oversees the service component of the foundation’s work.
Booth does a clinical evaluation of each potential patient and writes up a treatment plan, but doesn’t weigh in on the selection process. The 10-member board meets twice a year to review the plans and applications, and to select recipients. Besides Cantor, this group includes an accountant who checks the tax forms, two other dentists, an oral surgeon, a Lutheran pastor, three public-school officials and a bank executive.
Booth Orthodontics’ Lundquist also serves as executive director of the foundation, shepherding applicants through the process. She and King say this work has brought them closer as a staff and opened their eyes to the invisible needs within their community. “These people have brought us to tears with their battles and their gratitude,” King says. They marvel at the creativity of the service projects—one applicant organized a book drive, while two sons of a band director collected and cleaned up used musical instruments for their fellow students.
Scholarship patients remain dedicated to their treatment plans, Booth says, reliably following instructions regarding using an electric toothbrush and wearing rubber bands. One young man sometimes arrived late to his appointments, King and Lundquist recall. But once the staff found out he took four buses and then walked three miles to get to the office from his downtown Chicago foodservice job, they left more leeway in his scheduling.
In fact, the biggest challenge in running the foundation has nothing to do with the patients themselves—it’s primarily a marketing issue. Booth spreads the word by leaving brochures in dentists’ offices, talking up the program to school nurses and social workers, and sending out press releases. Ideally, one foundation patient begins treatment each month. But for some sessions, the board has only four completed applications to consider for six available slots. “I thought it would feed itself because families tell families,” Booth says, “but not as much as you would think,” perhaps because of the sensitivities surrounding their financial situations.
Prewitt, for one, doesn’t mind sharing her story, especially if others can experience the same joy she felt in her transformation. Her best day ever—when her braces came off—arrived 24 hours before she started at Lake Forest College. “I couldn’t stop looking at myself in the mirror—it was like one of those surreal moments,” she says. “I realized that when I meet people tomorrow, the first thing they won’t notice about me is how my teeth look. I cried then, too.”