After college, Dr. Alcorn followed in his parents’ footsteps, taking a job as a corporate executive bakery chef where he oversaw the creation of pastries and the training of other pastry chefs, but he always knew that wasn’t his calling.

“Part of me always wanted to get into healthcare,” said Dr. Alcorn. “For me, healthcare was a way that I could give back to a community in a place where it was needed.”

He spent some time shadowing other healthcare providers before settling on dentistry and attended the Utah School of Dentistry, near where he had earned his undergraduate degree and met his wife, Jolene. 

“Dentistry was a good fit for me because a lot of the artistry that I’d learned making pastries transferred over to working with teeth,” he said.

Because Dr. Alcorn and Jolene were both from Oregon, they knew they wanted to return home at some point. They settled on moving to Florence, since they both love the coast and liked the idea of raising their family in a smaller community. 

After he graduated in 2020, Dr. Alcorn officially joined Florence Dental Clinic and, due to the ongoing pandemic, he hit the ground running in the small community practice. 

“From the moment I started, we were busy,” said Dr. Alcorn, who says that while he was grateful for the opportunity to get started at the practice in Florence, “it was definitely a scary time to move to a new place and put down roots in a new community.”

Even with the challenges the pandemic brought, Dr. Alcorn was grateful for the opportunity to get involved in his new community and serve his patients in a way that he believes is unique to smaller, more rural communities.

“Even as a youth, growing up in Brookings, I liked that when you get involved in the community, the ripples show more when it’s a smaller community versus somewhere urban where you may not notice the difference you’re making,” said Dr. Alcorn, who said that he wanted to give his kids the same experience of feeling valued and being able to have a greater impact in a smaller community. 

“There’s a big need here,” said Dr. Alcorn. “When one of our doctors retired and we went down from three doctors to two, we had to close our doors for a bit to new patients and no one in Florence was taking new patients. Today, I believe we’re one of the only dental practices in the area taking new patients.”

In addition to the increased need and the ability to serve his local community, Dr. Alcorn also appreciates the other opportunities that rural dentistry offers as far as his scope of practice.

“It’s fun working in a rural area,” said Dr. Alcorn. “You are practicing a broader scope of dentistry because there’s less opportunity to refer to specialists. When we do refer patients, often those referrals will go to Eugene or Coos Bay and it’s harder for our elderly population to make that trip, so we try to do as much as we can for them here.”

While Dr. Alcorn appreciates the ability to help patients who aren’t able to travel to see specialists, he admits it was a challenge at first to get comfortable in all areas of his practice, especially as a new dentist, and there are still things he says he doesn’t do in his practice. 

In addition to serving his patients through his practice, Dr. Alcorn Jolene are very involved in their community. In Utah, Jolene was a member of the Alliance of the American Dental Association’s Health Education Program, which provided an education kit to volunteers who would visit local schools and teach kids about the value of dentistry and hygiene. Once they moved to Oregon, Dr. Alcorn and Jolene brought that program to their new community in Florence.

“We reached out to a local elementary school, and we’ve been going to second grade classes to give them a 30-minute presentation on teeth and how to keep them clean and what they need to do to have better dental health in their lives,” said Dr. Alcorn. “It helps us to get to know the kids and their families in our community better as well.”

Dr. Alcorn’s clinic has also coordinated with the local elementary and middle schools to do free dental screenings for students, as well as a free dental day for kids in the area who they’ve identified with emergent needs. 

“We’ve arranged with the schools to bus kids over to our clinic and do screenings one day and the work another day,” said Dr. Alcorn. “We’ve recently expanded the program, and last year we had a couple other dentists from Florence join us so we’re able to help more kids.”

In addition to his community involvement in Florence, Dr. Alcorn is involved with the Coastal Cascades Dentist Society (CCDS), where he serves as treasurer of the board. 

“It’s definitely tied me to the broader dental community,” said Dr. Alcorn of his work with the Coastal Cascades Dentist Society. “I wasn’t involved with ASDA, so I didn’t understand the value of associations like this until I was voluntold by my partner at my clinic to become a board member.”

Since getting involved, Dr. Alcorn said he sees a lot of value in dental organizations like the CCDS or ODA. 

“Organized dentistry helps dentists in ways that often they don’t realize, from offering different continuing education courses to working with and passing—or keeping—legislation we need to be able to operate,” he said.

Dr. Alcorn said it’s important for the industry for other dentists to get involved, not only for the advocacy work, but also for the networking opportunities. He says his favorite thing he’s done through his involvement with organized dentistry is going to events and meeting other dentists.

“I love the networking and relationships I’ve developed,” said Dr. Alcorn.

While he sees a lot of change on the horizon for dentistry through the introduction of AI (artificial intelligence), one thing that Dr. Alcorn does not see changing is the need for rural dentists in small communities. 

It’s clear that Dr. Alcorn is committed to not just serving patients in his clinic, but to truly being an integral member of his community through volunteer work, service, and oral health education—a true embodiment of what it means to serve as a rural dentist in Oregon.