After attending a class in Otay's UABC, an instructor informed me that dental care there was minimal if not free for students and staff. She was to be off from class for such an appointment. Further down the line, I found out that this wasn't correct but rather the services are available for everyone (including foreigners) at 4 or 5 clinics throughout the city. Some of these clinics are more specialized than others. The catch is that you will be the subject of student dentists. I believe these types of services are also available in the USA (though I personally have never used them).
Well in TJ, I decided to use them, at least to some extent. A crown which had been put in by a TJ dentist 2 years before was becoming painful. At the UABC clinic, a very astute & professional behaving student who spoke good English was to check my problem. She listened and then inspected my dental situation. She took an xray and then consulted & determined with her professor that the root canal was fine but the crown wasn't. She then removed the crown, cleaned up my tooth and root canal, and then capped it for later treatment. This costed me around $25 plus some extras at any pharmacy for some recommended meds.
I was very pleased with what I got and wanted to continue to complete my tooth restoration. Here is when things became more complicated. To get the other type services that I needed meant that I would have to go to various other clinics. Each often had waiting lines for up to a couple of months. On top of that, school break vacations of up to 1 to 2 months can interupt the wait even longer. Then to make matters yet more complicated, the non-dental staff often appeared quite incapable of adaquately directing clients as to where and how to move forward through their maze. One dental professor actually apologized for the administration's incompetencies.
Since I could afford to pay more and I didn't want to wait what seemed like forever to use all my teeth again, I found a dentist in Centro who got things done quickly. I paid her around $200 for inspection, xrays, analysis, a deep cleaning, a post, and a new crown. It's been several months now and I still feel okay about it. So far, so good.
If one has the time, the stamina and the need for an affordable option, I still believe one can find their dental care using dental students. After all, many thousands of local Tijuana folks do. I can't remember what the prices were for various dental services but it seemed to me they were like half to a quarter what many TJ professional dentist charge. 8)
