(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Mission of Mercy annual free dental clinic is set for next month in Coralville in eastern Iowa. Dr. Kobi Voshell says the event known a I-MOM is what got him started in his career. “In 2008 I went and was interested in dentistry and went and volunteered for the second ever IMOM in Cedar Rapids and I stayed for two days. Held hands while people were getting injections and walked people around from place to place,” he says.”I was like ‘Yes this is what I want to do,’ and a short decade later, I was finally in dental school and learning how to be a dentist and then took my turn at IMOM being the one giving the injections and working on the patients. It was fantastic,” Voshell says. Voshell works in Iowa City and says the free clinic handles of dental care that many people take for granted.

“The shame and fear that comes with dental work, and especially for people that aren’t able to afford it at a pretty regular pace or regular rate really is damning,” he says. “It really sucks. It makes it hard for those people to make it to the dentist when they can, and they’re afraid of the needle, they’re afraid of the dentist, they’re afraid of the pain.” The clinic will be at the Iowa River landing in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Coralville.”We’re planning to see about a thousand patients over the two days of IMOM, that’s September 19th and 20th. We’ll see about a thousand patients and do over one million dollars of free dentistry,” Voshell says.

The clinic is free and on a first-come, first-served basis for the two days.