Wisconsin

As more Wisconsin dentists retire, getting new providers to rural areas is a challenge

Published

11 months ago

January 23, 2025

As more Wisconsin dentists retire, getting new providers to rural areas is a challenge

Scott Nicol returned to his hometown of Tomah in 1973 to work as a dentist. He was fresh out of dental school, and he remembers one of his first patients: an older man who needed a denture fixed but was skeptical about getting treatment from a young provider.

“Then he said, ‘Are you Bob and Junie’s boy?’ And I said yes,” Nicol recalled. “He said, ‘Go ahead and fix it.’”

Nicol found building good relationships with his patients and office staff was the key to success as a small-town dentist. He would spend more than four decades caring for the residents of his community in western Wisconsin.

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But when it came time for Nicol to retire, finding someone to take over his portion of Tomah Family Dentistry wasn’t easy.

He spent more than two years looking for the right dentist to take his place, even turning down offers from dentists who he knew were only looking for a temporary job. Nicol found there were few young dentists looking to move permanently to a rural city of fewer than 10,000 people.

In the last five years, Wisconsin’s dental industry has gone through a major shift as more providers from the baby boom generation leave work. The natural transition was accelerated even further by the COVID-19 pandemic, when many dentists chose to retire earlier than usual.

For patients, that can mean difficulties finding care amid dental shortages.

According to data from the American Dental Association, in 2020, a third of the state’s dentists were baby boomers and another third were millennials.

By 2023, millennials made up nearly half of the state’s providers while baby boomers represented about a quarter of Wisconsin dentists. As more boomers reach retirement age (the youngest members of the generation are now 60), that transition will continue in the coming years.

Data from the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute shows higher percentages of Wisconsin dentists are under age 40. Photo courtesy of the American Dental Association

This generational change has affected rural areas of the state the most, where there is already a shortage of dentists. Without new providers coming, rural patients are left with fewer options for care and longer wait times for an appointment.

“The biggest challenge I have seen over the years in getting a dentist to come to a smaller town is their spouse doesn’t want to live here,” Nicol said. “They’re looking for something more than what a Tomah has to offer.”

Young dentists balance higher debt, desire for mentorship

American Dental Association data shows Wisconsin has largely the same number of dentists per capita as it did 20 years ago, after numbers fell slightly in the late 2000s. Industry leaders say many young dentists are looking at the state’s cities, attracted by the amenities of urban life and better job opportunities for their spouses.

Many graduates are also leaving dental school with a large amount of debt. Nicol said that not only makes it harder for them to buy into or start a private practice, but also influences the way new dentists think about their first jobs.

“A lot of them are just looking for a place to get experience, make some money, pay down their debt, and then they’re going to move on,” he said.

For some dentists, that means working for a corporate chain, or what are known as dental service organizations, instead of owning and operating an independent business. Nicol said he’s seen many retiring dentists choose to sell to corporate chains after failing to find someone to take over their private practice.

Wisconsin is one of 26 states that have seen dentists at the beginning of their careers leave for jobs in other states. Data from the American Dental Association shows that between 2019 and 2022, Wisconsin lost more than 2 percent of new dentists, or those with less than 10 years of experience. It’s one of the smaller net losses, with some states losing 7 percent or more of young dentists.

Lauren Poppe graduated from Marquette University’s School of Dentistry, the only dental program in Wisconsin, in 2024. She said the majority of her classmates stayed in urban areas for their first job. But the decision was as much about their careers as it was about their lifestyle.

“I think some of my classmates thought that maybe they would get more experience in an urban location, and be able to build more confidence,” Poppe said.

Poppe is one of the exceptions. She started working for a small dental practice in rural Douglas County right after graduation, a job that has provided the mentorship she said many new dentists are looking for.

But Poppe said there are only a few other dental providers in her area, limiting opportunities for other new dentists to find the same start.

Of Wisconsin’s 45 rural counties, 30 are considered a dental health professional shortage area, according to federal data from October. By comparison, four of the state’s 27 metropolitan counties were shortage areas.

A Wisconsin map shows nearly half of the state’s counties, including 30 rural counties, do not have enough dental care providers to care for residents. *Courtesy of the Rural Health Information Hub*

Poppe said the shortage means more people are relying on her for care, a position that can feel intimidating for any new graduate. There are only a handful of specialists like orthodontists to whom she can refer people, and her office pulls in patients from as far as an hour and half away.

“If a patient walks in your door and you haven’t seen something like that, or you’re not quite sure, having someone you can call and talk to, bounce ideas off of, that’s the reason why I wanted to go to a practice that wasn’t just me,” she said.

State officials work to incentivize rural practice

Poppe was able to start working in rural Wisconsin right away thanks to a new state incentive referred to as diploma privilege.

The Wisconsin Dentistry Examining Board voted in 2023 to allow Marquette graduates to skip the practical exam that’s normally required for state licensure, helping graduates get licensed more quickly. It’s the first program of its kind in the nation, according to Marquette.

Poppe’s class last spring was the first group of recipients, with 24 students out of the class of 100 participating. While most grads wait six to eight weeks for a license to practice, Poppe said she received hers three days after graduation. She thinks the expedited process will be a significant incentive for future graduates to stay in Wisconsin immediately after graduation.

State officials have also taken action to try to get new dentists to where they’re needed most. Last year, state lawmakers changed an existing state scholarship for health care workers to be specific to dental students at Marquette.

The scholarship awards $30,000 to 15 students annually. In exchange for each year they receive the scholarship, students agree to work for 18 months in a dental health shortage area outside of Brown, Dane, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.

Wisconsin also began licensing dental therapists in 2024. These mid-level providers work under the supervision of a dentist to provide care like filling cavities or placing temporary crowns. Many health advocacy groups in the state have supported the new type of provider as a way to expand care in areas where dentists are in short supply.

Tomah dentist Lucas Schwartz holds one of the dental models he uses with patients. *Hope Kirwan/WPR*

Recruiting small-town dentists may be easier at home

After two years of searching, Nicol ended up finding his successor in a former patient at his office.

Lucas Schwartz spent a lot of time going to the dentist as a kid because of a unique health condition. But his dentist, Nicol’s partner Mark Matthews, made the experience fun— so much so that Schwartz decided to pursue his own career in dentistry, with a goal of returning to a small town like one he grew up in.

“There’s a lot of community, that’s probably the biggest thing,” Schwartz said. “I mean, you talk to regular people like your mailman every day, and you get to know who they are.”

Two men pose for a photo beside an empty dental chair — Lucas Schwartz, left, stands with his predecessor Scott Nicol in a patient room at Tomah Family Dentistry on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. Hope Kirwan/WPR

He said only a handful of people in his dental class at Marquette were from rural areas, and many of his classmates looked for more secure jobs in cities to pay down their student debt. But Schwartz said the state’s incentives have helped rural jobs look more attractive, adding he benefited from the state scholarship for working in health shortage areas before graduating in 2022.

Schwartz credits Nicol for passing on a thriving private practice and a good example for how to be a successful provider in their shared hometown.

“Treatments may have changed, but having patient rapport, talking to people and having that connection, is still the best value I think that dentistry has, especially in a family clinic,” he said.

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Wisconsin

WI lawmakers should support data center accountability bill | Letters

Published

12 hours ago

December 14, 2025

Press Room

WI lawmakers should support data center accountability bill | Letters

Data centers proposed in our area pose multiple threats to our water, wildlife, and wallets. We all can take action by asking our senators and representatives to back SB729.

Letters to the Editor
| Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The data centers proposed in our area in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington, and Beaver Dam pose multiple threats to our water, wildlife, and wallets. The centers will require vast amounts of water to cool their equipment. Plus, 70% of the water consumed each year in Wisconsin goes to electric power generation, so the water needed for energy production adds to the millions of gallons these centers will need on peak days.

The massive energy infrastructure required to build and operate the data centers is expensive and threatens to burden customers for years with the huge costs. Also, at a time when the impacts of climate change make it clear that we should be transitioning to clean renewable energy sources, utility companies are using data centers as justification for building new fossil gas power plants, thereby keeping us from achieving the zero emissions future that we so desperately need.

Take action by backing Data Center Accountability Act

The Data Center Accountability Act, bill SB729, was introduced recently in the Wisconsin legislature. If passed, the bill would stipulate that:

Data center must meet labor standards and use at least 70% renewable energy.
All data centers must be LEED certified or the equivalent.
Data center owners must pay an annual fee that funds renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a low-income energy assistance program.

We all can take action to prevent the worst impacts from data centers by asking our senators and representatives to vote for SB729. To find your legislators go to https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/My-Elected-Officials.

Jenny Abel, Wauwatosa

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Wisconsin

Can ‘completely different’ Wisconsin volleyball upset Texas in NCAA tournament?

Published

24 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Press Room

Can ‘completely different’ Wisconsin volleyball upset Texas in NCAA tournament?

Wisconsin and Texas volleyball teams will face each other in the NCAA regional finals after first meeting near the start of the season.
Key factors for Wisconsin include overcoming Texas’ physicality and managing their talented pins.
The Badgers’ ability to handle adversity in a hostile environment will be crucial for a potential return to the Final Four.

AUSTIN, Texas – Wisconsin volleyball’s first weekend of the 2025 season featured a high-profile match against Texas.

Wisconsin’s either final or penultimate weekend of the season – depending on whether UW can advance – also features a high-profile match against Texas.

But both sides will caution against reading too much into Wisconsin’s Aug. 31 loss to Texas ahead of a rematch in the NCAA tournament regional finals as each team seeks a return to the Final Four.

“We are completely different teams than what we saw however many months ago that was,” Wisconsin middle blocker Carter Booth said.

Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said almost the exact same thing in the Longhorns’ press conference, and his players echoed similar sentiments as well.

“I feel like both teams are just a lot more developed at this point in the year,” Texas setter Ella Swindle said. “At the beginning of the season, we were kind of just figuring out who we are and who we want to be. So now at this point, I feel like we know our identities, and we’re ready to go out and battle.”

Here are three keys for the much-improved Badgers to have a better outcome against the also-much-improved Longhorns in the NCAA tournament:

How efficient can Wisconsin’s attack be against Texas’ physicality at net?

Wisconsin’s path to advancing in the Texas regional has already required defeating one team with outstanding physicality at the net, and it is unlikely to get any easier in the regional finals.

“I was watching Stanford warm up, and you’re like, ‘Jiminy Crickets,’” Sheffield said. “It’s like watching the NBA dunking contest. It’s like, ‘Holy cow.’ They’re just bouncing balls on the 10-foot line and just really dynamic and impressive. And Texas probably has it even more than that.”

Texas’ physicality was abundantly apparent in its three-set sweep over Indiana in the regional semifinals. The Longhorns had a 12-2 advantage in blocks, and Indiana committed 23 attack errors. Going back to when UW faced Texas in August, the Badgers committed a season-high 26 attack errors despite it lasting only three sets.

“But each team has their thing,” Sheffield said. “And if we try to play their game, we’re going to get whacked. And if they try to play ours, that’s going to be problems for them as well.”

Can Badgers keep Texas’ talented pin hitters in check?

The Wisconsin-Texas match will feature two of the best outside hitters in the country.

Wisconsin’s Mimi Colyer has averaged 5.38 kills per set, which is the highest among players who advanced to the NCAA regional finals and is destined to break the UW program record. Texas’ Torrey Stafford is ninth in the country with 4.78 kills per set while hitting .368.

“Both of them are fearless,” Sheffield said. “They’re extremely, extremely talented. I think volleyball fans are going to be following them for a long, long time. Both of them have tremendous careers in front of them.”

Stafford was virtually unstoppable in the Longhorns’ sweep over Indiana, recording 19 kills without any attack errors and hitting a video-game-like .679. But for as talented as the AVCA national player of the year semifinalist is, she is not the only pin that can give opponents fits.

Texas freshman Cari Spears has immediately stepped into a major role in the Longhorns’ attack as the starting right-side hitter in every match this season. In the second match of her career, she led Texas with 11 kills while committing only one attack error in the win over the Badgers.

“She was just trying to figure out how to breathe during that first match, and it just takes time,” Elliott said. “And now she actually understands our offense a lot more, she’s developed a lot of her blocking, her range has gotten better, and that applies to all of our team. Ella’s been doing the same thing. Her offensive system is completely different than it was the first week of the season.”

The Wisconsin match was the first of seven consecutive matches for Spears with at least 10 kills.

“Seeing that I can compete with one of the top teams in the nation and seeing the trust that my teammates had with me and the trust that the coaches had in me – it was a huge confidence boost for me,” Spears said.

As for how to stop Stafford, Spears and Co., Booth said it goes back to the Badgers’ fundamentals.

“I know I’m beating a dead horse, but that’s really what this is all about,” Booth said. “At the highest level, the margins are so thin that you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel again. You’re honing in on the details of what you already know to do. So it’s not necessarily about being perfect on the block. … Our focus is just going to be taking away good space for our defense and then trusting that the people around us have put in the work to be able to defend those shots.”

How do Badgers respond to adversity?

When Wisconsin defeated Stanford after an otherworldly offensive showing in the first set, Booth said it was “really an emphasis for us to always be the one throwing punches, not the ones taking them.”

The ability to punch first is far from a guarantee against a team as talented as Texas is, however. The Longhorns have only lost once this season at Gregory Gym, and that was against Kentucky, which is one of the other top seeds in the NCAA tournament.

Even in a neutral crowd situation, Wisconsin’s ability to not let Stanford’s momentum snowball was crucial in the four-set win. Now with the vast majority of the anticipated 4,500 people in attendance rooting against the Badgers in the regional finals, Wisconsin’s resiliency when Texas does pack a punch will be crucial.

“We are definitely more equipped to withstand those highs and lows of a set and able to step up after a mistake or come back after a battle,” Booth said. “You see yesterday, (we) come out very dominant in the first set, and then we dropped the second in a fashion that was a little bit uncharacteristic to the way we want to play. And being able to just step up and come back third and fourth playing our game – I think that goes to show how much we’ve grown in that sense.”

The Badgers – already confident before the tournament and now with even more reason for confidence after the Stanford win – are not ceding the possibility of still throwing that figurative first punch either.

“We are the writers of our own destiny, and I think that we are always in a position to be able to throw the first punch, no matter who we’re seeing across the net,” Booth said.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin Lutheran boys basketball pursues three-peat with revamped lineup

Published

1 day ago

December 13, 2025

Press Room

Wisconsin Lutheran boys basketball pursues three-peat with revamped lineup

Wisconsin Lutheran returns to Division 1 seeking a third consecutive state championship.
The team returns its two leading scorers, senior Zavier Zens and junior Kager Knueppel.
New starters will need to fill the roles of three key graduates from last season’s title team.
Coach Ryan Walz expects Zens to become a more vocal leader and for Knueppel to develop as a three-level scorer.

Over the first couple weeks of the WIAA high school boys basketball season, the Journal Sentinel will be checking in with the Milwaukee area’s three reigning state championship teams.

Our visits began with reigning Division 3 champion Milwaukee Academy of Science, which will compete in D2 in the WIAA postseason this year. The next check-in comes with a team that knows all about repeating in a higher division, the two-time defending state champions from Wisconsin Lutheran. The Vikings won their fourth WIAA state title and second consecutive after receiving a competitive balance elevation from D2 to D1 last season. The quest for a third straight title will also be in D1, and the Vikings look up to the challenge.

Here is what to know about Wisconsin Lutheran, which improved to 4-0 with a 69-20 victory over New Berlin West on Dec. 12.

Roles to fill around returning stars Zens, Knueppel

Wisco’s two leading scorers from the 2024-25 team return, but the surrounding cast looks a bit different this season. Northern Iowa commit and 6-foot-7 senior forward Zavier Zens (22.2 points per game last season) and 6-10 junior guard Kager Knueppel (13.5 ppg) are the two returning starters, while the three graduated starters include guard Isaiah Mellock (11.1 ppg, Wisconsin Lutheran College), forward/guard Alex Greene (10.9 ppg, Concordia) and forward Ben Langebartels (2.3 ppg).

Coach Ryan Walz said he wants to see Zens become a more vocal leader this year, while adding Knueppel can round out his ability as a three-level scorer.

“I think that’s a big step for any senior to make, to get outside of yourself, to be able to be engaged with other people on the team and not just always be worried about what you’re doing, but also being concerned for your teammates and showing that kind of leadership,” Walz said of Zens.

“From our standpoint, we want to see [Kager] be an effective basketball player at the basket, in the midrange and from three-point range. That’s the next step for guys who are on the cusp of being really, really good players, and that’s what Zavier did last year,” Walz added on Knueppel.

In place of the graduates this season have been former reserve 6-foot junior guard Riley Walz (4.2 ppg last season), former reserve forward and 6-6 senior Kinston Knueppel (5.0 ppg) as well as junior 6-7 forward Jamail Sewell.

“Riley’s going to have to handle the ball and distribute it, get us into offense and really control what we do, and Kinston is that versatile piece – kind of like Alex Greene last year – where he has to find ways where he can influence the game offensively with his intelligence, his skill level, his flexibility of being able to go inside and outside,” coach Walz said. “Jamail is 6-7, almost 6-8, and obviously anybody who saw him in football pads saw this enormous man, and he moves really, really well and has great hands. He needs to catch up on some of his basketball things and his skill and his understanding of the game, but he is an enormous presence on the floor.”

The Vikings again do not lack for size and will send one of the tallest starting fives in the state to the floor night-in and night-out between Zens, Kinston Knueppel, Kager Knueppel and Sewell. Kager Knueppel said teams will also have to watch out for Riley Walz on the perimeter as they crowd the paint.

“He’s been working really hard. I like him coming into the point guard role because he does not turn the ball over and he can shoot threes really well,” Kager Knueppel said.

As they learned with a late substitution in the D1 title game in March, every player needs to be ready for their moment.

“You don’t know when your time is going to come but you have to be ready, and so as coaches it’s our job to absolutely keep pushing them and moving them forward as best that we can,” coach Walz said.

Wisconsin Lutheran not shying from expectations

Returning top players to a team coming off consecutive state titles creates expectations around the program to compete for a three-peat. Zens said the team is embracing those expectations, while relying on the experience that has led them this far.

“We all know there’s high expectations for us, but those are our expectations for ourselves as well,” Zens said.

The pressure to defend a title is nothing new for Kager Knueppel, and something he thinks the team will be prepared for on a nightly basis.

“All of our guys understand that we have a target on our back, and people will want to come after us and beat us,” Knueppel said.

Coach Walz said the tone of keeping expectations in their proper framework is set by Zens.

“He is intrinsically motivated,” Walz said. “If your best player has no letdown and is leading by example, then that just brings everybody else along.”

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