Everyday Heroes : Acts that Count
April 6, 1998 – Salt Lake Tribune Newspaper – by Taylor Syphus
 

Visit Dick Jenning’s home in St. George and you’ll get a tour of his living room art collection.  Stay a few hours and you might get free dentures. 

Jennings is a 67-year-old dentist who came out of retirement in 1997, not because he needs the money, but because he feels dentistry is his chance to help people in a way they can’t help themselves.  Even when they can’t pay.

During eleven years of practice in St. George, Jennings estimates that 20% of his services went unpaid.  In many cases he does not ask for money.  Sometimes he reduces his fees and works out payment plans.  When payments are missed, he refers the account to his bill collector – an old metal filing cabinet in his backyard shed.  Last year he emptied the filing cabinet into a pit and burned the uncollected bills – nearly 31 million worth.

Some may consider his business approach unorthodox, but Jenning's bottom line is people, not profits.

“I’ve never had a patient leave in pain,” Jennings says.  “The philosophy of business is that if they don’t have the money, send them out the door.  But the Hippocratic Oath of medicine prevents you from doing that.  You have to put yourself in their position.”

In addition to treating patients for free, Jennings provides tuition, housing money and even automobiles to young professionals in dental school in an effort to instill his philanthropic views.  His only request of the 22 students he has assisted is that they develop a patient-first-money-second attitude.  

Jennings credits God for his professional success and the resources to help others.  He knows as long as he tries to serve other people, God will bless him.

One day a woman came to his office needing dentures, but with little money.  Jennings told her they cost $100, when they actually cost $600.  He worked out a payment plan of $5 a month for 20 months, which she could pay out of earnings from a motel housekeeping job.

Years after the older woman died, two women from Las Vegas came in for $10,000 worth of dental work.  They were the motel housekeeper’s daughters, who visited Jennings because of the generosity he showed their mother.

“Money is not an adequate reason to be a professional,” Jennings says.  “If you did everything for money, you lose sight of what life is all about.  You have to treat every patient with your best respect, your best love, and their best interests at heart.  You can’t worry about reward.”