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Casey will continue to recruit students and faculty
members to collaborate and participate on research
that targets specific questions that relate to the
level of periodontal care being rendered, the kind
of education undergraduate dental and dental hygiene
students receive in periodontics, and how research
related to periodontal systemic links may be transferred
into private practice. Casey continually solicits
new ideas for research related to these domains of
interest and would welcome new ideas. Please contact
her directly at casey@pointperio.com.
The first kind of this type of research endeavor was
begun in the fall of 2004 when Casey recruited over
300 students from 12 schools of dental hygiene throughout
the United States to participate in collecting survey
responses from a consumer group of approximately 2,000,
which is the largest query of the public that the
dental profession has ever attempted. The survey questionnaire
was comprised of 16 well constructed questions designed
to determine the public's perception of several key
issues related to the profession of dental hygiene
and an assessment of the level of care consumer-patients
currently receive from dental hygienists compared
to the level of care consumer-patients really value.
Currently there are various levels of care being rendered
within the dental hygiene profession ranging from
assembly line prophylaxes and whitening procedures
all the way to customized treatment plans for cases
involving highly technical nonsurgical periodontics.
As a result, US consumer-patients' perception of the
dental hygiene profession is nondescript and very
"fuzzy".
The research findings are expected to be finalized by
June 2005. If the research corroborates these hypotheses,
this may be evidence that we are not meeting the felt
needs of the public we serve and that our failure as
a profession to make a distinction between the different
levels of expertise associated with various levels of
care, i.e. prophy techs, conventional dental hygienists
and periodontal therapists, may be negatively impacting
the public's perception of dental hygiene as a profession.
The students and faculty members that participated
in collecting the data did a wonderful job.* The names
of the schools of dental hygiene, and faculty that
coordinated the students' work follow below:
- Cape Cod Community College: Lee Somerville
- Lewis & Clark Community College: Michelle
Singley
- Montgomery County Community College: Nancy Yaskowski
- Trident Technical College: Barbara Jarrett
- Central Community College: Wanda Cloet
- Hillsborough Community College: Donna Solovan-Gleason
- Community College of Philadelphia: Theresa Grady
- Broome Community College: Meghan McGuiness
- Catawba Valley Community College: Connie Preiser
- Fox Valley Technical College: Shari Crowe
- Erie Community College: Nancy Woodrich
- Raymond Walters College, University of Cincinnati:
Barb Kunselman
* Lead by Barb Kunselman, RDH, MS a faculty member
of Raymond Walters College, University of Cincinnati,
should be recognized for the dedication she and her
colleagues gave to this research project. Barb Kunselman
peer reviewed the survey instrument I developed and
made important recommendations for its modification,
and distributed the toothbrushes and toothpaste donated
by Procter and Gamble to students to gift consumers
who participated in the survey. In addition, she and
fellow faculty member, Pat Frese, RDH, MEd, along
with an adjunctive faculty statistician from the University
of Cincinnati, named Kevin Kellar, MBA, compiled the
statistics from over 12 schools and 2,000 consumer
responses. I will forever be grateful for their tireless
support of me in this project and their dedication
to the profession of dental hygiene.
There are other survey-based research projects that
are planned to start within the last 6 months of 2005.
We will be recruiting students to help collect data
and faculty members who are willing to support them
in these endeavors. If this sounds like something
that might interest your student group and fit within
your curriculum content and timelines, I would really
appreciate hearing from you. I can be contacted through
PointPerio's website at casey@pointperio.com
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