Most students and faculty who organize and participate in overseas mission trips are motivated by the sincere desire to help others. Often they pay for their own travel through combinations of personal assets, donations and active fundraising. I think these mission trips are well-intended acts of caring. However, as a public health dentist I question the decision to spend so much time and money providing services that generally do very little to eliminate the underlying disease process, do not empower communities to improve their health status and waste resources on travel that might be spent in a much more cost-effective way to achieve improved oral health.
Sports dentistry: From final impressions to the NBA Finals
Imagine yourself 10 years from now, running a successful dental practice in your hometown. After a long day of seeing patients, you run through a mental checklist of everything that needs to be done. Did all the lab work get sent out? Are charts up to date? Did the front desk call patients to remind them of their appointments?
What if you also had to figure out what time Kobe Bryant’s helicopter would land outside your office? Or navigate through 20 miles of infamous Southern California rush hour traffic to make it just in time for tipoff ? This is the world of Dr. Jeffrey Hoy, the team dentist for the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
2016 nominees for best articles and blog post
Each year, ASDA members publish more than 100 articles in ASDA News, more than 50 articles in Mouth and at least 156 posts to this blog. That’s a lot of content. Behind the scenes of these publications is ASDA’s Editorial Board–eight dental students who dedicate their time to planning, writing and editing your ASDA publications. It’s thanks to them that you read about millennials, creative diagnosis, and lasers this past year. They are also the folks that bring you Life Hacks Week and “just for fun” posts here on the blog.
ASDA’s Editorial Board sifted through all the articles and blog posts of 2015 to narrow down nominees for three Gold Crown Awards: Best News Article, Best Feature Article and Best Blog Post. Criteria included relevance, originality, research and presentation. For blog posts, number of visits, social shares and Facebook likes were also weighed in the decision. Here are the nominees for the 2016 Gold Crown Awards for best articles and blog post…
How e-cigarettes and hookah pens impact our oral health
With the recent popularity of the recreational use of e-cigarettes and hookah pens as a “healthier” decision to traditional cigarettes, consumers are falsely convinced there are no harmful effects to these water vapor alternatives. The notion that these products pose no threat (or a lesser threat than the accompanying two) has encouraged smokers, nonsmokers and young people to consume them. Some consumers have bypassed any further research on these water vapor products and have already allowed it to become a replacement to cigarettes…