News + Issues

The Best Blogs of Mouthing Off: The issues

Best-of-weekAs 2014 winds down, we are kicking off a new special feature all week long! We want to acknowledge all of the bloggers who have written for us over the past year. Mouthing Off posts  at least three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As of this week, we have published 161 posts in 2014! That is an impressive amount of effort and dedication from our bloggers, and the editors would not have been able to do it without them.

Did you know that Mouthing Off is four years old? The blog started in 2010, and has been running strong ever since. In this time, more than 260 ASDA members have blogged for us. Many of whom you can see enjoyed the experience so much they wrote again.

Let the journey begin! The Best of Mouthing Off will run all this week to highlight some of our most outstanding pieces of writing. Each and every blog was worth recognizing, but these are the top posts and you won’t want to miss them! Tune in all week to read the Best of Mouthing Off 2014:

The Best of Mouthing Off – The Issues

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 12.52.23 AM Buying teeth online: students look for another option, by Supreet Arora

After getting accepted into dental school, I received instructions from my school to start collecting extracted teeth. I dropped off several jars full of diluted bleach at dental clinics even before I started dental school. At this time I had no idea why I was being asked to collect decayed and rotten teeth.
In the blink of an eye I was a 2nd year dental student taking a pre-clinical endodontics laboratory course digging through hundreds of teeth and taking X-rays to find the ideal ones to practice Non Surgical Root Canal Treatment (NSRCTx).

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 12.55.44 AM3 ways to minimize the ethical pitfalls of a live patient exam, by James Wanamaker

In most states, one of the final steps in becoming a licensed dental professional is the licensing exam. Currently, there are five regional testing agencies: Western Regional Examining Board (WREB), Southern Regional Testing Agency (SRTA), Council on Interstate Testing Agencies (CITA), Central Regional Dental Testing Service (CRDTS), and North East Regional Board (NERB). One component these licensing exams have in common is the use of live patients. Unfortunately, the use of live patients presents a plethora of ethical concerns since many of the essential features of a doctor-patient relationship are absent. In some cases, proper informed consent is deficient, the methods to recruit patients for the exam are unethical, and many patients are not offered comprehensive care beyond the treatment during the exam.

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 12.58.00 AMA small act of advocacy, by Jordan Janis

One of the pillars, at all levels of organized dentistry, is advocacy. As members of the American Student Dental Association, advocacy is not something to be viewed as an entity that is merely provided to us. Advocacy is a personal task that should be actively engaged in so that we can serve as a voice to our colleagues, law-makers and the general population.

What was your favorite blog in “The issues?” Comment in the space below!!


~Neek LaMantia, San Francisco ’16, electronic editor

Neek LaMantia

Neek is a dental student at the University of California, San Francisco and ASDA's electronic editor. She works with bloggers to schedule content on Mouthing Off each week and also runs a personal blog called Say Yes to DDS.

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1 Comment

  1. We just started following the ASDA website this year. We have found it beneficial in staying on top of cutting edge dental treatments and products. We have just launched our WELtip toothpaste delivery system for your water flosser. If any ASDA members would like a sample to test please contact us.

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