News: Dentistry @ the URMC

Eastman Dental Center staff member Carletta Carter, of Rochester, has been named the 2007 Dental Assistant of the Year, a national award sponsored by Colgate.

Carter is the dental assisting supervisor for Eastman Dental’s Community Dentistry and Oral Health Disease Prevention, where she divides her time as the practice manager for the Downtown Clinic in the Sibley’s Tower Building on Main Street, and supervising the department’s dental assistants and dental assisting students.

Carter is a certified and licensed dental assistant, allowing her to perform additional clinical and educational services and oral health presentations.

Carter’s commitment to oral health described in the multiple nominations stood out among the other 200 nominations Colgate received. She completed her clinical training at Eastman Dental Center nearly 30 years ago, and has worked in community dentistry ever since. She is active in American Dental Assistants Association and Dental Assisting National Board, and is president of the Rochester Dental Assisting Society.

“Each day, it’s my goal to work toward the mission of education, patient care and community service,” Carter said, who also has a certificate in counseling and teaching. “I want to empower patients to understand the importance of quality dental care and to actively participate in their own care.”

Carter receives a $5,000 cash award, along with an all-expenses-paid visit to Colgate’s research facility and the Dental Assisting Summit conference, where she’ll be presented a trophy. She will also be featured in an article in the April issue of Inside Dental Assisting magazine.

Eastman Dental Center’s SMILEmobile program has been featured on Rochester’s R-News.  The article incluces comments from EDC’s Janice Glen and Dr. Desiree Laracuente.

The article, and link to the video, maybe be accessed here.

The Eastman Dental Center was recently featured in  WHAM News 13’s story Dental Care for Kids—Still a Nightmare for Some.

Lisa Lord, a dental operations supervisor for General Dentistry and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, received a Board Excellence Award for Dentistry for consistently displaying a high degree of integrity, responsibility and ambition during her 26 years of service to this department. She is certified as an anesthesia assistant and dental assistant. As a manager, she exhibits creativity and resourcefulness to help make the department more efficient.

Eastman Dental Center, at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has landed a five-year, $532,000 grant to explore teledentistry, a novel approach that uses an intraoral camera to image teeth and tooth surfaces. The grant was awarded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, of the National Institutes of Health.

Recent studies by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that tooth decay in young children’s baby teeth is on the rise. Early Childhood Caries is often an acute and debilitating form of tooth decay that, when caught too late, can only be treated in the operating room

Over the next five years, more than 500 preschool children enrolled in six different inner city day care centers will be examined to determine if teledentistry is useful in identifying at-risk children before extensive treatment is needed. The children will receive an initial baseline exam, and then will be re-examined six and 12 months later.

Oral health problems are one of the leading causes of absenteeism from school – 52 million school hours are missed each year by children nationwide. Rochester has the highest rate of child poverty in New York, representing a significant challenge to improving overall health and well being.

“Intervention at an early age is critical,” said Dorota Kopycka-Kedzierawski, DDS, MPH, who is leading the research effort. “Teledentistry can help more children by preventing and detecting early childhood tooth decay.” This technology allows trained personnel to take and transfer digital pictures of a child’s mouth in day care or preschool so they can be reviewed by pediatric dentists remotely. Providers can then recommend next steps and treatment for the child that may have otherwise not happened for months or years.

This effort follows Eastman Dental Center’s successful pilot teledentistry initiative last year, where more than 40 percent of the 200 children ages 1 to 5 screened at inner-city daycare centers had cavities and 95 percent of whom had never seen a dentist.

“Many parents mistakenly think that because baby teeth will fall out, taking care of them isn’t important,” said Kopycka-Kedzierawski. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Baby teeth play an important role as placeholders for permanent teeth, and if they are removed too early, adult teeth may become overcrowded or misaligned. When there is decay in baby teeth, there is a better chance of decay occurring in adult teeth.”

A world leader in residency training and research initiatives, Eastman Dental Center each year treats thousands of Rochester-area patients by providing a full range of general and specialized dentistry including pediatrics, periodontology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics and prosthodontics. Established in 1915, the Center is the only major post doctoral dental education, research and clinical institution in the U.S. within an academic medical center. The legacy of George Eastman continues to thrive with its extensive community outreach program helping underserved residents.

Also reported by WHEC TV, WXXI News, Rochester Business Journal, Democrat and Chronicle.

A three-year $1.5 million grant, Geriatric Training for Physicians, Dentists, and Behavioral and Mental Health Professionals, will provide geriatric training fellowships for physicians, dentists, and mental health professionals to improve access to quality care for older adults. The grant aims to increase the number of skilled clinicians who are also teachers and scholars, who will teach geriatric medicine, dentistry or behavioral/mental health to current and future health care professionals.Read more here.

New unit increases access for area’s needy children

On Friday, November 16, the Eastman Dental Center unveiled the new Ronald McDonald House Charities SMILEmobile, a dental office on wheels allowing the city’s children increased access to much needed dental care.

Until now, the Eastman Dental Center has had three SMILEmobiles serving preschoolers and elementary students by visiting 15 city schools. Thousands of the underserved and uninsured children need dental care because of decay and infection. On the SMILEmobiles, children receive cleanings, fluoride, sealants and other restorative services. The new Ronald McDonald House Charities SMILEmobile means that 2,400 additional students will now have access to care. Each SMILEmobile is staffed with a dentist, hygienist, dental assistant and administrative coordinator.

Rochester’s inner city has the highest child poverty rate in all of New York, and parts of the city have been declared as having a serious shortage of dentists by the federal government,” said Cyril Meyerowitz, DDS, director of the Eastman Dental Center. “Early intervention is critical—and the SMILEmobiles are a huge part of the solution. Without this effort, there would be more cost to the local health care system, more work and school hours lost and more children suffering.”

Oral health problems are one of the leading causes of absenteeism from school. Research shows links between poor oral health and diabetes, heart disease, and low birth weight.  Recent studies by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that tooth decay in young children’s baby teeth is on the rise. When there’s decay in baby teeth, there’s a better chance of decay occurring in adult teeth.

“Supporting the SMILEmobile program makes perfect sense for us,” said Elsa Steo, board president of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester, NY, which provided the lead gift for the unit. “Supporting the health and well being of Rochester area children is a wonderful expansion of who we are and what we do…we’re thrilled to be a part of this new SMILEmobile. It’s a win-win for everyone.

The second lead donor is the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation, a long time supporter of the SMILEmobile program and a satellite clinic at the Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation Outreach Dental Center at School 17. Others include the Joan & Harold Feinbloom Supporting Foundation, the J.M. McDonald Foundation, the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust and the Fred & Floy Willmott Foundation.

The SMILEmobile program began 40 years ago, when EDC and the County Dental Society jointly implemented the “Indigent Children’s Dental Health Care Program,” leading to the first dental mobile unit in New York. Today, the SMILEmobile program is a year-round initiative, serving city schools and rural community sites during the summer.

Patients who have their wisdom teeth pulled and do not take antibiotics before surgery are twice as likely to get an infection after the surgery than those who take a single dose of antibiotics shortly before surgery, says Eastman Dental Center researchersYan-Fang Ren, DDS, PhD, MPH and Hans Malmstrom, DDS.

Surgical extraction of impacted of wisdom teeth—or third molars—is the procedure carried out most commonly in oral surgery and general dental practices around the world,” said Ren. “Inflammation and infection associated with bacterial contamination are the most common complications after third molar surgery.” Because infection after surgery is usually accompanied by debilitating pain and functional impairment, clinicians have long sought effective ways to prevent complications after third molar surgery.

“Many clinical trials have been conducted in the past to investigate the controversial topic of using antibiotics before wisdom teeth surgery, but most of the published trials involved a sample size too small to support a conclusive outcome,” Ren explained. Through an extensive, meticulous process explained in the Journal, Ren and Malmstrom analyzed 20 published clinical trials involving nearly 3,000 patients.

The findings of this study may serve as a guideline for dentists and oral surgeons for prescribing antibiotics after wisdom teeth surgery. “We do not advocate a universal prescription of antibiotics for every third molar surgery,” Ren explained, “but for patients who have risks for postoperative infections, a single dose of antibiotics before surgery is probably more effective than taking several days of antibiotics after the surgery is completed.” Drs. Ren and Malmstrom hope that this study could help dentists be more purposeful when prescribing antibiotics and to avoid unnecessary antibiotic use.

A world leader in residency training and research initiatives, Eastman Dental Center each year treats thousands of Rochester-area patients by providing a full range of general and specialized dentistry including pediatrics, periodontology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics and prosthodontics. Established in 1915, the Eastman Dental Center is the only major post doctoral dental education, research and clinical institution in the U.S. within an academic medical center. The legacy of George Eastman continues to thrive with its extensive community outreach program helping underserved residents.

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