Last week, I welcomed our new dental hygiene and dental classes to our college. They all seemed pleased to be here and I sensed their eagerness to get started with classes and pre-clinical courses. There was an air of excitement in the room, and it took me back to my own first days in dental school.

 

I told our new students that we worked hard to select them from the many applicants who wanted to be where they are now. I said we had chosen them because they excelled in college, did well on their entrance exams, wrote convincing letters about their desire to join the profession, and they demonstrated a high degree of social consciousness. I added that they were selected by our admissions committee because we knew "they had what it takes to be successful."

 

Near the end of my remarks, I said they were embarking on an educational journey that would be filled with experiences and new technologies that I had dreamed of when I was a student. Their education will include course materials that are accessible online, video recordings of lectures, and 3D scanners for evaluating typodont preparations -- all available just by pressing a few buttons. In the clinic setting, there will be electronic patient charts, intraoral cameras, chairside digital devices to make impressions, and CAD/CAM machines to conveniently create restorations for patients. Although I didn't say it, there was a part of me that wished I was a member of these new classes.

 

These are amazing times to be a dental hygiene or dental student. And these are exciting times to be a dental faculty member. Our new teaching tools allow us to provide students with ways to learn faster, solve problems more quickly, and retain information longer than ever before. Our new patient care technologies improve efficiencies while offering a level of precision and predictability that will allow our clinical operations to provide dental care in ways that we were previously unable to do. For faculty members, these technological advances give them opportunities to be more creative, engaging, and inspiring both in the classroom and the clinic settings.

 

When all these technologies are combined, our students benefit from learning in new ways, with new tools, and at any time and place they wish -- evenings, weekends, at home, on the road here in Ohio, or even around the world. Oh, how things have changed since I was in dental school. I am grateful to be involved with such innovations and opportunities that benefit us all in these very special times.