Leadership development for early-career educators: Association report on the ADEA summer program for emerging academic leaders.

There is a continuous challenge in academic health education to retain early career faculty members and staff. Attrition rates in the field can be as high as 42% in the first five years of an individual's career and are principally due to a sense that academic careers do not progress at a satisfactory rate. In response to this ongoing issue, the American Dental Education Association launched the Summer Program for Emerging Academic Leaders (ADEA EL) in 2012.

Comparison of e-mail communication skills among first- and fourth-year dental students.

As e-mail and other forms of electronic communication increase in popularity, it is important for dental schools to consider a curriculum that prepares their graduates to understand and apply effective electronic communication strategies to their patients. Reflecting this shift in communication behavior, the American Medical Association has developed specific e-mail communication guidelines. Some behavioral examples in these guidelines include protecting patients' protected health information (PHI), ensuring proper record keeping, and using professional, courteous, and understandable language.

Self-report of latex allergy by patients visiting a dental clinic.

Background: The prevalence of latex allergy among dental patients is not known, although it has been increasing in the population since 1982, when the use of gloves was expanded to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases.

Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was undertaken of 1,798 electronic health records (EHRs) of new clinic patients who registered at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine (SDM) dental clinic between January and June 2010. Data extracted from the EHRs included age, gender, and a history of a previous latex reaction, asthma, or allergy to penicillin.

Sealants and dental caries: insight into dentists' behaviors regarding implementation of clinical practice recommendations.

Background: The authors conducted a qualitative study of private-practice dentists in their offices by using vignette-based interviews to assess barriers to the use of evidence-based clinical recommendations in the treatment of noncavitated carious lesions.

Methods: The authors recruited 22 dentists as a convenience sample and presented them with two patient vignettes involving noncavitated carious lesions. Interviewers asked participants to articulate their thought processes as they described treatment recommendations.

The endangered clinical teacher-scholar: a promising update from one dental school.

Clinical dental faculty members' lack of scholarly activity not only impacts their ability to be promoted and retained in their institutions but limits the contributions they could make to clinical discovery. Contributing factors to this situation include the lack of purposeful mentoring and the widespread faculty shortages, which increase faculty workloads. One way to address this challenge is to develop and implement formal mentoring programs, endorsed by the dental school's administration, that use reward structures in which novice clinical faculty members are teamed with faculty members experienced in scholarly activity.

Social media in dental education: a call for research and action.

Social media are part of the fabric of today's world, from which health care is not excluded. Based on its distribution capacity, a single individual can cause an amount of damage to an institution that only a few decades ago required access to a mainstream news media outlet. Despite the obvious parallels in professional standards in the medical and dental communities, the scholarly activity and resulting collegial discourse observed among medical professionals remain unmatched in the dental education literature.

The rise in prescription drug abuse: raising awareness in the dental community.

Prescription drugs classified as controlled dangerous substances are essential therapeutic modalities in treating a variety of healthcare conditions; however, their pleasurable side effects can appeal to patients for uses other than their intent. As a result, unfortunate consequences of prescription drug use can arise. Misuse or abuse of prescription drugs can contribute to addictive behaviors, serious health risks, and potentially, death.

Rubrics 101: a primer for rubric development in dental education.

Identifying and implementing effective methods for assessing dental student performance are ongoing challenges for dental educators. Questions related to grading and assessment are common among faculty and students alike. Faculty members who are well-trained clinicians or scientists often have little formal training in education.