IERC

Wow! The IERC is an amazing facility. I truly enjoyed the time we spent touring as well as learning about the behind the scenes formulation of the dental hygiene OSCEs. That sounded like a major task analysis! The possibilities are endless (within budgets and availability). The usage was also impressive. They have been incredibly successful in their structure and management of the facility. I didn't even know that they had the lower level. It was good to see the dental chair for the application of operatory emergencies. I wonder what else is happening in the bowels of the AHC??

Protocols

Hi All,

Still working on the vertical bitewing protocol for the clinics. I am getting more "blogged" down than I thought! It seems that there are areas that I keep going back to - so this is much more than vertical protocols. It is radiology protocols! It's a continued work in progress!

Hi All, I contacted Kanki at ISU this week, and she shared both faculty and student numbers. They have 27 Junior students and 25 senior students. The usually accept between 25 and 30 students depending on faculty sabbaticals, etc. They have 9 full time faculty in the undergrad program, and they have 2 full time faculty in their MS program. One of the MS faculty members teaches 1 class in the undergrad program. They have a number of "contract" clinical faculty (almost full time, but not required to do research - they are non-tenure track). They have 5 of these "contract" who teach in clinic and some labs but are not course directors. Only full timers are course directors. They also have a few "hourly" clinical faculty (4 or 5). They have 4 or 5 part-time DDS faculty who work in the clinic. And, they have 2 DDS lecture facuty who teach a few courses (oral path, histology, tooth morphology).

Their full-time faculty basically teach all of the courses, and a little in clinic, with a lot of clinical teaching done by contract and part-time faculty. Compared to a lot of hygiene programs, they are well staffed! Their teaching load is usually 1 class per semester, some have a little more (ie clinic coordinators).

Kandi said she talked to some faculty in Texas while there for a conference last year, and decided they were spoiled! They are lucky in Idaho - and they know it - and are very thankful and protective of it! The TX faculty had HUGE teaching loads.

Their MS program has been up and running for about 4 years, fully online, with a couple of campus visits (orientation, thesis proposal, and thesis defense). The program has been "wildly" successful! They have students from all over the US & Canada. The director is Linda Boyd and one of the full time faculty in the program.
Linda is the one who recruited Kandi to ISU!

The full-time faculty put in long hours. Kandi usually works from 7AM - 6PM everyday, plus she usually puts in one full day on the weekend. Never enough time in the day - she is always juggling! She hopes that the pace slows down once she gains tenure; maybe in a few years! But, until then it's fever pitch to produce/publish research and present, plus be a good teacher! She really does love it there!

I also asked about bite-wing radiograph protocols. As she is the junior coordinator, they don't see moderate or advanced perio in her clinics. The more advanced patients are seen in the senior clinics. She is unaware of any vertical bite-wing protocols in the senior clinics.

I really enjoyed the articles for this week. It was fun to read the article by Mary Jacks and Chris Blue. I had no idea that there had been SOAP calibrations done in the DH program. It must have been done about the same time I started! Very interesting to see that the 1 year mark still had significant gains!!

Anyway, that's all for today! Has anyone else blogged yet? Either I am not finding them - or no one has???

See you soon,
K