UMD professor touts dental school's digital technologies

Aug 25, 2010

Students of the University of Maryland Dental School (UMDS) represent a link to the future due to the school's leadership in teaching digital dentistry, a professor told attendees at a meeting of dental educators in Amsterdam.

Gary Hack, D.D.S., an associate professor of operative dentistry at UMDS, extolled the advantages of using the latest technology for teaching students at the Association for Dental Educators in Europe (ADEE) meeting, according to UMDS.

The school features digital dental chairs, electric handpieces, digital radiology, intraoral cameras, rotary endodontics, implant simulation, virtual dental school environments, haptic technologies, CAD/CAM, virtual keyboards, virtual patients, electronic patient records, and remote learning.

In addition, all of UMDS's dental chairs and preclinical simulation chairs are wired for monitoring from anywhere in the building. Instructors can monitor each student, each procedure, the chair location, the order of instruments being used, and the amount of time each instrument is used by a student. Each dental chair can send e-mail alerts to technicians on any malfunction or if a light bulb needs changing or an instrument is not performing properly.

And this year, all 135 of the school's second-year dental students will have a hands-on experience with chairside CAD/CAM, acquiring a digital impression, designing their restoration on the computer, and sending this digital information to a milling machine to have their restorations fabricated.

Last year the school also implemented the world's first virtual dental school with Second Life, a 3D modeling software. Students venture into Maryland's virtual dental school to experience aspects of dentistry ranging from lessons in best dental hygiene practices to infection control and anatomy. The software allows students to control a Second Life figure of themselves (an avatar) by mouse and keyboard or voice-controlled headsets.

Last year the school opened a clinic in Perryville in northern rural Maryland to help meet a dire need for better oral health opportunities in the area.

Dentists, faculty, and patients at a northern Maryland clinic opened last year by the school also benefit from an integrated electronic patient record system. The system is also a teaching tool for students and a functional model that is expected to be applied to the entire school soon.