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Dental Branch Opens $1 Million Simulation Clinic
Dental school uses technology to provide more true-to-life clinical experience for students
This fall The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston is opening a $1 million Clinical Simulation & Learning Center to enhance its pre-clinical and clinical education, improve teaching resources for faculty, and expand continuing education.
Joe Ontiveros, D.D.S., foreground, demonstrates how a model
would be
shown at the instructor’s station of the Clinical
Simulation & Learning
Center and then broadcast to the
student
monitors, such as the one where
John Valenza, D.D.S,
is seated
in the UT Dental Branch at Houston.
Photo by Brian Schnupp
The 7,500-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, located on the first floor of the UT Dental Branch, is an actual clinic that integrates technology and handson training to provide a more true-to-life clinical experience for students to learn dentistry.
“What I like most about the new system is the ability to perform live demonstrations for the entire class while the students follow along viewing their own chair-side monitor,” said Joe Ontiveros, D.D.S., assistant professor of restorative dentistry.
The center houses 43 complete dental operatories, each with 17 inch student monitors, separate chair-side computers for paient records, and a multi-media instructor’s station complete with a full-scale operatory for live patient demonstrations.
Dental mannequins, complete with torsos, are affixed to the dental chairs and are wired to ensure that students have the proper positioning and chairside manner when practicing. Students who work in the center are required to practice standard infection control procedures as if they were treating a patient. In fact, simply removing the mannequins from the chairs makes the center instantly ready for direct patient care.
Engaging Quality
“The ability of the instructor to virtually write on the teacher’s monitor and have it display on the students’ monitors adds an engaging quality missing in past teaching methods – it’s like football’s John Madden’s ‘chalkboard,’ ” Ontiveros said.
The instructor’s station is a large multimedia teaching center with the latest computer and audiovisual technologies for delivering content to students, such as DVD, VCR, and ceiling, document and intra-oral cameras. Instructors broadcast material, such as PowerPoint presentations, recorded/streaming video and live video, to the chair-mounted monitors in each operatory.
According to the vendor, the teaching station is the only one of its kind that allows the instructor to record his or her presentation to a streaming server. Presentations can be recalled later by students from a school or home computer. And with a full-scale operatory in the instructor’s station, the center provides opportunities for patient-based instruction and continuing education.
“We kicked off the simulation center with a continuing education course on Dental Digital Photography,” said Ontiveros. “As in any number of live demonstrations, the participants in the photography course could remain at their dental chair and learn the various settings on their cameras without having to huddle around the instructor and try to catch a glimpse of the demonstration.”
John A. Valenza, D.D.S., executive associate dean of the Dental Branch, who is spearheading the project, said the center will change not only the way dentistry is taught, but also overall patient care. “It opens the door to new ways for students to learn, as well as for continuing education, faculty course development and improving direct patient care systems.”
Antonio Moretti, D.D.S., assistant professor of periodontics, who already has tested and experimented with the center, said its arrival will emphasize a much more “sophisticated level of teaching in a very high tech environment.”
More Prepared for Patient Care
“This early additional training should put students in a comfort level that none of us (faculty) had when we were dental students,” he said. “After so many years, I still remember the difficulties I had when seeing patients for the first time. If I had had this technology as a dental student, I would have felt much more prepared and confident before beginning to treat patients.”
The center also will serve as the training facility for implementation of the school’s new Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and Digital Radiography system in all Dental Branch clinics this fall.
Dental and dental hygiene students who come to the simulation center to perform mannequin-based procedures will enter a true clinic, log onto the electronic patient record, and select a virtual patient complete with demographics, medical and dental histories, digital radiographs, and even perhaps a treatment plan completed by the student at a previous session.
“As we integrate the simulation center into our curriculum, students entering the clinical phase will already be trained on the electronic patient record and basic clinical protocol from their pre-clinical years,” Valenza said. “It makes for a much more seamless transition from pre-clinical to clinical, and ultimately a better prepared dentist, dental hygienist or dental assistant.”
The simulation center is the result of 18 months of planning by the school’s faculty, staff and administration. The center was designed economically by upgrading under-utilized clinical space and focusing the financial resources on sophisticated technology for teaching and learning. The clinic will serve as a prototype as plans are being developed for the next generation of simulation in the dental school replacement building.
Fundraising for the new Dental Branch building got a head start when the Texas Legislature and governor approved $60 million in Tuition Revenue Bonds.
By Erika Durham Hargrove, Dental Branch