I m p ressio n s
Is there a teacher in all of us?
by Dr. Stephen T. Radack III, Editor
I wonder how many of us, as we were
going through our four years of dental
school, thought about teaching. Maybe
we had a great teacher who really made
a difference for us or helped us make
things click. Or maybe there were one or
more instructors that made you feel stupid and incompetent all
the time and you thought that, one day I would like to come
back and do a better job. I would imagine most of us at some
point in our careers have thought about giving back in such a
way. Maybe if we could give a little of our wisdom or a few
“pearls” to a future colleague, it might make him or her a better
dentist sooner.
Well I can tell you I felt that way, not only in school, but also
since I graduated. The question for me would be, how and
where? Living and practicing in Erie, I could have tried to get a
teaching gig at Buffalo, Case, or my alma mater, Pittsburgh,
but all were a two-hour drive away, and that was on a good
weather day. Of course that other big question that I always
would ask myself is, how can I afford to give up a day in my
office and that productivity, compared to a day or half-day as
a part-time clinical instructor?
As the years went by and the school loans, practice debts and
the cost of raising my daughters passed, I began to take a harder
look at seriously doing it. Right about that same time, our local
Erie County Dental Association was approached by Dr. Bob
Hirsch, a former president of ECDA, who was now the dean of
the LECOM School of Dental Medicine about opportunities to
be a clinical instructor at their Erie outreach clinic that would
soon be opening.
For those who are not familiar with LECOM, it is short for Lake
Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. The medical school was
founded in Erie 25 years ago and now has locations in Erie,
Greensburg and Bradenton, Fla. In addition to the medical
school, they also have pharmacy schools at all three locations
and the dental school located in Bradenton. In the LECOM SDM
model, the students attend the first three years at the
Bradenton campus and then spend their fourth year at either
the Erie outreach clinic or an identical one in DeFuniak Springs,
Fla., which is in the panhandle.
The outreach clinics are set up like a group private practice,
where students have their own operatory to treat their patients
every day. They also randomly screen patients that come to the
clinic for treatment, and if they are accepted as a teaching case,
then will do the comprehensive exam, prophylaxis and treatment
planning. The student dentist will then complete that treatment
on the patient, doing routine operative dentistry, extractions,
root canals, and both removal and fixed partial dentures. So you
can see it truly is like a general dentist private practice.
Dr. Radack with a group of his former LECOM students
at the Hinman Dental Meeting in March.
So all that being said, I decided I would apply for the position
of part-time clinical preceptor in restorative dentistry at the
LECOM School of Dental Medicine Erie Outreach Clinic. Whew!
I figured that after 29 years in private practice, I could give a half-
day back to my profession in a way that I had always wanted
to – and it was only 5 minutes from my house! I hadn’t applied
for a job in over 30 years so it was kind of nerve wracking. I had
to be interviewed by an entire HR team and then the provost of
the entire LECOM system. I explained to all of them why I wanted
to do this and that I believed I had something to contribute,
plus I think they liked the fact I am consult examiner for the
Commission on Dental Competency Assessments (CDCA)
(formerly NERB), and they really wanted their students to perform
well on the clinical licensing exams. One would expect as much
for a brand new school about to graduate its first class.
MAY/JU N E 2017 | P EN N SYLVAN IA DEN TAL JOURNAL
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