The ADA Golden Apple Award for Inspiring Careers in Dental Education is presented at the ADA Annual Session. This award is for a faculty member that has been a notable mentor to students and junior faculty.

If there is a faculty member that has particularly inspired you, don’t hesitate to nominate them. Nominations are due April 1. Entries must include a letter of nomination; letters of support from students, faculty and administrators; and the applicant’s CV.

More information and details on submitting an application can be found on the ADA website.

Six schools within District 10 met at Utah’s first dental school, Roseman University of Health Sciences. Schools participating in the meeting included the Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ASDOH), Midwestern University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), University of Washington, Oregon Health Sciences University, and Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Dental Medicine. The ASDA chapters met for a two-day meeting held on Februray 4-5, 2012.

Past ADA First Vice President, Dr. A.J. Smith, spoke to ASDA leaders about organized dentistry and controversial issues such as mid-level providers. Additionally, representatives from each chapter presented their activities, membership, advocacy and showcased videos produced by their schools.

Each school discussed the strengths and weaknesses of their chapter. Collaborations between schools were shown to be possible and ideas sparked from discussing events.

The meeting also included Annual Session updates and the goals of the district. ASDA leaders ended their night by dining at Tucano’s Brazillian Grill. The next day, they squeezed in some fun by skiing and snowboarding at nearby resorts. Before heading back home, leaders came up with ideas and events. They are ready to kick off 2012 in the right direction!

~Erin Aying,  Arizona ‘14

• And my loans already include more than $10,000 due in interest alone?
• And my limited interest subsidies were just destroyed?
• And I could somehow buy a house at an interest rate of 3.5%, but must soon pay a hefty 6.8% on education loans?

Sometimes it’s hard not to feel an emotion I’ll summarize as SN@*(9832hd98!3H?89!NFS?^N*KJ!!!

It’s a strange mix of fury and anxiety blended with a tinge of guilt for complaining in the first place about this so-called First World Problem. To combat this internal struggle, I decided to consult the literature on the psychology of indebtedness. Evidence-based whining?

A 2011 study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine reports, “Self-efficacy and access to collective purpose softened the negative effect of perceived financial strain on distress.”

This reminds me of how grateful I should be that dentistry is such a strong and unified profession. Dental students lead the way in cultivating a “collective purpose”, and I’m so grateful for our talented and inspiring community of colleagues.

Thank you, ASDA, for offering a “collective purpose” that preserves the mental health of this dental student and thousands more.

“If persons perceived above average access to collective purpose, there was no difference in their mental health in terms of whether perceived financial strain was low or high; in other words, their mental health remained stable.”

How do you cope with debt? Share your tips and concerns in a comment!

~Colleen Greene, Editor-in-Chief, Harvard ’13

ASDA’s national publications, ASDA News and Mouth, are planned and written by dental student members. You may take for granted that an ASDA News shows up in your mailbox 10 times a year and a glossy copy of Mouth is delivered each season, and that’s ok. We hope that these benefits have become such a part of your dental education that they feel normal and you can’t imagine dental school without them. But don’t take for granted that your classmates at your school and colleagues around the country have put time and research into every article you read. Over the course of 2011, ASDA News published 115 articles and Mouth published 55. Most of those articles were written by dental students, with a few exceptions written by dentists who were solicited by the editorial board. (You can write for ASDA too. Click this link to fill out our online submission form and an editor will contact you about your story idea.)

Putting together a publication of this caliber is no small feat. ASDA’s editorial board is made up of an editor-in-chief and four contributing editors. Without Colleen Greene (Harvard ’13), Matthew Ronconi (Los Angeles ’12), Alexandra Malebranche (Columbia ’12), Kallie Law (Alabama ’12) and Katie Divine (Minnesota ’13), the publications would not have your voice and your words. These dental student editors work hard to plan content and solicit your submissions for publication. In fact, Mouth won the 2011 Meskin Journalism award for excellence in dental student publications from the American Association of Dental Editors.

So after a year of publishing more than 150 articles, we feel compelled to look back at the best work. This year, the editorial board chose 5 nominees each for the Gold Crown awards in best ASDA News article and best Mouth article. You’ll have to attend ASDA’s 2012 Annual Session later this month in Minneapolis if you want to be first to see who wins. They will be awarded at ASDA’s first ever Gold Crown Awards ceremony.

All of the nominees wrote stellar articles and I encourage you to read these if you haven’t done so already. Also, if a nominee is from your chapter, congratulate them! Their work rose to the top of 150+ articles–that’s a big deal. And finally, your nominees…

BEST ASDA NEWS ARTICLE

HIV testing in the dental setting 
by Keith Bracy, Stonybrook ’12 (March issue)

Dentistry going digital 
by Eric Mencarelli, Michigan ’14 (Aug. issue)

Student-to-student injections: learning experience or unethical? 
By Alexandra E. Forest, Michigan ’14 (Sept. issue)

Debt ceiling legislation increases the cost of dental education 
by Martin Smallidge, Pittsburgh ’14 (Oct. issue)

What I learned from touring District 7 
by Ben Youel, Illinois ’13 (Dec. issue)

BEST MOUTH ARTICLE

Adan’s story: a glimpse into Honduran dentistry 
by Stephanie Cappiello, Los Angeles ’13 (summer issue)

Trends in the dental workforce 
by David Guthrie, Harvard ’14 (fall issue)

Adjuncts in oral cancer screening 
by Matthew Reiland, Minnesota ’13 (fall issue)

Dr. Dugoni: a mover and shaker 
by Danielle Marquis, Pacific ’13 (winter issue)

A life dedicated to dentistry’s next generation 
by Rick Andolina, Buffalo ’13 (winter issue)

Congratulations to this year’s nominees! Stay tuned for the winners to be announced at the Gold Crown Awards ceremony on Friday, March 2. Can’t make it to Annual Session this year? Check back on Mouthing Off all week for live updates! You’ll get videos from the sessions, news of the Gold Crown winners and the results of the elections right here. Subscribe for even quicker updates!
~Kim Schneider, communications editor & (proud) staff liaison to the editorial board

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More on the Gold Crown Awards:

ASDA is holding its first annual Gold Crown Awards ceremony and reception on Friday, March 2. Since it’s our first rodeo, we sampled some ideas from a very famous awards show being aired early that same week (the Oscars!). The application deadline has passed and 26 chapters have submitted for a Gold Crown in chapter achievements and 19 submitted for a Gold Crown in journalism.

Every chapter delegate at each dental school is eligible for the National Delegate of the Year award. Eleven will be awarded, one from each district, and one of those winners will win the great honor of national delegate of the year. Good luck to all of the delegates and the chapters that submitted this year!

Today is the day you’ll rejoice with your significant other or feel as if this day serves as a reminder that you are in fact still single. No matter which side you relate to, it’s hard to deny the fact you grabbed those sweet chocolate Dove hearts on your last grocery trip. No matter how much Valentine’s Day propaganda embellishes the shelves of your local Wal-Mart, the holiday does serve as a way to celebrate all the love you have in your life (including dentistry)!

Some guys and gals may spend tons of money on flowers, cards, stuffed animals and other trinkets, while others may take a completely different approach and buy toothpaste.

Yes, toothpaste. Chocolate toothpaste, that is.

A company called Theodent is marketing a chocolate-based toothpaste sold online and at Whole Foods. Running under this slogan: “Question: What do a dozen roses, a regretful cooking for dual and a tube of toothpaste have in common? Answer: If a toothpaste is Theodent™ chocolate-based toothpaste, they could make your Valentine’s Day a sweetest ever,” Theodent launched the toothpaste a week ago in hopes to make profit for the lovers’ day.

The New Orleans based toothpaste garnered press for its development over four years ago but only recently hit the shelves. A 2008 Men’s Health article described the toothpaste as “more effective than fluoride”. According to the company’s website, this discovery came by complete accident, as the researchers at Tulane University found a chocolate extract similar in structure to caffeine by stimulating the growth of new enamel.

This sounds pretty crazy to those of us just starting out our dental education! Have no fear, more tests are in the process as Theodent does not adorn the coveted ADA seal of approval.

Out of curiosity, I hit up Whole Foods in Houston to check out this $10 toothpaste. I substituted my normal toothpaste the past few days for this chocolate-based concoction.

My verdict: This tastes nothing like Dove chocolates.

Read more at www.theodent.com

~Katie Sowa, Houston ’15, electronic editor

Have you ever wondered about the artist behind those hilarious tooth comics? ASDA member John Syrbu, Iowa ’13, delivers entertaining comics to a national and now worldwide audience. John’s work “Dental Art and Humor” is a sensation on ASDA News and Facebook. Every month, John posts a new comic that is amusing and well-received!

We want to know more about the creative man behind the hilarious comics!

When and how did you begin creating the comics?
I’ve been drawing since I was little, but my dental comics began during a Dental Anatomy course my freshman year. We were just beginning to learn about the parts of a tooth, and I drew a little cartoon on the side of my lecture packet. A classmate got a kick out of it, so I drew a couple more. Eventually, during my longer, slower-paced lectures, I used comics as a way to keep me entertained.

What inspires you to create these comics?
I started drawing the comics to entertain myself, mostly (I am easily entertained). Eventually I shared them with students and published them in our student newsletter. At an ASDA meeting my freshman year, someone suggested I submit them to ASDA News. They were well-received and I’ve submitted comics almost every month since (and plan to do so until I graduate). After a while, I realized I had a series or a “collection” of comics and decided to post them on a Facebook page for anyone that missed them in ASDA News. It was a great decision because now I have an international audience!

What do you have in mind for your upcoming projects?
Eventually it would be nice to expand Dental Art and Humor to allow for more creative and customized dental keepsakes. The ideas are there, but unfortunately the business knowledge is not. So for now I’ve created an account on Zazzle accessible from my Facebook page. I am also working on ways to apply my artistic inclinations towards other dental projects. I should have more information this spring and I’ll be sure to keep ASDA in-the-know as it develops!

Do you plan to continue creating these comics as a dentist?
Of course! As long as I have an audience I’ll keep turning my nerdy dental ideas in cartoons. The ideas may eventually shift from academic-inspired to practice-inspired concepts for comics, there’s nothing wrong with that!

Thank you John for sharing your entertaining art work!

~Erin Aying, Arizona ‘14

Mouthing Off is pleased showcase another ASDA chapter website – this time from Virginia Commonwealth University. This website has a lot of great components: a chapter events calendar, an e-newsletter, a predental section, and an online registration portal for vendors and predentals. They even have a storefront to purchase t-shirts! I caught up with Alex Barton, Virginia ’13, ASDA’s Council on Membership chair and VCU ASDA’s vice president and webmaster. Read on to learn about the challenges and many successes of the recent launch of their website.

When was the website created and who maintains it?
AB: The website launched in December 2011 after about two months of solid testing. Our chapter hired a professional web designer to fill the void created by our lack of tech skills. His name is Bryan Blake (he also made MUSC’s website). I developed the content for the site and gave suggestions for layout before Bryan put my ideas into action. Now that the site is up and running, he’s taught me how to use WordPress (which our site is hosted on). I’ve been updating the site as needed ever since. After this year, VCU ASDA will elect a webmaster with better WordPress skills who can teach us a few new things and maintain the site. We’re proud how far we’ve come and we need to make sure it continues to be successful.

Does your chapter have any challenges with the passing on of website responsibilities?
AB: When we elected our first webmaster (my predecessor), we hoped this person could build us a site from scratch. The responsibility turned out to be more of a time commitment than imagined and our webmaster stepped down. At that time, I decided to hire a professional to take over. My hope is that whomever we elect as Webmaster next year will be able to maintain the site for us and will already know how to use WordPress. Hopefully we will not have too many challenges, but keeping the site updated is always a team effort between the Webmaster and the other VCU ASDA officers. No one person can do this alone!

There are many opportunities for people to interact throughout the VCU ASDA website. How often are responses checked and how difficult is it to keep up with requests?
AB: I set up the website so that when someone signs up for Vendor Fair or a predental membership, that form is auto-sent directly to the leader of that event or committee. We created general gmail accounts so as people change positions, the e-mail addresses remain the same. This has made it easy for everyone to keep track of their events and respond to requests as necessary. Because we are also using PayPal, a receipt of payment is sent directly to the e-mail account associated with that event. We immediately know if someone has paid or not. I am also able to see all the forms filled out on the back side of the website, so as vice president I can keep track of communications with our members.

Have you been successful getting vendors and predental students to sign up for events or membership online?
AB: We opened online registration for our Predental Day a few weeks ago and have had 12 students sign up so far. I included an option for those registering for the Predental Day event to also sign up for ASDA’s predental membership. By checking off a box, the predental student would sign up for National ASDA and get matched with a VCU dental student mentor. Of the 12 students, all except one have also signed up for predental ASDA membership, which is great! Our vendors have also responded positively. We’ve had 23 companies register for our vendor fair so far. This is a great start, but we are definitely hoping to have more students register for predental day and more vendors sign up for clinic day as the deadlines approach.

How do you promote your website?
AB: When the site launched in December, I announced it via e-mail to the student body/faculty/residents and the Virginia Dental Association. The VDA has been very impressed at how well our ASDA leaders have been representing the state of Virginia. So much so, that a few of the VDA leaders are proposing to the board to have the VDA pay our ASDA chapter back for the costs of building and maintaining the site. You can imagine how excited we are about that! The VCU ASDA chapter is also our school’s student government, so every student is a member of ASDA. The events we promote and the resources we create are for use by the entire student body. To get people excited about in-person events, we e-mail links to our website and encourage them to register. As for statistics, we’ve had about 130 hits on the predental page, 200 on our vendors page and 75 hits on our students page. The total number of hits for the website is at 475 right now (in just over two months).

What are your plans to add even more value to the website?
AB: We are about to have a Crest Whitestrips fundraiser for Valentines Day where people can buy them on our website in advance. I’ll also post pictures from Annual Session and other events on our “Events” blog portion of the site. I think it is really important to keep updating the site so people will keep coming back!

Keep up the great work! Spend some time getting to know this chapter – visit www.VCUASDA.com.

~Catie Adamson, Buffalo ’12, chair, Council on Professional Issues

ASDA’s Annual Session 2012, affectionately known as “the best week ever”, kicks off three weeks from today! Maybe you’re attending as a delegate to represent your school in ASDA’s House of Delegates and elect the association’s future leadership. Or maybe you’re attending to take advantage of the numerous education sessions and to network at Thursday’s exhibit fair. Or maybe you’re presenting at ASDA’s first ever poster session.

Whatever your reason for attending, it’s sure to be a great meeting. Wednesday through Saturday hosts sessions where the dress is business. Meeting room temperatures can fluctuate, so I recommend wearing layers (which is incredibly easy to do in a suit!). You’ll also be walking from sessions to the exhibit fair to luncheons and you should wear comfortable shoes. Minneapolis should be chilly this time of year, but rest assured that the city has a competent system of indoor walkways. If you’re from a California school and don’t own a down jacket, just layer up as best you can and ask a student from Minnesota to direct you to the nearest pedway.

There is one portion of the meeting that has a slightly different dress code: the president’s dinner dance. This year, President Adam Shisler chose the nostalgic theme of 90s TV. Costumes are taken very seriously at the president’s dinner dance, so I suggest you start working on yours now! The night will also feature a joint district karaoke contest (ask your district trustee for more details!). For the first time in memory, the ASDA Central Office staff is planning a group costume. My lips are sealed as to what we have in store, but I will offer some tips for your costume.

Below are some ideas for both women and men. Enjoy.

WOMEN:

1. Denim shirt-dress from the Gap 2. Vintage 90s floral vest 3. Polka dot trouser from Forever 21 4. Work boot from Forever 21

MEN:

1. Vintage 90s ski jacket 2. Bold colored t-shirts from the Gap 3. Classic K Swiss shoes 4. White and navy Aztec shorts from Topman.

What do you plan on wearing to the dinner dance? Tell us in the comments section below!

~Kim Schneider, communications editor

Congratulations to Christopher Vo, a fourth-year dental student at UNC for his award-winning video, “The Bridge Patient”, in the ADA Student Ethics Video Contest. In this video, Christopher is presented with an ethical dilemma of needing to meet certain graduation criteria while keeping the best interests of the patient in mind.

I think this video and some discussion on ethics is very pertinent as senior dental students are entering into their last semester of dental school and trying to get all their requirements and competencies completed. It is important not to jeopardize the treatment of the patient to your own advantage.

The award-winning video (plus other honorable mentions and past winners) can be viewed here.

~Katie Divine, Minnesota ’13, contributing editor

Last December, six coordinators from the Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ASDOH) held their second oral health fair at the UMOM New Day Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Over 20 volunteers and faculty were a part of the project. They served over 100+ patients at the homeless shelter. Oral hygiene instruction, screenings and fluoride varnish were administered to the patients. Thanks to Crest/Oral-B, goodie bags filled with toothpaste and floss was given to the patients.

The theme of our project was the Crest Girls and Oral-B-Boys. The boys wore “Oral-B-Boy” signs as they played musical chairs and danced with the kids. The Crest Girls face painted, played games, and provided oral hygiene education. This was one of my favorite ASDA events and the kids made the event worth it. We were fortunate to have Jamba Juice donate 100 smoothies for everyone at the event. After the kids went to the oral hygiene booth, they were awarded with a ticket to grab a Jamba Juice. The kids also played games such as musical chairs, coloring station, nutrition station, pin the Crest tooth brush on the tooth cavity, and much more!

The enthusiasm from the volunteers, faculty, and children was incredible. We look forward to continuing the event next year!

Check out photos from the event here!

~Erin Aying,  Arizona ’14