SPEA Schulich
Schulich Dentistry Dental Sciences Building, Room 1003 N6A 5C1 London, ON, Canada

Happy New Year! Enjoy reading our first #articleofthemonth for 2021: The field of telemedicine has garnered exponential popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once restricted to ethical approval and nonexistent billing codes, many dental practitioners have now started utilizing information technology for tele-consultations, diagnosis, triage, and monitoring. However, the quick adoption has raised concern for both providers and patients regarding the trust, safety, and effic...acy of teledentistry versus in-person visits. As the COVID-19 vaccine starts to be deployed and normalcy returns, it is unclear whether teledentistry will continue to be employed and if its usefulness will be sustainable. You can read more about teledentistry, its uses, and issues of concern in this month’s article. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7297180/ #SPEASchulich #articleofthemonth

Dentistry has an essential role to play in slowing the scourge of antibiotic resistance and closures of dental practices due to Covid-19 coincided with a steep rise in prescription of antibiotics in England. The alarming rise in antibiotics use reinforced a push for electronic-prescribing to monitor the rate of distribution. Some urgent dental care facilities had been requiring patients to have completed a course of antibiotics before face-to-face care. As dental care continues to adapt to the Covid-era the importance of access to urgent care and ensuring optimization of antibiotics is critical moving forward. For further reading here is the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41415-020-2336-6 #SPEASchulich #articleofthemonth

How has COVID-19 impacted dentists around the world? More than 7 months have passed since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. The pandemic has taken its toll on many industry sectors including the field of dentistry, but despite the challenges it has created, practitioners are also learning to adapt. The question is: how much have dentists learned to cope with the changes COVID-19 has brought to their practices? In the following study, mo...re than 1000 dentists around the world were surveyed on their thoughts and attitudes towards current dental practices amidst COVID-19. Most dentists responded that they did not feel adequately equipped and knowledgeable about the proper preventative measures to safeguard their employees and patients. Many dentists also felt uncomfortable providing elective and even emergency treatment to suspected or diagnosed COVID-19 patients. Despite working in a high risk environment due to increased aerosol exposure, it is clear that the dental community requires more training in order to stop the chain of transmission. You can read more about this study here: https://jada.ada.org/action/showPdf #SPEASchulich #articleofthemonth

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our first event of the year, Surviving First Year! We hope you enjoyed the presentation and gained helpful tips to navigate first year. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!

Chapter of the Year - University of Western Ontario, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry For the chapter that went above and beyond in terms of student in...volvement, membership, and promoting ethics and professionalism at their dental school. Congratulations to the University of Western Ontario, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry for a fantastic year! The Schulich SPEA chapter has excelled in promoting SPEA’s cause to the community and the chapter leaders have focused on specific goals throughout the year. These goals include strong communication and discussion of dentistry-related topics and ethical issues on social media platforms, success in expanding membership to include the school’s Internationally Trained Dentist students, and continued activities and efforts to serve the student body during the temporary closure of the school. One of Schulich’s most notable events is Main Clinic Ready, a practical event that helps first- and second-year dental students better prepare for their transition to clinical training. In addition, they have also hosted online webinars open to all students to discuss The Patient, the Dentist, and the Team. The Schulich SPEA chapter also has a phenomenal relationship with their section of the American College of Dentists and regularly communicated throughout the year with their national SPEA regent. Through these combined efforts, their chapter has grown to become one of the most prominent student organizations on campus. Congratulations to Schulich SPEA on being the Chapter of the Year!

SPEA Schulich has been named Chapter of the Year! We are honoured and thrilled to be receiving this award from the National SPEA Board. We are very proud of our amazing executive team and we are grateful for their hard work and dedication. See what the SPEA national team had to say about our chapter here: https://speadental.org/blog/spea-chapter-awards-2020 We would like to dedicate this award to our faculty advisor, Dr. Jack McLister, who passed away earlier this month. His support and guidance have been invaluable to the SPEA team in helping us to grow and succeed. He will be greatly missed.

Throughout dental school has your perception of an ideal smile changed? Maha Aljefri and Julie Williams investigated whether clinical and preclinical dental students at University of Bristol held similar views on smile aesthetics. The participants ranked 12 images including an ideal smile and 11 digitally altered images. The authors found that the clinical students were able to identify and rank the ideal smile as the most aesthetically pleasing. Interestingly the clinical and preclinical students differed on their views of a midline diastema and retroclined incisors. The 12 images used in the study are included in the article if you would like to rank the images as well. Find the article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41405-020-00045-2 #SPEASchulich #articleofthemonth