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Indiana University School of Dentistry: Always Striving for
Simply the Best
The only dental school in the Hoosier state, Indiana University School of
Dentistry (IUSD) offers an extraordinary learning environment in which teaching,
research, and community service come together in the best way possible for the
preparation of tomorrow’s dental professionals.
Under the leadership of Dean Lawrence Goldblatt since January 1997, the
school is located at the center of Indiana, and in the heart of Indianapolis. It
is part of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), one of
eight campuses in the IU system. IUPUI is a fast-growing campus situated just a
few blocks from Monument Circle in downtown "Indy."
IUPUI shares its location on the near west side of the city with the Indiana
University Medical Center, one of the finest teaching and research centers in
the world. Many of the dental school’s faculty members have established strong
collaborative ties with physicians and other scientists in the medical center
facilities.
IUSD is one of the oldest dental schools in the nation. It got its start as
the Indiana Dental College in 1879 and was acquired by Indiana University in
1925. In 1933, IU built a facility to house the school at its current site.
Today this sprawling, five-story edifice is composed of the original building
plus two major additions -- the first addition was constructed in 1962 and the
second a decade later.
The IU dental school has more than 11,000 living alumni pursuing careers
throughout the United States and in more than 30 other countries. The IU Alumni
Association counts dentistry among its most supportive groups. IU grads have
been named to prestigious leadership posts in organized dentistry and in dental
education throughout the world. For example, alumna Carol Turner (DDS’75) was
appointed chief of the U.S. Navy Dental Corps in 2003, becoming the first woman
to hold the Navy’s top position in dentistry. She served as chief until August
2007, and is now commander of the Navy Medicine Support Command, Jacksonville,
Fla. Others include Ronald Zentz (DDS’85) senior director of the American Dental
Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs; Jeffrey Dalin (DDS’80), co-founder
of the American Dental Association’s Give Kids a Smile, a program in which
volunteer dental professionals across the country provide free dental services
to children in need; and Stephen Ralls (M’81 Periodontics), executive director
of the American College of Dentists.
During the 2007-2008 academic year, 690 students are pursuing seven types of
degree and/or certificate programs in dental assisting, dental hygiene,
dentistry, and graduate dentistry. In addition, three other IU campuses (in
Gary, South Bend, and Fort Wayne) offer certificates and degrees in allied
dental programs.
The dental school has a total of 108 full-time and 127 part-time faculty
members contributing to IUSD’s teaching and research programs. Many have earned
solid reputations as experts in their fields. Additionally, about 85 persons
serve the school as adjunct and volunteer teachers and non-paid consultants. An
outstanding roster of teachers trained as dentists, allied dental professionals,
and dental specialists is complemented by teachers trained in such areas as
molecular biology, medical genetics, pharmacology and toxicology, microbiology
and immunology, biochemistry, anatomy, mechanical and electrical engineering,
dermatology, anthropology, pathology, law, and healthcare communications.
Two professors and two emeritus faculty members hold endowed faculty
positions: David Avery, Ralph E. McDonald Professor Emeritus of Pediatric
Dentistry; Jeffrey Platt, Ralph W. Phillips Scholar in Dental Materials; W.
Eugene Roberts, Joseph R. and Louise Ada Jarabak Professor of Orthodontics; and
Myron Kasle, Howard Riley Raper Professor Emeritus of Radiology. The Indiana
Dental Association Endowed Chair in Restorative Dentistry was held until 2003 by
former IU faculty member Dr. E. Steven Duke.
PATIENT CARE
Most of the dental school’s patients are treated on four floors of the dental
building, but the school also provides treatment at several other outstanding
patient care facilities, including the pediatric dentistry clinic at Riley
Outpatient Center, which is part of IU’s acclaimed Riley Hospital for Children;
the dental and oral surgery clinics at University Hospital and Regenstrief
Health Center; and Cottage Grove and Grassy Creek, two clinics located in
community centers.
The clinical dentistry program at IU is one of the strongest in the country,
gathering its strength from IU’s time-honored traditions in educational
excellence and drawing on a patient population of more than 21,500 persons. A
Comprehensive Care Clinic, divided into seven sections, is contained on the
third floor of the school. Students scheduled about 87,000 appointments for
dental patients during the past fiscal year.
EDUCATION
In 1997, IUSD launched a totally revamped Doctor of Dental Surgery
curriculum. Phased in one class at a time, the graduating class of 2001 was the
first to participate in all four years of this new program. Now known as the
Indiana Model of Dental Education, the new curriculum is a dynamic blend of
contemporary and traditional learning environments designed and continually
refined so as to maximally promote the principles of student centeredness,
critical thinking, problem solving, evidence-based decision-making,
competency-based clinical care, and lifelong learning. The programs for allied
dental professionals have also undergone revisions that embrace the tenets of
the Indiana Model.
RESEARCH
The school’s reputation for excellence took firm root in the 1940s, when
pioneering dental dean Maynard Hine and several key teachers and researchers
began long and prolific careers on the dental faculty. It was during this era,
for example, that three IU scientists, including dental professor Joseph Muhler,
created the first successful stannous fluoride formula that became the active
decay-preventing agent in Crest toothpaste. Dr. Muhler and other IU pioneers
(e.g., oral pathologist William Shafer, materials scientist Ralph Phillips, and
pediatric dentist [and future dean] Ralph McDonald) contributed a body of
groundbreaking work that drew worldwide attention to Indiana University. Each
man left a legacy of knowledge that helped build the foundation for contemporary
dental science.
IUSD has a significant multidisciplinary research program. In all, nearly
40,000 square feet of research space divided into more than a dozen facilities,
including the Oral Health Research Institute, has been devoted to wide-ranging
research activities supported by about $6.9 million in external funding last
year.
Built in 1968 from royalties generated from the sale of Crest toothpaste, the
Oral Health Research Institute is also one of the best-known product-testing
sites in the world. The Institute’s longtime director was renowned scientist Dr.
George Stookey, who now holds IU’s prestigious title of Distinguished Professor
Emeritus of Preventive and Community Dentistry.
Since 1999, the Institute has been moving ahead faster than ever under the
fine leadership of Dr. Domenick Zero, and continues to build on its
international reputations for studies on fluoride, early caries detection, and
caries prevention. For example, OHRI scientist and IU faculty member Dr. Andréa
Ferreira Zandoná is using a $3.4 million, five-year grant from the NIH to
chronicle the natural history of the progression of early dental caries and to
study the effectiveness of three early detection methods used in combination.
IUSD’s research programs address several of the priority areas cited by the
U.S. Surgeon General and include efforts to identify specific genes and related
genetic factors in the etiology and treatment of malocclusion; molecular studies
of the microbial factors involved in the etiology of dental caries and
periodontal disease; investigations of dental plaque accumulation as a risk
factor for heart disease; studies on how the structure and compositional changes
of biofilms impact dental caries; identifying ways to optimize the benefits of
fluoride while reducing its detrimental effects; finding more effective measures
for the early detection and control of incipient dental caries; basic and
clinical studies of strategies for further improving restorative materials;
studies to understand the factors that play a central role in chronic
inflammation and autoimmunity and to identify targets for developing therapeutic
agents; and investigations on the role of toll-like receptors in oral and
paraoral soft tissue pathology.
COMMUNITY
IU stresses to its students the importance of becoming professionally engaged
with the community at large. The Division of Community Dentistry, under the
direction of Dr. Karen Yoder, seeks to continually broaden the scope of the
school’s outreach efforts and thus the students’ exposure to community
populations having special needs.
IUSD is developing long-term relationships with various community agencies in
Indiana, and in 2001 the school added an international component to its
service-learning program. With guidance on site from IUSD faculty mentors,
dental and dental hygiene student volunteers have been gaining a global
perspective on patient care and the profession of dentistry by treating
underserved patients in other nations during the dental school’s annual
Alternative Spring Break. Groups of volunteers served in Haiti from 2001 to 2003
and have been visiting rural Mexico since the inception of the program. A team
of volunteers has been conducting service-learning missions to Ecuador since
2004. In 2007, the International Service-Learning Program was expanded to
include sites in Guatemala and Brazil.
One of many examples of IUSD’s service-learning efforts closer to home is
participation by faculty, staff, and student volunteers in an ongoing program
that provides dental sealants to children residing in several city shelters
housing homeless persons and victims of domestic violence. Another is a
collaborative project between the school and a local community health center in
which second-year dental hygiene students and fourth-year dental students
provide treatment to homeless persons. Through the second-year dental hygiene
Community Dental Health course, which sends students into the community to
assist citizens in need in a variety of ways, the school has now established
ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships with the Gennesaret Free Clinic and
Hawthorne Community Center in Indianapolis and with Trinity Dental Clinic in
Carmel.
Several years ago, volunteers from the school began providing oral healthcare
to Amish children in several northern Indiana communities by using the dental
office of an IUSD graduate in Elkhart. That commitment, in combination with a
series of grants obtained by IU faculty, resulted in the construction of a new
clinic for the Amish in Shipshewana, Ind., where IU volunteers continue to
provide treatment to those in need.
IU School of Dentistry is a past recipient of a "Partner of the Year" award
from Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Inc., which honored IUSD for a
service-learning program that provides dental treatment to adults who are
developmentally disabled and employed by Goodwill.
The SEAL INDIANA program, launched by IUSD in early 2003 in collaboration
with the Indiana State Department of Health, is the centerpiece of the school’s
community outreach program for low-income children. Operating year-round, the
mobile unit travels across the state with dental staff and IUSD students to
apply sealants to the teeth of children enrolled at schools that serve
low-income families and in programs associated with community centers.
Examinations are also provided to youngsters participating in Head Start. The
two-chair unit is outfitted with extra portable equipment to expand treatment
capabilities on site at schools and community centers.
The SEAL INDIANA staff also works with Indiana’s dentists and dental
societies to try to help children with dental needs other than sealants find a
permanent dental "home" within their own communities. More than 15,000 children
from Indiana school systems and Head Start programs have received services
through SEAL INDIANA during the program’s first five years. SEAL INDIANA has
received generous grants from the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation
and the Delta Dental Foundation to help support preventive dental care provided
by the mobile unit.
For decades, the Oral Health Research Institute has managed a fluoride mouth
rinse program for Hoosier schoolchildren. Every year, tens of thousands of
youngsters in grades K through 12 participate in the supervised program, rinsing
with fluoride once a week during the school day.
Several IUSD faculty members work in cooperation with faculty from medicine
and nursing to development community-based participatory research involving
Indianapolis’s Hispanic population. They are involved with the Binational/Cross-Cultural
Health Enhancement Center project, which is part of the IUPUI Signature Center
Initiative, an investment in the future of research at IUPUI.
The dental school is also proud to extend a hand of friendship to the global
community through its relationships with other schools of dentistry around the
world. The school has enjoyed warm relations with many international schools for
decades. The first formal Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation took place in
1985, when an agreement was sealed with Matsumoto Dental College (now Matsumoto
Dental University) of Shiojiri, Japan. Today, IUSD has contracts with schools in
12 countries, including most of the dental schools in Thailand. The most recent
agreement was signed in 2007 with Centro Universitario Positivo – UnicenP in
Curitiba, Brazil.
The dental school’s strong group of international alumni has been key to the
success of these programs. The agreements typically have led to student and
faculty exchanges and to the pursuit of collaborative research projects.
Last updated: April 2, 2008