DH 220 Fall 2006

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November 18, 2006

Dita's SADHA Day Reflection

On November 17, 2006 I attended SADHA day in Lansing, MI, which was pretty fun. I enjoyed spending time with my classmates, and bonding with them, we had fun, and got to know each other even better. It was nice to be one of the schools who have a baccalaureate program. I enjoyed the vendors in the morning, and learned a lot about how many different products are out there. I also enjoyed meeting new potential dental hygienists. I loved the location, the hotel was so nice and the service was excellent we had a wonderful lunch, and the banquet hall was very pleasant to be in and have the presentations and roundtable discussions.
The presentation by Sandra Burns on “Images to Teach Diversity” made me feel very uncomfortable. I did not like how she singled out one race and kept talking about what happened in the past. I understand that people once lived in a time where they treated people harshly and that even today it happens, but I did not see how this presentation was linked to the dental hygiene profession. It would have been different if she taught us how we would handle it today if that kind of behavior were to happen to one another or a patient. Another way she could have linked dental hygiene to diversity was to give us statistics on how diverse the dental hygiene profession is today, and that as dental hygienists we are here for one another and our patients. I know there are statistics on how diverse the dental hygiene profession is, because of the different kinds of people that attended SADHA day and the presentation UofD Mercy gave us, I think UofD Mercy did a wonderful job on teaching us the diversity in the dental hygiene profession, with the way they told us the percentage of people who are American, African American, Chaldean, Albanian, Macedonian, etc, at there school, and the activities they do as a group TOGETHER, even though they all come from different backgrounds.
My first table roundtable discussion was on teeth whitening, and the speaker I had was very outgoing, and very nice. He told us that “Patients are going to respect what the RDH says more that the D.D.S. because they have that stigma that the D.D.S. is always after their money and that the RDH is there for them”. So when they ask for your opinion on procedures, products, and certain techniques, they are more likely to listen to what a RDH says then a D.D.S. What he said may and may not be true but it was another red flag to me that patients are really depending on us, and that we REALLY are not only cleaning their teeth. So that made me feel good, and he also gave us some samples, which was very nice of him.
My second roundtable discussion was “To premedicate or not that is the question” the speaker was Mary Burns-Coral, a registered nurse from LCC. She taught us on how important it is to know which patients need premedication, and how the medical history has a major role in telling us, just how we are learning right now in class. What made this discussion even more interesting was that she added jokes related to the dental field, in it.
After we had the delicious lunch, we got a chance to see how the different schools run their dental hygiene programs, which was nice to see, and made me realize that we have an awesome dental hygiene program at UofM. Some of the schools don’t get a chance to interact with dentists/dental students like we do in the clinic and classrooms.
Overall, I had a pretty good time at SADHA day and I will probably attend next year as well.

Posted by adauti at November 18, 2006 11:00 PM

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Posted by: jactinsl at December 2, 2006 05:17 PM

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