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June 25, 2008
Dentistry Faculty in Ann Arbor News
The Ann Arbor News has printed a story about the Virtual Reality in Health event at the Duderstadt Center last week. Dr Mark Fitzgerald - who gave an excellent overview of the School of Dentistry's use of simulations to train dental students - is quoted:
Last fall, U-M's Dentistry school began training students with simulations using technology similar to the computer animation software used for Pixar's movies, said Mark Fitzgerald.It offers dental students the chance to work on memorizing sequences of teeth and to familiarize themselves with the task at hand before practicing on a mannequin or getting to work on a real patient, said the associate chair of the school's Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics department.
Trying out the 3-D disaster simulator last week, Fitzgerald praised the realism of the immersion technique.
"It'd beat the socks off of sitting in a chair and listening to someone talk about it,'' Fitzgerald said.
But the problem in integrating simulation technology is making sure it's cost effective - many dental simulators on the market cost upwards of $60,000 a piece, he said. The school is looking for options that would be far cheaper than that, he said.
Posted by markmac at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2008
Update on the Consolidation of the Dentistry Library
Earlier this year, the Dean of the School of Dentistry announced, after meeting with Paul Courant, the Dean of Libraries, and Jane Blumenthal, the Director of the Health Sciences Libraries, that the current physical dentistry library space in the Dental Building "would no longer be needed for archiving the print collection".
In terms of dates, the Dentistry Library is scheduled to close to the public on June 27. The library's print collection will be subsequently moved to the Taubman Medical Library in July. Some of the collection's duplicates will be withdrawn, but the collection as a whole will remain intact and accessible at Taubman.
During this time (and beyond), the Health Sciences Libraries will continue to provide collection, research, and educational support to Dental faculty, staff, and students. The Dentistry liaison librarian will continue work closely with the Dental community to ensure that the Health Sciences Libraries continue to meet the school's clinical, research, and curricular needs.
If you have any questions and/or comments regarding the consolidation, please contact Mark MacEachern at markmac@umich.edu.
Posted by markmac at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2008
NEWS: New research offers insight into oral cancer, chronic pediatric ear infections, and hearing health
New research exemplifies wide variety of issues addressed by ENTs
SOURCE: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/aaoo-nro052908.php
Alexandria, VA – Three new studies published in the June 2008 edition of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery focus on what role gender plays in the prognosis of oral tongue cancer, chronic ear infections in children, and the success rates of hearing aid implants in the elderly.
“These studies are prime examples of the wide variety of critical research being undertaken every day by otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeons; research that will improve physicians’ ability to provide the best patient care for the ear, nose, throat, head and neck,� said journal editor Richard M. Rosenfeld, MD.
Researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, found that although oral cancer is more prevalent in men, in their study group of 71 women and 142 men diagnosed with tongue cancer, gender did not influence prognosis. Based on this, the researchers concluded that employing a less aggressive course of treatment in female patients due to their gender was not justified.
A second study looks into speech performance when using digital hearing aids of the “young elderly� (65-80) compared with older elderly people (over 80). In this study by Taiwanese researchers, 59 patients with hearing loss and digital hearing aids were divided into two groups based on age. The study showed that age played no role in the improvement of a patient’s ability to hear, with both groups exhibiting improved performance in the four months following the hearing aid fitting. The authors believe that based on this research, physicians should not view age as a limiting factor as to whether to fit older patients with hearing aids.
A third study focuses on pediatric care, looking into the cause and treatment of chronic ear infections where fluid is present behind the ear drum (otitis media with effusion). Results from this study, conducted by Australian researchers, indicate that the presence of intracellular bacteria in the middle ear plays an important role in the development of inflamed tissue and mucus in the area. Therefore, according to researchers, using antibiotics that specifically target intracellular bacteria may prove to be a more effective course of treatment.
Posted by pfa at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)