No Cost

DH 417 Community Dental Health is the continuation of DH 407 Dental Public Health Concepts. This course is designed to prepare the student to function as an effective oral health practitioner, educator, and resource person in a variety of community health settings. Evidence-based decision making will be applied to dental public health settings. Community water fluoridation, other forms of fluoridation, and other public health methods of primary prevention will be explored in terms of cost efficiency, efficacy, and safety. The role of the dental hygienist in tobacco cessation education will be emphasized. Community partners will be identified, if applicable to the class project. Students will conduct field work to identify an area of interest by contacting organizations, businesses, or educational institutions to discuss the feasibility of project ideas and the availability of participation. Emphasis will be on the development of a community service project on dental hygiene related topics taking into consideration the education level, SES, ethnicity, gender, age, and cultural considerations of their intended target population or audience.

This is the final course in a two-part series focusing on Inter-professional education. This course is designed to give students the opportunity to take concepts learned in DH 410 Foundations of Inter-professional Collaborative Practice and apply skills and knowledge during external clinical enrichment rotations in the community. Clinical rotation sites may include but are not limited to, hospitals, medical offices, short and long-term care facilities. This course will give the students the opportunity to present their inter-professional collaborative practice team experience to their classmates as a way of self-reflective practice to improve upon professional growth.

A continuation of Clinical Dental Hygiene Practice II. Clinical application of diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic procedures utilized in patient care by a dental hygienist with increased levels of achievement in all dental hygiene skills.

Advanced study of periodontology with emphasis on new surgical modalities and equipment. Orientation to all aspects of periodontal practice.

This course will prepare the student to function as effective oral health educator, practitioner, and resource person in public health settings. This course involves 3 hours per week of field work. Some rotations will be arranged by instructor, others will be arranged by the student with prior approval from the instructor. Externship rotations may include, but are not limited to the VA dental clinic, Indian Health Service dental clinics, Community Health Alliance dental clinic, Early Head Start or Head Start programs, Future Smiles, Remote Area Medical events, nursing homes, oncology or memory care facilities, homeless shelters, and public schools.

This course has a clinical and seminar component. The clinical component is designed to focus on application of clinical practice including, infection and exposure control, sterilization, ergonomics, emergency care, oral prophylaxis, patient medical/dental assessment, extra/intra oral assessment, caries and periodontal risk assessments, periodontal and dental charting, nutrition and diet counseling, oral hygiene education, digital/radiography imaging, inspection of teeth, dental hygiene diagnosis and care planning, instrumentation skills and techniques, patient management, health promotion and disease prevention, patient scheduling, re-care systems, documenting manual and electronic information in a dental software system. The seminar component focuses on research, patient case presentations, clinic journal reflections, continuation of electronic portfolio from first semester, and discussions and review of clinical policies, processes and procedures.

Covers selected topics of interest to dental hygiene students, including review of Dental Hygiene National Board Examination. Graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.

Covers selected topics of interest to dental hygiene students, including review of Dental Hygiene National Board Examination. Graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.

A first course in research methods for students pursuing data science. The emphasis of this course is on developing the habits of sound critical thinking, especially with regards to larger data sets. The entire research process will be examined, including the formation of a research question, the means of data collection, and the resulting conclusions that can be drawn from the data.

A survey course of the core elements of data science: Asking questions, collecting and cleaning data, exploring the data, creating models, and communicating the results. No programming background or statistics background is assumed.