[ad_1]
100 Million Mouths: Creating Primary Care Champions is a project for the Fair Oral Health Campaign to recruit and train health professionals to develop oral health curricula at primary care training centers across the region. The largest initiative to integrate oral health into primary care education nationwide is a recent effort at UMass Chan School of Medicine, led by Hugh Silk, MD, MPH, and Judith Savageau, MPH, at UMass Chan and other members of the center. Integration of Primary Care and Oral Health (CIPCOH).
“The project is to create 50 regional champions who will work to implement some oral health curriculum in health schools across the country,” said Dr. Silk, professor of family medicine and community health. “We named it 100 Million Mouths because more than 100 million people don’t visit the dentist in any given year, but they do visit their primary care providers. So if we can promote oral health and prevent disease through the practice of medical graduates in the first place, we can improve the health of many people.”
Oral health champions are taught to access medical, osteopathic, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, and midwifery schools, as well as pediatrics, medicine/pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and family medicine residency and geriatric fellowship programs. Learn to utilize existing national and state resources and collaborate with local and state professionals such as regional dental directors, public health departments, and local academic and community-based dentists and dental professionals.
Fourteen states have established oral health championships, with more added each year.
We started with the most demanding states from various dimensions and outcomes such as number of dentists and cavity size. “We want to have champions working with vulnerable populations to address health equity and social justice in all areas of oral health education,” said Savageau, associate professor of family medicine and community health. For example, one champion works with several Head Start preschool programs, and one is working with the Navajo Nation, which has a very high value for the wells.
Supported by multi-year funding from the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, 100 Million Mouths will boost CIPCOH’s work. Silk is the co-principal investigator of a collaborative agreement between the UMass Chan Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and the Harvard University Schools of Medicine and Dentistry.
Originally funded by the US Health Resources and Services Administration, CIPCOH projects nationally developed training programs for primary care sectors, establishing core oral health competencies and an oral health curriculum assessment tool.
Silk and Savage led several CIPCOH projects, many of which involved students from the TH Chan School of Medicine and students from the Tan Chingfeng Graduate School of Nursing.
Third-year medical student Mackenzie Jones conducted a CIPCOH-funded summer research project and surveyed each TH Chan School of Medicine course director to identify oral health components in the curriculum. We found that UMass Chan weaves the subject’s key concepts into a multi-year curriculum, building each iteration of knowledge and skills. It meets most of the oral health competencies and objectives established by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Jones’s study was submitted to the journal Medical teacher for publication.
“You’re exposed to oral health every year in most courses over the four years,” says Jones. I would say that the way most of us are educated now, we consider oral health to be primary care.
Ekaterina Skaritanov, also a third-year medical student, chose a population health clerkship led by Silk and Susan Feeney, DNP, assistant professor of nursing, to learn more about the role of oral health care in overall health and development. Health Equity in Worcester.
“I learned that oral health is basically connected to all systems in the body and can reflect the overall state of health,” Skarytanov said. While we are not dentists, I have found that during office visits, it is important to make sure we look at the mouths of adults and children, encourage them to go to the dentist if they can, and help those who cannot afford dental care. Dentists who accept Medicaid will benefit from my practice as a physician.
Because of her experience as a public secretary for oral health, Skarytanov and fellow medical students Mei Dong, Alison Holt, Lauren McKenna and Suryateja Rao, and nursing student Isabella DeMare at Worcester Telegram & Gazette Identifying ways to narrow oral health disparities.
Skaritanov received a Martin Luther Community Service grant to provide toothbrushes and toothpaste to families at the Marie Mission Diaper Bank in Worcester, educate them about the importance of oral health and connect them with pediatric dentists.
Other student-led, community-engaged Umas Chan oral health projects include assessing the oral health of homeless people through free clinics and proposing adding dental professionals to rural community health centers.
Related UMS Chan news stories:
Remillard Family Community Fund announces grant recipients to improve environmental health
The Martin Luther King Jr. Semester of Service Student Awards address local health care needs
School of Medicine Oral Health Curriculum Featured in AAMC News
Hugh Silk, MD, Takes Lead Role in New Center to Integrate Oral Health with Primary Care Training
[ad_2]
Source link
