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Message from the Dean
As the 2011-2012 academic
year moves into the Spring semester at the Stony Brook School of Dental
Medicine, I feel great enthusiasm and pride in our school and the students,
faculty and staff within it. The School
of Dental Medicine was established in 1968 with the first class of 24 students
graduating in 1977. Since that time the
school has experienced tremendous growth in dental education, patient care,
basic and translational research and community service. The school remains focused on the overall
well being of the patient and therefore from its inception has had a curriculum
that is well-integrated with the School of Medicine. Students devote two years to joint didactic
training and hospital-based clinical rotations.
Additional rotations include Long Island hospitals.
Today, the school accepts 42
students per class and is considered one of the top dental schools in the
nation. As the school’s reputation as an
excellent personal and nurturing school has grown nationally and
internationally, the applicant pool has soared.
This year we received an unprecedented 1500 applications for the 42
positions in our first year class.
We consider our nearly 1,100
alumni to be one of our greatest assets and strengths. We are constantly working with them to expand
our education programs as well as fundraising efforts for scholarships and
other support. I am proud to say that
many alumni have returned to the school to serve in part-time or volunteer
faculty positions.
Our talented and
internationally known faculty members are also a source of great pride for the
school. Most recently, we welcomed Dr.
Marcus Abboud as the Founding Chair of the Department of Prosthodontics &
Digital Technology. Dr. Abboud and his
team will bring exciting new educational and research opportunities to our
school. In addition we are actively
recruiting for new Chairs of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Oral Biology.
The School of Dental Medicine
has an exceptional record of research.
We are considered one of the leading schools in the US in oral
translational research with two FDA-approved drugs. In addition, the school has embarked on a
major NIH funded initiative to investigate the relationship of periodontal
disease treatment and diabetes. We continue
to expand our research efforts by aggressively forming collaborations with
scientists locally and abroad.
In patient care, the Dental
Care Center at the School of Dental Medicine is the largest provider of oral
care for the 3 million residents of Nassau and Suffolk counties. Patients registered at the Dental Care Center
grew to 25,000 in 2011, which resulted in 68,000 patient visits.
Focusing on outreach efforts,
our new state-of-the-art mobile dental clinic is ready for its role in
providing the people of Long Island with access to much needed dental
care. It will extend our outreach care
to the children and adults of Suffolk County and elsewhere. All of our outreach efforts continue to grow
and to be extremely successful. As of
today, we have 70 programs on Long Island with international outreach efforts
in Chile, Kenya and Madagascar and in the US, South Dakota.
The school is rapidly
becoming a state-of-the-art teaching facility.
Major renovations of our Dental Care Center, due largely in part to a
HEAL Grant from the State of New York, are slated for completion in the Spring
of 2012. The new clinical space will
house an additional 29 operatories and an emergency clinic. A new pre-clinical laboratory for student
simulation activities was completed in February, 2011.
At the end of 2010, the
School of Dental Medicine concluded formulating its 10-year Strategic
Plan. The Plan focuses on seven specific
areas and provides a dynamic template for us to use as we move forward in
growth and innovation in education, research, patient care, alumni affairs,
fundraising, outreach and a new home for the school.
Clearly the school is on the
move. We are building on the traditions
of excellence that have made the school so special. I look forward to the exciting future that
lies on the horizon for the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine.
Ray C. Williams, DMD Dean, School of Dental Medicine Stony Brook University
| | Dr. Ray Williams |
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