Faculty Bibliography

The purpose of this project was to define education and training requirements for hospital-based dentists to efficiently and meaningfully participate in a hospital disaster response. Eight dental faculty with hospital-based training and/or military command and CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive) expertise were recruited as an expert panel. A consensus set of recommended educational objectives for hospital-based dentists was established using the following process: 1) identify assumptions supported by all expert panelists, 2) determine current advanced dental educational training requirements, and 3) conduct additional training and literature review by various panelists and discussions with other content and systems experts. Using this three-step process, educational objectives that the development group believed necessary for hospital-based dentists to be effective in treatment or management roles in times of a catastrophic event were established. These educational objectives are categorized into five thematic areas: 1) disaster systems, 2) triage/medical assessment, 3) blast and burn injuries, 4) chemical agents, and 5) biological agents. Creation of training programs to help dentists acquire these educational objectives would benefit hospital-based dental training programs and strengthen hospital surge manpower needs. The proposed educational objectives are designed to stimulate discussion and debate among dental, medical, and public health professionals about the roles of dentists in meeting hospital surge manpower needs.

This article describes an integrated fourth-year course in catastrophe preparedness for students at the New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD). The curriculum is built around the competencies proposed in 'Predoctoral Dental School Curriculum for Catastrophe Preparedness,' published in the August 2004 Journal of Dental Education. We highlight our experience developing the program and offer suggestions to other dental schools considering adding bioterrorism studies to their curriculum

Preparing for catastrophic events, both human-made and natural, is in the national interest and has become a priority since catastrophic events in Oklahoma City, Washington, DC, and New York City. Dentists are a large source of non-physician health manpower that could contribute to the public welfare during catastrophic events that require additional public health human resources. Dentists, by virtue of their education, understand biomedical concepts and have patient care skills that can be directly applied during a catastrophic event. Dentists also can provide training for other types of health care workers and can supervise these individuals. In this article, we propose that dentistry can make a significant contribution as part of a national response before, during, and after a catastrophic event or at the time of a public health emergency. We describe the potential collaboration among a dental school, city and state health departments, law enforcement, the military, and others to develop a curriculum in catastrophe preparedness. Then we describe one dental school's effort to build a catastrophe preparedness curriculum for our students. The competencies, goals and objectives, and sources of content for this catastrophe preparedness curriculum are described as well as suggestions for sequencing instruction