Dean’s Message

Continuing Dental Education continues a tradition of excellence

Dean Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H.

The mission of the Office of Continuing Dental Education is to become the dental profession’s trusted resource for continuing education and life-long learning. We created our mission in part by focusing on the feedback we receive from our participants, many of whom travel from around the United States to attend our courses. In a recent participant’s words, we are “simply the best.”

Each year as we build our course line we work to ensure you will receive the kind of quality education you’ve come to expect from the University of Florida College of Dentistry. We want to thank those who gave us feedback and recommendations that helped develop our course selections. We received valuable input from past CDE participants, college alumni and faculty, and our UF CDE advisory board. We took your advice and it’s reflected in this new course guide.

Certain courses deserve special recognition because they illustrate our tradition of leadership and innovation in CDE programming. Our new Executive Practice Management Course for Dentists is the first of it’s kind in the U.S. and bridges the knowledge gap from clinical dentist to business owner. This program meets one weekend a month for 13 consecutive months and is modeled after the extremely successful Comprehensive Dentistry Program for Mastership in the Academy of General Dentistry. The course will be taught by Dr. Annelise Driscoll, who has over 25 years experience in practice administration. We believe this business course, focusing strictly on the business practices of dentistry, will quickly become one of our flagship programs.

James Haddix, D.M.D.: Assistant Dean of Continuing Dental Education

Changing laws and emerging technologies have enormous impact on our CDE programming. The new Florida statute permitting dental hygienists to administer local anesthesia created a need for a course to fulfill the training requirements listed in the statute. Cone Beam CT is rapidly becoming an integral part of the modern dental practice so two new courses focus on training dentists to implement Cone Beam CT. We are offering a one-day lecture course in Orlando and a two-and-a-half-day clerkship for those who desire more in-depth training in our clinical setting.

Finally, we added a Digital Implant Dentistry course to complement our existing line-up of implant courses that include an Implant Continuum, a patient-treatment course at our Hialeah Dental Center and a patient-treatment course at our St. Petersburg Dental Center.

Thanks to all of you who are already part of our CDE programs. We sincerely appreciate your support and trust. And for those of you who are new to the UF Continuing Dental Education programs, we welcome you to our Gator dentistry learning community and our tradition of excellence in dental education.

Regards,

Teresa A. Dolan, D.D.S., M.P.H.
Professor and Dean

James E. Haddix, D.M.D.
Assistant Dean for Continuing Dental Education