High Schoolers Explore Oral Healthcare Careers » College of Dentistry

High school students wearing matching navy blue "Bridging Pathways to Oral Health Careers" T-shirts sit at long tables inside a University of Florida College of Dentistry classroom. They are focused on a hands-on soap carving activity, using small tools to carve a tooth anatomy model out of individual bars of white soap.

Twenty Florida high school students recently visited the UF College of Dentistry, or UFCD, for a day of programming designed to help them explore potential careers in dentistry.

This marked the first high school outreach program hosted at the college by a regional Florida Area Health Education Center, or AHEC. The visit was facilitated by the Suwannee River and Northeast Florida AHECs and coordinated through UFCD’s Office of Admissions.

Emma Crall, a health educator with the Suwannee River Area Health Education Center, stands at the front of a classroom speaking to high school students seated at tables. The students, dressed in navy blue "Bridging Pathways to Oral Health Careers" T-shirts, are working on a soap-carving project while a tutorial video showing hands carving a tooth plays on a wall-mounted monitor behind them. — Suwannee River AHEC Health Educator Emma Crall interacts with high school students during a hands-on dental soap-carving activity at the UF College of Dentistry.

The day’s experiences were structured around the Bridging Pathways to Oral Health Careers curriculum, a nationwide educational initiative created by the American Dental Education Association, or ADEA. On a macro level, the program aims to strengthen future regional healthcare workforces, ensuring that Florida’s rural communities have a sustainable pipeline of high-quality care.

“Bridging Pathways to Oral Health Careers focuses on building a prepared workforce for rural and underserved communities by improving the supply, distribution and accessibility of oral health professionals,” said Emma Crall, health educator and special projects coordinator for Suwannee River AHEC.

For participants, the program is about exploring oral healthcare career possibilities in a setting that provides hands-on exposure and practical resources.

“Most high school students who join our program are either already interested in dentistry and want to learn more, or are exploring all the healthcare careers to determine where they fit best,” Crall said.

The daylong visit to UFCD kicked off with a dental anatomy-focused tooth-molding exercise.

An over-the-shoulder shot of a high school student participating in a hands-on dental activity. On a white tray in front of the student are red, u-shaped wax arch models being fitted with small, white plastic teeth replicas, with an informational teeth guide handout sitting nearby.

Following an afternoon tour of key college spaces like the Simulation Lab, participants put their manual dexterity to the test. The high school students were tasked with carving an anatomically accurate molar out of a bar of soap using paper templates and craft tools to practice the psychomotor skills required of dentists and lab technicians.

A close-up view of a dental soap-carving activity setup on a brown paper-lined table. A bar of white soap sits in the center with a tooth anatomy paper template attached to its top, surrounded by loose soap shavings and various carving tools. An instruction packet from the ADEA Bridging Pathways program is visible on the left.

Three UFCD students — third-year DMD students Drew Goldsmith and Daniella Gonzalez, and second-year DMD student Ryan Walsh — volunteered throughout the day as mentors and guides. They are among the current dental students participating in the Florida AHEC Scholars Program, a prestigious statewide initiative designed to prepare healthcare professional candidates (such as dental or medical students) to serve rural and medically underserved populations.

UFCD dental student Drew Goldsmith, wearing a brown UF Dental sweatshirt, stands at the front of a classroom table demonstrating a pair of dental loupes to a group of attentive high school students. In front of him are dental models and an open equipment case. — UFCD dental student and AHEC Scholar Drew Goldsmith gives visiting students an up-close look at professional dental loupes.

“Our connection with the UF College of Dentistry has grown more recently and has led to many great opportunities,” Crall said. “We currently have eight AHEC Scholars at UFCD, and we were pleased to be able to facilitate this program with our high schoolers, and we hope to do more of this in the future.”

The Florida AHEC Scholars Program is highly selective, accepting only 150 applicants from across the state each year. Selected participants receive a $500 annual stipend along with advanced professional development opportunities.

UFCD dental student Ryan Walsh, dressed in light blue dental scrubs, sits at a classroom table smiling and interacting with a high school student wearing a white hijab. In the foreground, other high school students in navy blue t-shirts focus on a hands-on tooth-molding activity using pink and white dental models. — UFCD dental student and AHEC Scholar Ryan Walsh shares insights with high school program participants during their campus visit.

Over the course of the two-year curriculum, scholars complete 40 hours of online didactic modules focused on critical primary care topics like the social determinants of health, cultural competency and behavioral health; this is paired with 40 hours of community-based experiential learning.

By actively working in community clinics and exploring regional barriers to care, scholars gain a more intimate, practical understanding of what it takes to be compassionate providers for underserved patient populations.

This localized impact is supported by a strong statewide network. The Florida AHEC Network consists of 10 regional centers overseen by five university-based program offices, including the UF AHEC Program Office. While the university offices provide network oversight, the regional centers are responsible for hands-on, local program delivery across Florida’s 67 counties.

For example, Suwannee River AHEC serves 12 north-central Florida counties, making it a primary regional hub collaborating with the University of Florida.

“UF in general has been a great partner; we have connected with many of the colleges to recruit students for AHEC Scholars,” Crall noted.

Together, Florida’s regional centers operate as part of the National AHEC Organization, connecting grassroots local outreach initiatives at UFCD to a nationwide network dedicated to healthcare workforce development.