Teresa A. Dolan, DDS, MPH
University of Florida College of Dentistry
Dean’s Message
The University of Florida College of Dentistry (UFCD) is pleased to be among the nation’s 56 dental schools educating dentists, dental specialists and oral health researchers.
As unbelievable as it may seem; Florida, the fourth most populous state in the union, did not have a dental school of its own until the early 1970s.
With grassroots lobbying by the Florida Dental Association, UFCD was established by Florida’s legislature in 1965 and opened its doors to dental students in 1972. Since then UFCD has experienced an eventful and fruitful history.
The college has been led by six deans; including myself as the current and first woman dean. In summer of 1974, Florida residents received dental care from three student dentists in the charter class—Craig Bridgeman, Alan Hays (now a Florida legislator) and Alan Kaplan—beginning a tradition of providing low cost dental services to Florida’s low-income, indigent and medically compromised residents.
In May 1976, under the deanship of Dr. Don Allen, the college was granted full accreditation by the Commission on Dental Accreditation. This was followed one month later by the graduation of the first Florida-trained dentists.
Since then, UFCD has graduated 2,018 dentists and 849 specialists from its 16 degree and certificate programs. DMD class size has grown from 24 to 80, and in May 2006, the college graduated its 31st DMD class.
The UCFD strengthens the nation’s dental profession through graduation of dedicated and talented young dentists and dental scientists. Dentistry’s future is bright, and there is definitely cause for celebration.
Teresa A. Dolan, DDS, MPH
Introduction
By all standards, the University of Florida College of Dentistry (UFCD) possesses recognized strengths in teaching, research and service. As Florida’s only public dental school, the college educates the state’s future general dentists and dental specialists in 16 degree and certificate programs.
With its close ties to the University of Florida, the UF Health Science Center and the Malcolm Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the college offers an unmatched interdisciplinary approach to dental education. Dental students at UFCD are exposed to cutting-edge clinical treatment in the college’s centers for implantology, craniofacial anomaly and cleft lip and palate, dental biomaterials, facial pain, molecular biology, periodontal research, orphaned autoimmune disorders, and pain research.
Through its Statewide Network for Community Oral Health, the college has become one of the largest providers of low-cost dental care in Florida, providing nearly 10 percent of all indigent care to Florida’s residents, offering comprehensive, state-of-the-art clinical services during more than 89,950 patient visits in fiscal year 2004-2005.
The college is nationally recognized for its oral health research enterprise, emphasizing infectious diseases in dentistry, bone biology, pain and neurosciences, and translational research to improve clinical dental care. This research excellence resulted in the college being ranked No. 7 among 56 U.S. dental schools in federal funding in 2005, and research initiatives represent the college’s close alignment to Health Science Center and university initiatives in the areas of genomics of infectious diseases, immunology, autoimmunity, biostatistics, cancer epidemiology and prevention, cell biology/cell signaling, and pain and neurosciences.
Highlights
The University of Florida College of Dentistry (UFCD) opened a new, $4-million clinical facility to patients in Pinellas County Sept. 6, 2005 at University Partnership Center on the St. Petersburg College Seminole Campus. The clinic is a 14,000 square-foot, two-story facility with capacity expected to exceed 20,000 patient visits each year. Classrooms are equipped with videoconferencing technology and operatories feature state-of-the-art equipment and furnishings. The UFCD Seminole clinic is the newest addition to the college’s Statewide Network for Community Oral Health, a clinical network which includes four college-owned clinics and 13 county health clinics across the state.
UFCD has a multi-faceted service mission encompassing patient care and community outreach and education. The Statewide Network for Community Oral Health (SNCOH) is a statewide resource with the goal of providing clinical learning opportunities for dental students and residents while also improving access to dental services to the underserved. Through the SNOCH, the college improves access to dental care for Florida’s residents, focusing on vulnerable, indigent and special needs patients. Through the network, the college has become one of the largest providers of low-cost dental care in Florida.
In 2005, UFCD created a new Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science in recognition of Florida’s growing dental public health needs. This new department has a mix of researchers and research interests, adding to the college’s research portfolio and its emphasis on public health. One project is a social health marketing campaign, “Oral Cancer: It spreads faster than you think.” This is a campaign to raise public awareness of oral cancer—its signs, causes and prevention—and to encourage regular oral cancer exams to increase early detection. The campaign, which targets area residents because of Northeast Florida’s disproportionate burden of new oral cancer cases and deaths, includes public service announcements on Jacksonville radio stations, on billboards, buses, posters and brochures.
History
The University of Florida College of Dentistry opened its doors in 1966 from a Flavet building with the grand name of Jennings Hall Annex. Flavet buildings were temporary military housing structures left on campus after the close of WWII. A UF campus recreational sports field still bears the name Flavet Field in memory of the multitude of Flavet buildings placed on the field to house military families in the 1940s.
Groundbreaking for a new UF Dental Sciences building took place in May of 1971.
1949—A study headed by Dr. Vernon Lippard recommended the establishment of a dental college in Florida.
1957—On May 21, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that designated the University of Florida at Gainesville as the site for a proposed college of dentistry.
1963—On Feb. 21 - 23, the Florida Dental Society held a workshop on dental manpower requirements in Florida and concluded that “an absolutely first quality school of dentistry be established at the University of Florida promptly.”
1972—On September 11, the first class of 24 dental students entered the University of Florida.
1974 & 1975—UFCD was recognized as a leader in dental education with its innovated modular curriculum - which is competency-based rather than time-based - and for development of self-instructional learning packages and clearly stated behavioral objectives.
1981—The Craniofacial Center was established to bring together specialists from the colleges of dentistry, medicine and health related professions to care for patients with deformities of the face and skull.
1983—The Bioglass® Research Center was established and run cooperatively by the colleges of dentistry, medicine and engineering.
1984—The first human trials of the dental applications for Bioglass® began. The Dental Occlusion and Facial Pain Center was approved by the Board Regents as the state’s first specialized treatment and research center to meet the needs of people suffering from dysfunction of the masticatory system related pains of the head and neck.
1987—The Florida Probe, an electronic periodontal probe that measures very subtle loss of supportive tissue around teeth was developed.
1988—The Nation’s first federally-funded research center devoted exclusively to investigating and refining ways to maintain and promote the oral health of the rapidly growing elderly population was established.
1990—The Department of Orthodontics launched longitudinal study of the best time to begin treating class II malocclusion (buck teeth). This is the first federally funded orthodontic patient trials.
1993—The Center for Orphaned Autoimmune Diseases and interdisciplinary center focusing on Sjögren’s syndrome was approved. (Only one other such center in the country).
2000—The nation’s first Center for Implant Dentistry opened in the UFCD Oral Surgery Clinic.
2004—UFCD oral biologist Richard Lamont, Ph.D., completed mapping of all the proteins—or the proteome—expressed by the periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis, which will enable researchers to better study how the bacteria uses its complement of proteins to infect its human host to cause periodontal disease.
2005—Replacement Therapy, a novel caries-prevention therapy developed by UFCD oral biologist Jeffrey Hillman, PhD, received the green light for human trials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Replacement therapy inoculates the oral cavity with a genetically engineered strain of Streptococcus mutans bacteria which out competes the wild-type, caries-causing S. mutans strains.
The laboratory of UFCD microbiologist Ann Progulske-Fox, PhD, announced it had isolated live P. gingivalis bacteria from human atherosclerotic plaque. Though periodontal disease had long been associated with cardiovascular hardening of the arteries, this was the first time P. gingivalis bacteria were recovered alive from human arterial tissues.
The UFCD Craniofacial Center and its research partner, the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, completed a 10-year NIH-funded comparison of two cleft palate repair surgical techniques, the Von Lagenbeck procedure and the double-Z-palatoplasty procedure developed by UFCD surgeon, Dr. Leonard Furlow. The outcome of this important study will define surgical treatment/repair of future children born with cleft palate.
2006—UFCD was selected as one of the first dental institutions to participate with the Biolase University Program, enabling six Waterlase MD units to be installed throughout the college.
