AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Hi, I'm Amy Jones-Timoney from the University of Kentucky, and today
we're at the College of Dentistry with interim Dean of the college, Dr. Jeff Okeson. Thank
you so much for being with us today.
JEFF OKESON: Thank you, thank you.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: As we start our campus walk here, tell me a little bit about why
the profession of dentistry is so unique.
JEFF OKESON: It's unique, and I think, it's kind of special. We help a lot of patients
in an intimate way. It is listed has one of the highest professions in the US News and
World Report almost consistently. I think that's got something to do with the fact that
they are-- that dentists can do the things they'd like to do. There's a good work-family
kind of an option for them and so it offers a lot of options for them.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Tell me a little bit about your students and why they're picking the
UK College of Dentistry.
JEFF OKESON: We have some excellent students. We have students who come here after their
Bachelors, getting about a 3.6-point average. But they're here, I think, for lots of reasons,
some of which have got to do with our college size. We have just about 65 students per class.
That's relatively small to most dental schools. We have a faculty base that gives them a good
faculty-student ratio, which means we really can care for those people like that. And I
think it gives them an opportunity to see things like, we have digital dentistry here.
We have something that's really unique. We're probably leading the country in digital dentistry.
Digital dentistry is the ways dentistry has changed to making crowns and things like that
where we're now taking pictures and putting pictures into computers and those computers
then produce the crowns and we go right back to patients. And we're leading the country
in that. We have like 44 different scanners that are here, and our students are learning
how to do that so when they leave here, they can move into this digital dentistry, or they
can go into traditional industry. So we have to teach both those things, which is kind
of interesting.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Well let's head upstairs now, and take a look at one of the spaces
where a lot of this education and training is taking place.
JEFF OKESON: Absolutely. Sounds good.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: We've made it up to the sixth-floor Simulation Lab in the College
of Dentistry, and I know that hands-on training is really important for your students. Tell
me a little bit about the experiences that they get in hands-on training here.
JEFF OKESON: Well, dentistry is unique, because we have to give them all the biology and the
neurology and all that stuff, but we also have to pack into that how you be a dentist,
and that's a technical thing. So we have a simulation laboratory here where our students
can come by and they can look at artificial teeth in an artificial mouth that's set up
the way they would see it in the clinic. And we can teach them how to prepare teeth, how
to prepare crowns, do the things that they're going to have to do in a practice like that.
So we have to-- we have a very busy four years, because we've got to teach them how to do
that as well as why they're doing it and all the other aspects. So it's a busy year, and
they are able to come up here and spend some time looking-- getting things done.
It's probably-- I think it's one of the busiest curriculum we have in the university, because
we have to package all the biology together, the anatomy together, and then give them time
to learn how to do that, which means we keep them busy almost every day all day kind of
stuff like that. So it's a very busy curriculum. It's a challenging curriculum, but it's a
rewarding curriculum, because they get opportunities to help individuals with not only dental disease,
but understand how the whole health of the body is related to the oral cavity, and then
able to change people's lives, smile, make them happy, get them to chew better, things
like that. So all that is part of dentistry.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: It's really cool that they get to actually do that while they're students.
JEFF OKESON: Yes, while they're students. And once they master the skills in the simulator
laboratory, then we take them down to the clinic where they'll actually be doing that
with patients.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Well, that's a great segue, because we're going to head down to the clinic--
JEFF OKESON: Let's get on down there.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: --and check out that space.
JEFF OKESON: Great.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: So we've made our way down to the second floor. Tell me about where we
are, and some of the updates that have been done recently to clinics like this.
JEFF OKESON: We have two clinic floors for our students. There are about 70 cubicles
here. They were renovated, or no, they were all redone about '17-- two years ago-- so
it's all modern state of the art where the dental student would probably have in their
practice when they leave here like that. So we offer that. At the end of the hall here
we have a digital suite, which is where we do our digital dentistry. We can teach our
students that way. We have another program where we have endodontics so we have a suite
just for endodontics, and we've got two brand new surgical microscopes in that facility
right now.
I was mentioning the digital dentistry. We're leading the country in this. We offer more
digital dentistry for dental students than any other school anywhere in the country.
We have, like, 44 scanners. Some schools have one or two. So we have a whole thing, and
the students here can actually really advance, because we have another process called implant
dentistry where teeth can be extracted and an artificial tooth placed-- an implant. And
we offer that to the students here. If they're qualified and they do well, they can do implants,
which is really unique. Not too many dental schools offer that.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Wow. That's Incredible.
JEFF OKESON: This is our digital surgery suite here. And so we do-- well, we'll see the patients
here, and we'll do a lot of different types of procedures. And then get it into the--
take images of that, take it into the camera, and then use that into form the crowns and
such like that. We actually offer our dental students an opportunity to do crowns in one
day, which is what dentistry is moving towards. Like now, it used to be taking impressions
and putting temporaries and waiting a month or a week or two or whatever. Now they can
put it-- in, actually, to the computer, and the computer will actually take it to a mill.
It'll be fabricated, and an hour later, they can actually put the permanent crown in. So
that's really nice. That's where dentistry is going.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Wow. I know these clinics are very important-- digital dentistry. Tell
me a little bit about how the college is taking what you all do here out beyond this building,
kind of the outreach in the community.
JEFF OKESON: Absolutely. We have-- for years-- had a very strong outreach program. So our
college, we have facilities that are in the eastern part and now in the Western part.
And we think it's important for our-- to serve all the population of the state of Kentucky.
And so we have these clinics out there for individuals who can't make it to Lexington,
and the ones that are out there, the ones that may not be able to afford some of the
dentistry. So we're providing some of that, We have some clinics here, like every once
a month, Saturday morning clinics where our students volunteer. And you'll see children
that are really-- mostly from Lexington-- who need dental care, and they'll have funds.
So you'll have a number of things like that going on, which is really, I think, what we
need to be doing.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Beyond the training and education, what experiences do you offer your
students?
JEFF OKESON: We have seven postgraduate training programs. And so, if they're interested in,
say, orthodontics, they can spend time with someone who's an orthodontist and appropriate.
Oral surgery, periodontics. We have a new endodontic program that's just starting. We
have an oral facial pain program, which is one of the first-- anywhere-- actually. We
started a clinic in 1977, and now we're one of the first programs to be accredited by
the Commission of Dental Accreditation. And often, these are multi-professional groups.
So in the oral facial pain clinic, we have psychology, we have graduate dentists who
are there studying pain, and we have physical therapists all working together.
So the students come through our clinic and rotate. They get to see the interaction between
all the different professions. We have a wellness clinic here, which is kind of unique. In some
of the wellness clinic, we will teach the students how to consider things like high
blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity and all the other things that affect even the
oral cavity, how the oral cavity is affected by those disorders. So it's a pretty thorough
program.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Is there anything that you want the rest of campus to know about
your college?
JEFF OKESON: Yeah. I think so. This college was founded in 1962 on three premises. We
want our students to be biologically-oriented, technically-capable, and socially-sensitive.
And those are still the parameters of what we think would make a good dentist. And so
every time we graduate a dentist, we'd like to think those people have all those qualities,
and they'll be excellent dentists for not only citizens of the state of Kentucky, or
the Commonwealth of Kentucky, but for the United States and anywhere in the world.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: Oh, great. Well, thank you so much for showing us around today.
JEFF OKESON: Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.
AMY JONES-TIMONEY: If you would like more information on the College of Dentistry, just
visit the website on the screen.