Students showed off more than 100 research projects March 6 at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry (UIC) annual Clinic and Research Day.
Undergraduate, graduate, predoctoral, and doctoral students presented posters and case studies on their work during the event. Projects varied from public health studies to enzyme-related research.
The event helped undergraduate UIC sophomore Jasmine Liu take a peek into her future.
“Having the opportunity to work with graduate students and learning about what other innovative research is uncovering is eye opening,” said Liu, an undergraduate kinesiology major in Guaranteed Professional Programs Admissions for dentistry at UIC. “It’s crazy that we’re going to be in their shoes just a couple years from now.”
Dr. Richard Valachovic, president and chief executive officer of the American Dental Education Association, delivered the keynote, “Dentistry in a New Era of Collaboration in Health Professions Education and Research.”
Dr. Valachovic focused his address on how changes in medicine and pharmacy will impact dentistry. The future requires greater collaboration among health care practitioners to deliver a higher standard of care, he said.
“We are in a time where we must embrace every health field and collaborate to bring the best care to our patients,” he said. “This means learning from our past ways and transitioning to the future.”
The UIC College of Dentistry is diverse — more than half of the students are female and there is no ethnic majority.
“We hope to make students educated not just in the clinical aspects of dentistry, but also to mold them into the leaders of health policy for decades to come,” said Dr. Bill Knight, Interim Dean of the UIC College of Dentistry.