Dental Hygiene recognized as Best Hygiene Training Program

UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry’s Dental Hygiene Program has garnered the honor of being named Best Hygiene Training Program by the readers of DrBicuspid.

The honor is part of the periodical’s annual Dental Excellence Awards, known as Cuspies, which are bestowed to individuals, programs, and products that are at the top of their class in the field of dentistry.

An unexpected honor, Dental Hygiene Program Director Victoria Patrounova, RDH, MHA, says receiving the Best Hygiene Training Program recognition is a welcomed confidence boost for faculty, and the award may be a byproduct of some intentional changes done within the department.

“In the last couple of years, we underwent some faculty changes, implemented OSCE in all clinical courses, revamped some didactic courses, and focused on innovation, such as implementing digital dentistry in the dental materials course,” said Patrounova. “We already had a nitrous oxide certification and laser training, which are not offered by all dental hygiene programs.”

The Department of Periodontics and Dental Hygiene also recently celebrated the inaugural graduating class of the new Master of Science in Dental Hygiene Program in 2023.

Curricular innovations like these aid in establishing the School of Dentistry’s dental hygiene footprint, which already provides a unique experience for students learning in a dental school setting.

“The School of Dentistry has a young and diverse faculty trained at different schools, which brings unique perspectives,” she said. “Everyone is passionate about teaching, and we implement a lot of interactive learning and gamification to engage a new generation of students.”

The Dental Hygiene Program sets out to recruit well-qualified, diverse students and educate them to be qualified oral health care professionals in their chosen field of dental hygiene. This is accomplished by preparing them for future practice in a highly technological world amid a population that is aging, ethnically diverse, and consumer-oriented.

The program also seeks to provide service learning, research, and community outreach experiences that enrich students’ professional development and reinforce their clinical education.

Nominations for the 2024 Cuspies were made by DrBicuspid newsletter readers, which also features categories such as Dental Educator of the Year and Best New Hygiene Product. Readers were asked to decide which people, products, and events impacted the dental industry the most over the course of the past year.

After advancing through multiple rounds of votes, the School of Dentistry ultimately earned the top honors in the hygiene training program category.