Darcy Severyn, Laryn Schmidt and Carla Gerbrandt, three ambitious students from the 2012 graduating class of dental hygiene, have developed an initiative to provide oral health education through school/hospital visits.
Both L.Y. Cairns School and the Stollery Hospital have signed up to be included in this initiative. So far, the dental hygiene students have presented at L.Y. Cairns, six times, focusing on how to care for, and create good habits, for their oral health at home.
At the Stollery, the students primarily interact with the children and their care givers in what they call the 'Beach' room, which is their playroom. They use props such as soft toothbrushes and tooth forms to introduce fun things.
Darcy says the vision the students have for this initiative is to partner with other disciplines and maybe even incorporate a dental hygiene mobile unit/cart that can easily travel across the floors and into the patient rooms of hospitals.
"There are many opportunities to increase awareness of who we are and what we do," says Darcy. The spectrum of dental hygiene is broad and we can help in a variety of ways."
As peer teaching is an important aspect of the dental hygiene program, the SMILE initiative is open to junior student participation as well.
For more information, contact Barbara Gitzel, Clinical Professor, Dental Hygiene Program at bgitzel@ualberta.ca.