The Iowa Mission of Mercy was held this past weekend, November 4 and 5, in Des Moines. Over the weekend, the dentists and dental staff saw 1,083 patients, completing 6,732 procedures, which amounted to $1,013,563.44 worth of care. Over 100 students, several residents, and over 20 faculty and staff turned out to support the free clinics.

We haven’t been keeping track of everyone, but we do know there whereabouts of many of our graduates.  Some of them are listed below.  If you have updates, please feel to share them with us, and we will include them in the next newsletter.

Several DPH program graduates have recently become certified as Diplomates of the American Board of Dental Public Health (ABDPH). 

In 2022, there are several students are graduating from our programs. Currently, there are three PhD students and two MS students. We welcomed two new students to our Dental Public Health-Pediatric Dentistry program and three new MS students.

In recent years, our faculty have received many awards and recognitions, or have served as national leaders in various organizations.

New faculty in the department include a DPH program alumnus, two new clinical faculty, and other new department faculty. In the time since our last newsletter, one of the past directors of the DPH program, passed away. Two other former leaders in our department retired, and Dr. Leo Marchini recently left the department to take the position of Department Head in Cleveland. Departure and arrival of Dr. Michelle McQuistan left us in 2019. After about a year, she decided that Iowa was a better ‘fit’ for her and her family and returned.

The Midwest Regional Dental Public Health conference brings together dental public health professionals and students from Iowa and several nearby states. The conference has been held nearly every year since the 1990s through 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused us to cancel the event in 2020, 2021 and for 2022. 

After 31+ years, over 200 publications, and the involvement of countless faculty, staff and students, formal funding for the Iowa Fluoride Study (IFS) will end in Summer of 2023.  Originally funded on September 1, 1991, as a 5-year NIH grant with a total budget of $1.3 million, the study recruited nearly 1,900 participants in Iowa hospital post-partum units from 1992-1995, and then, remarkably, followed this cohort for nearly a quarter-century, with formal subject contact ending in 2019.  During that time, the IFS and the companion Iowa Bone Development Study (IBDS) were awarded about $30 million.

The College of Dentistry is (mostly) back to normal after 2+ years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, most faculty at the College are back to their offices, although many of us also work from home more frequently than in the past.  We anticipate that the trend towards more in-person activities will continue during the 2022-23 year.

In July, 2020, the program received a 5-year, $2.78 million grant from the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to establish combined advanced education training programs in Dental Public Health and either Geriatric and Special Needs Dentistry or Pediatric Dentistry.