Looking for a Happy Ending

The dental hygiene program at Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, closed this year. Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis, will graduate its last dental hygiene class in May and the University of California, San Francisco, has placed a moratorium on dental hygiene admissions for fall 2004. These recent events fill another chapter in the sad history of dental hygiene program closures. At a time when more university-based baccalaureate and master’s degree programs are desperately needed, we are losing our long-established and highly regarded programs faster than new ones can be developed. The accompanying list notes the dental hygiene programs that have closed since 1985. The future of our profession depends on bright, enthusiastic hygienists who are willing to pursue advanced education. If baccalaureate and master’s programs continue to close, the current shortage of qualified dental hygiene educators and researchers will only worsen.

The solution to this problem will be as complex as the reasons for the closures. Most universities have cited financial concerns, lack of qualified applicants, or conflicts with the university mission as the primary factors. Dental hygiene cannot maintain or build its professional status without a long-term plan to solve this problem. The American Dental Hygienists’ Association, dental organizations, and federal agencies must investigate the status of dental hygiene education and make a plan for the future. An American Dental Education Association task force did analyze the critical shortage of allied dental faculty and it proposes a plan of action in the March edition of the Journal of Dental Education. This is a positive step in the right direction.

As a dental hygiene master’s degree student at Columbia in the late ’60s, I had a full tuition grant from the Department of Health and Human Services for health care professionals pursuing a career in education. These types of federal educational grants, along with public and professional awareness campaigns, and relocating programs from large research universities to smaller state universities are all possible facets of a larger solution.

Dental hygienists are the only ones who will push for a reasonable solution to this problem with the intensity that it deserves. We have a great challenge ahead of us. If our past history as a profession is any indication, we will rise to meet this challenge and emerge contributing more than ever before to the oral health of the American public.
—Anna M. Pattison, RDH, MS
apattison@belmontpublications.com