Dental Hygiene Professor Finds Way to Motivate Students 

When the dental hygiene program moved classes online to help stop the spread of COVID-19, Julie Bencosme, RDH, MA, CHES, associate professor in the Dental Hygiene Program at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College in Bronx, New York, noticed her students were feeling down.

“While conducting my class online, I started to notice in the student’s voices and their facial expressions were one of total gloom and despair.,” Bencosme wrote in an email to Dimensions. “These are students who are getting ready to take their clinical licensing exams, completing requirements, and getting ready to enter their chosen profession in a few months. Suddenly their futures were turned upside down. All of their dreams and plans for the future have come to a crashing halt.”

Bencosme quickly thought of ways to motivate her senior dental hygiene students during this difficult time. The course the students were currently enrolled in focused on the workplace and was to include guest speakers currently in the field to come talk to students on topics such as money management and interviewing skills.

She suddenly had an idea. Rather than cancel the two dental hygiene placement agencies that were scheduled to speak to students, she asked them to hold a virtual conference with the students.

“The agencies were delighted to hear the news and quickly set up the respective conferences,” she explained.  “The students’ gloominess seemed to lighten and the energy in their voices seemed to reappear.”

Students were able to register with the agencies for future dental hygiene employment during the virtual conference.

“True, the future of our profession is certainly unknown, but  I reminded the students that this is a chapter and not the whole story of their profession,” Bencosme wrote.