New Course Will Protect Grads Against Neck and Back Pain

New Course Will Protect Grads Against Neck and Back Pain

A mission to reduce neck and back pain among oral health workers has inspired a curriculum change at the University of Maryland (UM). The class “Ergonomics in Dentistry” has been added as a prerequisite for all of the university’s incoming students who want to participate in practice simulations or work on live patients. The founders of the course hope it will revive awareness about the importance of ergonomics in dental education.

“If you want to be a healthy, well-postured individual, statistically you have chosen the wrong profession. However, you do have a choice,” states Lance Rucker, DDS, director of clinical ergonomics and simulation at the University of British Columbia. Rucker, who was invited to kick off the UM course as a guest lecturer, made the remarks before a group of new students. He told the audience that three out of five dentists live with neck and back pain caused by years of poor posture and positioning.

During his lecture Rucker pointed to studies conducted in the United States and Canada since the early 1970s that illustrate how improvements in equipment and ergonomic positioning would benefit workers in the dental office. “Two-thirds of dentists lose days of practice each year due to avoidable muscular-skeletal pain,” Rucker notes.

An instructional video created by two of the university’s professors supports the new class. The opening segment spotlights dentists who left their careers early because of health issues related to poor ergonomic working conditions. Norman Bartner, DDS, clinical assistant professor at UM and one of the video’s creators, says the new course is part of the university’s effort to send graduates into the dental profession who will have the longest careers and greatest earning capacity.

Source: University of Maryland Baltimore.