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Dr. Temitope Omolehinwa Q&A
DR. TEMITOPE OMOLEHINWA
Director Medically Complex Care (MCC) Clinic Medically Complex Patient Care Fellowship Program Director Assistant Professor of Oral Medicine
How did you get involved in research?
I started in my oral medicine residency at Penn. We, as part of American Association of Oral Medicine, were encouraged to submit an original research project for a Lester Burket award. I had a senior resident that I worked with who was in his second year while I was in my first year. He won the Lester Burket, and he said I could do it. I hadn’t done research before, but I was inspired to try out the DScD program. So, I applied to it. And in order to apply for the Lester Burket award, I had to be involved in original research. I asked Dr. Akintoye if I could join his lab and carry out some research projects and he agreed. That’s what got me interested in research: I had the oral medicine residency program, and I won the Lester Burket award the next year, and then in my second year, I applied for the DScD program.
Can you explain more about your current project and its significance to patient care?
I believe in research, because I am a clinician at heart. I don’t see the purpose in doing anything that would not translate to clinical care so from the get-go I was interested in translational research: something that you can take from the lab and apply to clinical practice. My first research project was on using stem cells to treat osteoradionecrosis, which I closely worked with Dr. Akintoye. I saw common trends with HIV patients both medically and dentally. I then looked at mechanisms and cytokines involved with oral and systemic conditions in patients with HIV. We took blood and saliva samples and looked at immune and cytokine markers and their association with dental caries.
What has been the greatest challenge so far?
Recruiting patients and COVID. Many people who got funding at the same time as me, whose projects deal with patient care, have not been able to start anything. So, I think that has been the greatest challenge. I like when things run very quickly. Patient recruitment has been slower. I was supposed to start in November. It didn’t happen until February. Apart from that, it is going well. Having a great team is really important and that has really helped.
Do you have any advice for dental students interested in pursuing research?
Widen your horizon. People say the sky is the limit, I tell myself the sky is my starting point. If I have any aspirations or ideas, I run with it. All the great research has started with sometimes stupidly looking ideas. I remember when I started looking at associations, I really felt like I was looking for things happening when they were not there, but doing my retrospective study, I saw that associations really do exist. So, if you have any questions on your mind, pursue it. Get answers. Don’t limit yourself. Collaborate. Mentorship is really important in research. You might have ideas, but if you’re not able to put them together, it does not really make sense. Having ideas, getting proper mentorship, and just applying yourself. Don’t limit yourself.
