TENNESSEALANT | Fall 2015

NOVEMBER 14, 2015 UT ASDA FALL NEWSLETTER

PAGE 1: PUMPKIN CARVING November 14, 2015 PAGE 2: PUMPKIN PICS PAGE 3: UT VS. ARK PAGE 4: NLC 2015 PAGE 5: FUN IN DUNN

THE TENNESSEALANT

PAGE 6: EVENTS

1ST ANNUAL UT ASDA PUMPKIN CARVING CONTEST

The annual ASDA Pumpkin Carving

your calling, you may aspire to create something as

Contest is a hallowed tradition celebrated by dental

astounding as this year’s winner, Dr. Andrew

students at UT since our school’s founding in 1878.

Johnson from the Department of Prosthodontics.

You may be asking yourself, “Has this contest

This anatomically accurate pumpkin is truly an

really been around for over 100 years?” Well, no. It

impressive display of talent, and even included all

hasn’t. It actually started this year thanks to a

thirty-two teeth to boot! The masterful creation won

clever idea and some Google image searching by

its creator a $25 VISA gift card and, far more

D4 Grant King. And with your help, this tradition

importantly, a year’s worth of bragging rights for

will continue and you will learn to apply all your

being the finest pumpkin carver on this side of the

discoid-cleoid wax carving skills from Morphology

Mississippi. Congratulations to Dr. Johnson for his

lab to the surface of a pumpkin. You will quickly

victory, and to the carvers of all the runner-up

find, however, that pumpkin skin is less forgiving

pumpkins depicted here, better luck next year!

than wax. For those of you who find carving to be UT ASDA FALL NEWSLETTER

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Honorable Mentions

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UT vs. Ark

GAREISS BY: SHELLY

With raingear and football-spirit in tow, nearly eighty UTHSC dental students made the journey to Knoxville, TN for the University of Arkansas vs. University of Tennessee match-up on Saturday, October 3rd. Because the UT dental school is largely represented by Tennessee and Arkansas residents, this game was primed for some friendly rivalry. Thanks to his commitment to the Volunteers, D2 Corey Hill recognized this great opportunity before Fall Semester had even begun. With a few calls to the UTK ticketing office, the UT dental students were offered block seating at the regular student rate. There is no doubt that Hill will have a booming practice with these negotiating skills.

Once tickets were procured, the next task was to create a tailgate worthy of the six-hour drive. ASDA Chapter President, D3 Brian Platt, took on this challenge with the will and passion of a Volunteer (coincidentally, he’s a Razorback fan). Platt was able to round up funding from ASDA and, notably, the Tennessee Dental Association (TDA). Thanks to the TDA President-Elect Dr. Rick Guthrie (father of D4 Van Guthrie), the UTHSC Dental Students tailgated in style in a Circle Park tent. The students were delighted by several surprise guest appearances: biomaterials expert, Dr. Jay Ragain, and corn-in-a-jar expert, D3 Brennan Humphreys’s father Wes Humphreys.

The University of Tennessee College of Dentistry traveled to Knoxville for what turned out to be a game to remember against the Arkansas Razorbacks

When we had emptied the tent of food and drink, we ventured to Neyland Stadium. The rivalry was palpable in the stands, and after Arkansas beat Tennessee 24-20, we remained friends.

All in all, it was a beautiful, rainy gameday. And being consummate students, we learned this: if you have a rain jacket, copious amounts of Fireball, and friends, rain won’t stop the UTHSC dental students from having a good time.

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November 14, 2015

Natty Leadership Conference: BY: STEPHEN RAINES

It’s 8 in the morning, you are sitting in a big conference room with a bunch of other dental school nerds wearing suits, you might have a slight headache. All of the sudden you hear ACDC’s “Back In Black” over the loud speakers and see this lady power walk up on stage wearing a leather jacket. Carey Lohrenz was the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the U.S. Navy, and she kicked of ASDA’s National Leadership Conference in Chicago.

NLC 2015 featured a plethora of breakout sessions and keynote speakers who’s aim was to inspire young dental professionals to step up his or her leadership role in their ASDA chapters, and in the realm of their local dental societies in general. Sessions ranged from topics in the business of dentistry, to student loans, media as a tool in your ASDA chapters and in your future business, and even to the heavy role of organized dentistry in politics. No matter what your leadership role, there was something for you at NLC 2015.

This conference wasn't all business however, the night life in Chicago did not disappoint.

Each night there were events sponsored by various companies, such as Eastern Dental Insurance Company (EDIC), that gave us a chance to connect with other dental students across the country. One of these events was a halloween party, in which each district dressed up in a planned theme; As seen in this picture, District 4 chose the theme to be 80’s. Needless to say, The Village People were there in full force.

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November 14, 2015

Fun in Dunn

BY: SIMON CHANIN

“How’s clinic?” If you are a D3, you are probably asked this all the time. And if you are a D4, you were probably asked this all the time last year. Quite possibly by me. As a D1 or D2, it seems unfathomable that you will eventually take all the knowledge that you’ve accrued over 2 years and apply it clinically on bona fide human patients. And after incessant lectures over seemingly non-dental material (*cough cough* Biochem, Physiology, etc.), you are probably grasping for some light at the end of the academia-flooded tunnel. I know I was. So hopefully in this article I will answer how clinic is going, and give you something to look forward to as you trudge along through the grueling half-year or yearand-a-half ahead of you.

As drab as it may seem, to describe how clinic is going, I must start with a cookie-cutter response: it depends whom you ask. (As you’ll find when you get to clinic, that ends up being the answer to just about every dental question you could ever think of, anyway.) Something that has surprised me over the past 4 months is how radically different all of our experiences have been from each other’s. When clinic started, I assumed we would all slowly begin with OD, then some Perio, and maybe the fastest and strongest of the D3 bunch would get started on Operative or Removable before the first semester came to a close.

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Complicated procedures like fixed multi-unit bridges or Endo were obviously reserved for students who had a clue what they were doing, which brand new D3’s certainly don’t.

As it turns out, starting clinic was a little more like that expression where rather than sticking a toe in the water, you just dive right in. Two weeks in and some people were doing their first operative, had several root canals planned, and were booked solid for the next month. Other students, not to name names (but definitely me), were more “relaxed” in their clinic debuts, spending more than half of the available clinic periods on “patient management” (a.k.a. sitting around calling patients from a call list, praying that you’ll be able to get someone into orientation or OD so you can finally get started on the whole ‘being a dentist’ thing). Now, after nearly 4 months of being in the clinic, things have evened out for the most part within our class, from the ‘gunneriest’ gunners to the ‘relaxedest’ relaxers. Really, everyone is making similar amounts of progress with different kinds of experience. For example, most of the work I have done is operative, fixed, and pedo. However, I have yet to start any removable, endo, or perio. By contrast, several other D3’s have done multiple root canals and veneers, or are finishing their comps in perio or pedo, but haven’t done their

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first class I amalgam. The point is, everyone is having a different experience, but we’re all making progress towards the unanimous endgoal: graduation.

Hopefully this helps to answer those of you who have asked us how clinic is going, or provided a little more information than the oneword (“good”) responses of some of the less gregarious upperclassmen. I would encourage the curious among you to continue to ask any D3 or D4 about their experience in clinic, and to seek as much advice as you can before your first day of fun in Dunn. Every student will have

November 14, 2015

something different to tell you, whether it’s a shortcut in Axium, a helpful hint for a procedure, or an amusing anecdote about a patient or professor. And all of this information will facilitate a smooth and seamless transition into clinic. But regardless of how much you hear or think you have learned, don’t forget that you will inevitably spend the first month in Dunn running around like a chicken with its head cut off. We all did, and we all ended up fine. But after a while, you will be able to answer for yourself when the future D1’s and D2’s ask you, “How’s clinic?”

Things that have happened: Vendor Fair Half K Health fairs Golf Tournament D1 Elections

Upcoming events: (11/16) Smiles of Arkansas Dental Center - Central BBQ Formal/Christmas Party District 4 meeting

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