Restorative Dentistry Educators Meet Up on Touro Dental Campus
Touro College of Dental Medicine (TCDM) Hosts Annual Consortium of Operative Dentistry Educators (CODE) Northeast Meeting
This year, TCDM was proud to host the annual Consortium of Operative Dentistry Educators (CODE) meeting for all 19 dental schools in the Northeast. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Golda Erdfarb, Associate Professor of Dentistry at TCDM and chairperson of CODE Northeast. Dr. Erdfarb was assisted by Dr. Bert Goldfinger, Director of Preclinical Education at TCDM.
CODE is a national organization of dental educators, formed in 1974, to advance and improve the teaching of operative dentistry by promoting inter-communication with dental educators, cooperating and standardizing, when appropriate, their teaching efforts in Restorative Dentistry, with an emphasis on Operative Dental Education.
Through CODE’s annual regional meeting, participating dental schools learn, compare, and contrast several educational modalities from the various schools.
During these meetings, each school’s CODE representatives discuss topics of interest or concern to operative educators. The agenda includes core questions that the advisory committee and the national director establish.
“This year, post-COVID, our CODE meeting was even more effective and vibrant. It was an incredible collaboration to improve our education, integrate new technologies and ideas into our base curriculum and change the face of dental education.” - Dr. Golda Erdfarb
“This was an incredible collaboration of all the dental schools in the Northeast, with thoughtful discussion, by all the dental educators. A very successful meeting!” – Dr. Bert Goldfinger.
Participating schools at this year’s conference included: Dalhousie University, McGill University, University of Toronto, Laval University, University of Montreal, University of Connecticut Health Center, Howard University, Boston University, Harvard University, Tufts University, University of Maryland, Naval Dental Center, University of New England, Rutgers University, New York University, Stony Brook University, Columbia University, Temple University, University of Pennsylvania.
TCDM thanks our wonderful CODE Meeting sponsors including: Acadental, Inc., Jeff Scott; Colgate Dental Educators Network, Diane Peterson and Christine Ochsner; SIMtoCARE, Barbara Norquist; Ultradent Products, Inc., Sue Coco, Northeastern University Senior Manager
TRANSCRIPT FOR VIDEO FOR: Consortium of Operative Dentistry Educators (CODE) Northeast Meeting, September 19-20, 2022.
Hi I'm Golda Erdfarb. I'm Associate Professor of Dentistry at Touro College of Dental Medicine. I’m also the chairperson of the Northeast Region of CODE.
CODE is the Consortium of Operative Dental Educators. There are six different regions, and I am chairperson for the northeast region.
his past September, TCDM was able to host the CODE meeting here at our brand-new facility for all the schools to see. We had schools from all over the northeast region.
We had remotely, Temple and New England. In person we had schools Stony Brook and Harvard, Tufts, NYU, Columbia, Howard, really from all over and at the meeting we were able to look at data that we had previously collected, put it in front of us, challenge ourselves, ask if what we’re doing is the best way to educate our students, if there are ways we can improve the education, how we can integrate the new technologies into the base curriculum, that has been the curriculum for many years but we need to make room for these newer ideas and so together we were able to work collaboratively to discuss ideas to see what other schools are doing and maybe take home to our to our universities ideas that we haven’t thought of, present them to the academic dean, presents to our deans and really go for change and that was something that was really beautiful and that everyone there was willing to share ideas on how their schools do it how we all were able to get through the pandemic changing the face of Dental education and it was a really wonderful experience, a really wonderful day.
In addition to the schools that came, we had sponsors for the event. The sponsors that we had are all doing things that are revolutionary within the field of dentistry.
We had Acadental who is doing VR and a way to learn dentistry in addition to one screen and other technologies for our students to be able to learn better.
Colgate came to show us a different apps they are putting together for our students that include videos for students to watch on different preps that they have to make, different quizzes, OSCE reviews. So that was really fantastic.
We also had Barbara Norquist who came from CintaCare and brought the entire simulator, set it up in our simulation lab, the students were able try it, the faculty were able to try it so that was really quite amazing.
Lastly, we had Ultradent who's products we use all the time in school and outside of school and we really felt that what they were bringing to the table is so valuable and we really want to thank the sponsors for their support but not only that to say that we really are excited to use their products curriculum.
Hi I’m Dr. Bert Goldfinger. I’m Director of pre-clinical dentistry here at Touro College Dental Medicine and I was very happy to have been a participant in the Consortium of Operative Dental Educator meeting.
My participation in there was to assist Dr. Golda Erdfarb in the logistics portion of this. It's a wonderful collaboration of all the dental schools in the northeast and it was a wonderful, wonderful experience with thoughtful insightful, very helpful tips for all the dental educators that were there. Very successful meeting.
