SANFORD - The Central Carolina Community College (CCCC) Dental Programs have been working with the East Carolina University (ECU) Community Service Learning Center (CSLC) in Lillington for a number of years, as CCCC's Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting students complete their rotation requirements at the center to build their skills.

T. Rob Tempel Jr., DDS, ECU Associate Dean for Extramural Clinical Practices, recently visited the CCCC dental facility recently to thank CCCC for the partnership -- and for helping recent ECU CSLC Lillington site dental students prepare for clinical boards.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CCCC students used dental typodonts (educational tool - plastic teeth model) rather than real patients to complete their clinical boards. This involves students scaling the calculus from the teeth and probing periodontal pockets.

ECU CSLC Lillington site dental students, who were preparing for their own clinical board, also used the CCCC typodonts. Michael Bradley, DDS, who is Faculty Director of the ECU Community Service Learning Center in Lillington, had reached out to CCCC Dental Hygiene Clinical Coordinator Danielle Bruner asking for help with a mock clinical board with the dental students. Bruner took the typodonts to the Lillington site and helped the students go through a mock board. She also helped them with their paperwork and instructed them on best positioning and instrument use. All of the ECU dental students who worked with Bruner passed their clinical boards.

"The CCCC Dental Programs have been richly blessed by community support and the ECU Community Health Learning Center in Lillington has been a shining example of that support," said Vicky Wesner, CCCC Dental Programs Department Chair. "Dr. Michael Bradley, Faculty Director of the ECU CHLC Lillington site and a CCCC Dental Programs Advisory Committee member, has provided a wealth of experiences for our own CCCC Dental Programs students. We were so thrilled to reciprocate and provide guidance and tools for ECU's own dental students in preparation for their boards. Partnerships such as this help sustain our programs and produce more well-rounded graduates."

Dr. Tempel noted: "I am thrilled with the impact I see on the missions of CCCC and ECU SoDM (School of Dental Medicine) through our collaboration. We are both providing students with a strong values based education and demonstrating the importance of teamwork. This effort wouldn't be possible without the positive and dedicated leadership of both the CCCC and ECU SoDM teams -- we are lucky to have such great professionals working in our county!"

Dr. Bradley said the relationship with CCCC and the ECU CSLC in Lillington is a huge win-win for both dental educational programs. "For the senior dental students and residents, being involved in the training of their dental assistants will give a greater experience to them and better insight to their future practice to the citizens of North Carolina," said Dr. Bradley. "For the dental assistant and hygiene students, this experience provides as near real life practice as possible. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, both programs communicated and strongly supported each other to be able to provide emergency treatment for our patients and then began the transition to return to pre-COVID educational activities."

To learn more about the CCCC Dental Programs, visit www.cccc.edu/curriculum/majors/dental.