Designing and Evaluating an Interprofessional Practice Experience Involving Dental and Pharmacy Students.

Objective. To prepare pharmacy and dental students to collaborate as members of an interprofessional team by participating in an interprofessional practice experience. Methods. An interprofessional practice experience was implemented within a dental admissions clinic. Pharmacy and dental students collaboratively conducted medical histories and provided tobacco cessation education. Pharmacy student performance was measured using a standardized assessment rubric; pharmacy and dental student perceptions were measured using the SPICE-R tool; and faculty feedback was captured for evaluation purposes. Results. Pharmacy students achieved performance expectations upon completion. There was a statistically significant increase in the mean scores for a majority of the SPICE-R factors for pharmacy and dental students. Overall, faculty perceptions of the practice experience were positive. Conclusion. A collaboration between pharmacy and dental schools is a novel approach to meeting interprofessional and experiential curricular goals. Evaluating performance in practice experiences and perceptions can be used to demonstrate learner outcomes within interprofessional education. Furthermore, faculty feedback should be used to improve practice experiences.

Dental Students' Attitudes Toward Tobacco Cessation in the Dental Setting: A Systematic Review.

Many dental schools have integrated tobacco cessation into their predoctoral curricula. However, dental students' perceptions should be taken into consideration when designing those curricula. The aim of this study was to systematically review the published literature on dental students' attitudes and perceptions regarding tobacco cessation. The research team conducted a search for articles through April 2016 using the following electronic databases: Medline, PsychInfo, Cochrane Library, and CINAHL. Each abstract and/or article was reviewed for inclusion. Data were extracted from all included articles. Each was rated for quality appraisal by two reviewers. The initial search identified 2,035 articles, and 38 of those were included in the review. The majority were cross-sectional and sampled students from one dental school. There was wide variation in the measurement of dental student attitudes. Overall, the majority of students in these studies reported believing it is within the scope of dental practice to address tobacco use with patients, but there was variability in terms of the practice of specific tobacco cessation strategies. The most common perceived barrier was patient resistance/lack of motivation. In most of the studies, the majority of students were interested in being trained in tobacco cessation. The findings suggest that dental students will respond positively to receiving tobacco cessation education while in dental school and that educators should include strategies to help future dentists deal with patient resistance. Future studies should focus on the development of a validated measure of dental student attitudes toward tobacco cessation and longitudinal, multi-institutional research that can provide more generalizable findings.

Oral melanoacanthoma: a report of 10 cases, review of the literature, and immunohistochemical analysis for HMB-45 reactivity.

Oral melanoacanthoma (MA) is rare reactive mucosal lesion that, like cutaneous MA, demonstrates hyperplasia of spinous keratinocytes and melanocytes. Unlike MA of the skin, oral MA is unrelated to seborrheic keratosis. This series adds 10 cases to the limited number of previous reports of oral MA. The clinicopathologic features of the cases in this series are generally consistent with those previously reported in the literature; that is, although documented in various intraoral locations in patients of differing ethnicity, oral melanoacanthoma most often presents as an enlarging flat or slightly raised area of hyperpigmentation on the buccal mucosa of adult black women. The current series provides evidence of occurrence over a wider age range (5-77 years) than previously reported. Additionally, the reactivity of oral melanoacanthoma to HMB-45 was investigated. Strong HMB-45 reactivity was present in all cases, thus demonstrating its limited utility in distinguishing oral MA from malignant melanoma.