School of Dentistry Alumni Newsletter
Spring 2009
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The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) alumni publications are published biannually by the Division of Public Affairs. The publications highlight education, clinical practice, alumni, and research for the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, and Health Related Professions.
Ideas for stories are welcome and may be submitted by email to Matt Westerfield.
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Fourth-year dental student K.B. Parks (front) and dental assistant Emily Ready demonstrate one of the upgradeddental chairs for Agnes Triplett. The chairs feature a monitor that can display electronic patient records and other materials in the student clinic at the School of Dentistry.
Keeping patients more informed and involved in their dental care, as well as keeping up with their records, is getting a little easier for students and residents in the University of Mississippi Medical Center's School of Dentistry. With the recent addition of new hardware and a growing database of information, a patient's electronic dental records now are only a glance away.
Congratulations to this year's graduating class! Not only do we celebrate this year's class as the Class of 2009, but also as our school's 30th graduating class.
For Dr. Eleanor Gill, the 2009 Dental Alumnus of the Year, dentistry has been a passion that began as early as high school when she worked as an assistant in a dentist's office while still a teenager.
Dr. Jason Griggs was still new to the University of Mississippi Medical Center when disaster struck the Department of Biomedical Materials Science. In October of 2007, just two months after Griggs joined UMMC to take over as chair of the department, a fire broke out on the fifth floor of the School of Dentistry and consumed the metallurgy lab. It was an inauspicious start for the Texas researcher.
Kristin Irving liked the berry-flavored dental floss. She liked it even better than the cherry-flavored toothpaste that matched her red Nikes. As third-year dental student David Abide flossed the 6-year-old Johnson Elementary student, he warned her to be careful of "sugar bugs."
Dr. John Hembree, dean of the School of Dentistry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center from 1987 until 1992, died of cancer on Jan. 5. He was 72.