1. Class Advising Procedures

A member of the faculty will serve as the Class Advisor for each of the four dental classes. The following is a list of advisee/advisor responsibilities:

a. Provide assistance and support to all students in academic, professional, and social and personal development.
b. Promote class harmony.
c. Provide consultation and support in all types of personal/family/financial emergencies.
d. Promote access to appropriate college, health center, and university personnel and services.
e. Advise class officers.
f. Monitor academic progress of each student.
g. Monitor student adherence to College of Dentistry policies and procedures.
h. Promote Academic Honesty.

Dental Student Roles and Responsibilities:

a. Promote attributes of a health professional including professional behavior and appearance.
b. Adhere to Academic Honesty policies and procedures.
c. Promote effective faculty, staff, student and patient communications.
d. Demonstrate respect for classmates.
e. Demonstrate effective time management and study habits.
f. Support class activities.
g. Promote ethical behaviors.

The role of the first year class advisor will cease at the end of the Summer (S-3). During this semester, the class selects a class advisor for the second through fourth academic years.

2. TEAM Program

The TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) Program is a clinical management system for students and their patients. A pilot program was initiated in the spring of 1992 to evaluate whether a student-focused clinical management system would enhance clinical education and help minimize fractionated patient care. The pilot program was evaluated favorably in 1995, and the program was extended to include all third and fourth year students in the fall of 1996.

The TEAM Program has three major programmatic goals and nine objectives. The goals are to:

a. better integrate the clinical curriculum and philosophy into the clinical care of the patients through effective patient management;
b. ensure and expedite the comprehensive treatment of patients and thus make clinics more patient friendly;
c. assist and help motivate students through the clinical program.

The TEAM Program does not interfere with the departmental management of student clinics or alter any departmentally based student requirements and competencies. Rather, the TEAM Program serves to enhance the core curriculum through academic advisement and assistance with patient management. Program objectives are to:

a. Help the student provide comprehensive care to his/her family of patients.
b. Provide a structure to monitor treatment sequence until the patient's treatment plan is completed.
c. Enhance student advisement activities.
d. Increase the student's clinical utilization and productivity.
e. Provide structure to promote student interactions.
f. Enhance peer learning and peer education.
g. Increase the student's ability to assess treatment outcomes.
h. Provide the opportunity for over-learning by allowing more experiences with fewer patients.
i. Create a student driven information system to assist student learning and patient treatment.

Each of the 24 teams is composed of a faculty TEAM Leader, a student-patient coordinator (SPC) staff person, and six or seven third and fourth year dental students. Students are assigned to teams through a stratified random allocation (by GPA tertiles) based on the belief that students must communicate with all peers, not just those of their choosing. On a rotating basis, a senior team member assumes the responsibility of "senior-in-charge" and coordinates all team activities. The student-patient coordinators attend team meetings and assist the team leader, the student members, and acts as a liaison between the patients and a student. Each SPC is assigned to four teams.

The program is led by a program director who is also a TEAM leader. The TEAM leaders are selected from faculty who met the criteria enumerated by a steering group, including being organized and open-minded, dedicated to teaching, interested, motivated, enthusiastic and practical. The TEAM leaders are expected to have good communication skills and serve as an advocate for the students' education and for quality and timely patient care. TEAM leaders meet every two weeks to share information with each other and discuss any problems that are occurring in the clinics or clinical program. This communication has helped to establish excellent rapport with the various clinical departments and, to some degree, help alleviate many of the frustrations that dental students encounter while traversing the curriculum.
Each team meets for a half-day every two weeks and the meetings consist of educational, managerial and TEAM leader report components. The program was also designed to include student choice in some of their educational experiences.

For additional information about the TEAM Program, contact Dr. Marc Gale, Department of Operative Dentistry, D9-6, 392-4341.