New conversations: The challenges of training and delivering dentistry in rural and remote settings

Dr Sara Gordon is Professor of Oral Medicine and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Washington, School of Dentistry. She previously taught at Dalhousie University, University of Detroit Mercy, and University of Illinois Chicago, focusing on oral pathology, oral medicine, and diagnosis/treatment planning. Her mission is to widen the scope of dentists to become physicians of the orofacial complex, and to take greater responsibility in the health of the planet. A Canadian, she completed a DDS at Dalhousie University and practiced dentistry for 8 years before completing an oral pathology residency and MS in Pathology at the University of Western Ontario.  Dr Gordon is a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Fellow of the Royal College of Dentists of Canada in Oral Pathology and in Oral Medicine, Fellow in Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Fellow in Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine of Drexel University, Fellow of the American College of Dentists, and member of Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honour Society. Dr Gordon has taught over 120 CE courses and produced about 100 accepted scholarly publications. She is very active in national academia. Currently Women’s Liaison Officer and a founding member of the Women in Leadership Section of the American Dental Education Association, she is past chair of three ADEA Sections: Academic Affairs and Academic Deans, Addiction Education, and Oral Pathology. She serves on the University of Washington’s Advisory Group to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine regarding prevention of sexual harassment on campuses. Dr Gordon is former president of the Canadian Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and Oral Medicine. She lives in Seattle with her husband of 35 years, but they still keep their home in rural Nova Scotia.

Dr Roberts is Associate Dean for Regional Affairs and Interim Chair of the Periodontics Department at UWSOD. He has over twenty years of experience in research, dental education, and grants/program management. He has served as Chief of Periodontics at the Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center since 1997 where he practices and teaches clinically, with an inter-professional team-care approach. As a founding member of the Regional Initiatives in Dental Education (RIDE) team, he has directed the RIDE program since 2012. The Regional Affairs RIDE and service-learning rotation (SLR) programs have established a successful self-sustaining year-long rural/underserved dental rotation network at 17 Washington state clinical sites and experiential learning programs at 12 rural/frontier sites in Montana and 4 in Alaska through support of federal, state, and private funding.

Mark Gussy is Global Professor of Rural Health and Social Care at the University of Lincoln. He is a visiting Professor at La Trobe University and Honorary Fellow at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Mark’s previous role was Professor and Head of Dentistry and also Director of Research at the La Trobe Rural Health School, Australia. His latest research has involved working with rural communities exploring broader social and structural determinants of participation and challenging entrenched, exclusionary systems that disadvantage the most vulnerable. Dental health is an important indicator of how well health and care and broader social systems are doing generally and so has become a vehicle in his research for exploring broader determinants of poor health and inequity more generally. He is currently working with transdisciplinary groups to tackle the wicked problem of oral health inequity in vulnerable groups including metal health consumers, rural and remote communities and families, disabled, indigenous people and frail and functionally dependent older people. Alongside this Professor Gussy has been involved in teaching and development of curriculum in dental therapy, hygiene and dentistry programs for 20 years in Australasia and has been instrumental in developing innovative programs to extend scopes of practice and models of care for dental and other health professionals to better meet the needs of vulnerable communities. His research and curriculum development work have directly influenced dental health policy and scopes of practice and regulation of dental and other health practitioners in Australia. This work was recognised with the award of the Victorian Public Health Care Awards Minister for Health's Award for developing a capable and engaged workforce and the Dental Health Services Victoria Public Oral Health Care Award.

Shaun Howe started his working life as an infantry soldier in the Grenadier Guards; he transferred to the Royal Army Dental Corps and trained as a dental hygienist in 1993. Since leaving service he has worked in all aspects of primary dental care provision (NHD, Independent, Private) but has worked in the Public Dental Service of NHS Shetland since 2013. He has spoken widely around the UK on various topics and has sat on GDC FtP, GDC IC and has also worked as a Local Dental Advisor to a large indemnity company. He upskilled to dental therapy in 2017 via the University of Essex. Currently Shaun is involved with the newly formed College of General Dentistry on the Advisory Strategy Group and a Career working Group. During the pandemic Shaun has had several different roles due to the close down of dentistry in Scotland.