‘Dentistry Today’ interviews Dr. Carlos González-Cabezas about school’s pandemic response2 min read

Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec. 4, 2020 – Dr. Carlos González-Cabezas, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, discusses how the School of Dentistry responded immediately and in the continuing aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in an online interview posted today by Dentistry Today.

González-Cabezas explains how faculty, students and staff responded when in-person education and patient treatment were significantly restricted in March of this year. He discusses how the school proceeded when infection control and safety were the top priority for every action that followed. Faculty and students increased collaboration and adopted many new ways of educational instruction and dialogue.

In the introduction of the article, “The University of Michigan Charts a Virtual Course in Pandemic-Era Instruction,” writer Richard Gawel notes: “As the pandemic has changed the way dentists practice, it also has changed how dental schools are teaching their students. Staggered schedules, increased simulations, and virtual lectures all have become standard parts of the curriculum as schools figure out how they can provide an effective education while ensuring the safety of their faculties, students, and patients.”

While describing the challenges that the dental school, like all educational enterprises, faced with the onset of the pandemic, González-Cabezas also notes that there were immediate and lasting benefits. Faculty met more often to collaborate and create innovative new ways of instruction, while small study groups of students and faculty increased communication and sorted out problems more quickly – all developments that will strengthen the school moving forward.

The interview can be accessed on the Dentistry Today website here.

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The University of Michigan School of Dentistry is one of the nation’s leading dental schools engaged in oral health care education, research, patient care and community service.  General dental care clinics and specialty clinics providing advanced treatment enable the school to offer dental services and programs to patients throughout Michigan.  Classroom and clinic instruction prepare future dentists, dental specialists and dental hygienists for practice in private offices, hospitals, academia and public agencies.  Research seeks to discover and apply new knowledge that can help patients worldwide.  For more information about the School of Dentistry, visit us on the Web at: www.dent.umich.edu.  Contact: Lynn Monson, associate director of communications, at dentistry.communications@umich.edu, or (734) 615-1971.