Faculty Profile Q&A: Dr. Renée Duff – The energy of the dental school encourages learning and growing11 min read
____________________________
This profile is one in an ongoing series highlighting School of Dentistry faculty, students and alumni.
____________________________
School of Dentistry faculty member Dr. Renée E. Duff will be the school’s next Senior Associate Dean, beginning June 1. She will advise Dean Jacques Nör on issues throughout the school, represent the dean at the university and school levels, lead the school’s strategic planning process and supervise the school’s director of human resources, compliance manager and director of safety, emergency preparedness and infection prevention. She is currently Associate Dean for Students and has led the Office of Student Services since 2013. She has a longstanding connection to the university and dental school, first as a student who earned three degrees – a bachelor’s degree (1991), Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (1996), and a master’s degree in prosthodontics (2005). She began teaching at the dental school as a part-time faculty member in 1997 and moved to full-time in 2004. She is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Biologic and Materials Sciences & Prosthodontics. In a recent interview she talked about her background, her work with students and what makes the U-M School of Dentistry a special dental school.
Q: When and why did you decide to pursue dentistry?
A: That was a late decision compared to many students. I’m from a small town, Hudson, Michigan, and I took advantage of all the things that it offered, but I hadn’t really been exposed to dentistry as a career. When it came time to make college and career decisions, I knew I wanted to go to a large university that would offer broader opportunities. I am a first-generation college student and, fortunately, my parents and family were very supportive of my goals. I was excited to be accepted to Michigan. I always liked science and was interested in health sciences, so I had thought about medicine. In my junior year of undergrad, I was doing work-study research at the medical school and there were some young scientists there from the dental school collaborating on research in bone biology. I really liked their energy and approach, and I talked to them about what they did at the dental school. I became aware of all that dentistry has to offer as I looked at it closely. That’s when I began to consider dentistry. I’ve also always enjoyed art, so the art and science of dentistry was interesting to me.
Q: Who were mentors who helped you along your path into dentistry?
A: After I earned my undergrad degree in biology, I took a gap year to learn more about dentistry and to make sure it was a good fit. I worked in the dental office of Dr. Carl Woolley in Ann Arbor. He was a great person – great with his patients and staff. He was active and a leader in the district dental society and the Michigan Dental Association. He took me under his wing and encouraged me that, yes, dentistry is a great match for me. I applied to dental schools and again was accepted at U-M. During dental school, I continued to assist occasionally in Carl’s office. When I graduated, I joined his practice as an associate and stayed in that position for about five years.
Q: How did you become a faculty member?
A: In the first year after dental school, one of the prosthodontics faculty members, Dr. Andrew Koran, who had been a mentor in dental school, would check in with me every so often and ask if I wanted to come back and teach at the dental school. At first, I thought I was too close in age and experience to the students, but he kept assuring me I would be a good fit in the Pros department. After a year of periodic check-ins from Dr. Koran, I agreed to teach part-time while I was still practicing with Dr. Woolley. I found I really liked teaching. After five years in those roles, I came to a point where I felt I needed to make the decision to buy into the practice or pursue my goal of earning a specialty degree if I was ever going to do that. I decided to take the leap. I valued Carl’s mentorship and had a great patient family, but I knew there were other things I wanted to do. I applied and returned to the dental school for my prosthodontics residency. When I completed the residency, there was an opening for a full-time faculty member in that department, and I was encouraged to apply. I decided to change the direction of my career and join the dental school full-time. I taught pros to both pre-doc and graduate students and was director or co-director of some of their foundational prosthodontic courses. I really enjoyed it.
Q: Why prosthodontics? What appeals to you about the specialty’s skill in restoring dental function with dentures, crowns, bridges and dental implants?
A: I like the complexity of pros. I like the planning stages where you have to really think about the whole patient, the whole person, and what their needs and goals are. Is it primarily function? Is it primarily esthetics? Is it health? What are their goals and their primary motivation and how do you get all that to fit together? Prosthodontics takes a lot of forethought and planning, and I like that. I also liked building relationships with patients over time, and sometimes it involved years of work with them. You really get to know what their wishes and needs are, and you try to fulfill those needs and help them achieve their priorities in a healthy way.
Q: You enjoyed starting in private practice, but you must also enjoy the daily life of the School of Dentistry and teaching, since you have stayed at the school.
A: Since I was a DDS student, I’ve always liked the energy that I feel here. It’s not that I felt isolated in private practice, but there I felt like I had to be the primary answer person. Here, I don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. There are so many brilliant and thoughtful people to bounce ideas off of. The students keep you on your toes as far as your knowledge. They ask great questions and challenge your thought processes. That’s how you know if you really know your stuff. The environment encourages you to keep learning and growing. I’ve really enjoyed that.
Q: Speaking of students, over the last 12 years you transitioned out of classroom and clinical teaching into the all-encompassing administrative role of directing the Office of Student Services. What’s it like to help support the needs of the entire student body?
A: Current dental students come to us with fully-developed, complex lives in most cases, which I’m not sure the wider community understands. The average age when DDS students start the program is 22 or 23, with a younger and older range among our dental hygiene, pre-doctoral, and graduate students. If you were able to read student applications, you would learn quickly that they have full lives when they join us. Maybe they were a director at a lab at a large hospital, or they ran their own garage flooring business. Or you name it. They come with previous careers and rich experiences as people with great histories, distinctive pasts, and unique interests. They come in with families. They may be taking care of children. They may be taking care of parents or grandparents. Some students start down this path and something gets in the way – a parent gets sick or a child gets sick, or the students themselves experience a new health challenge. They might tell us, “My brother’s getting married and he’s decided his wedding needs to be right in the middle of my final exams. I can’t miss my brother’s wedding, but of course he didn’t ask me when he should get married.” These and countless other life events arise. With the obligations that these students have in dental school, any and all of those things impact their path to success. They are really trying to stay on track in a program that’s not incredibly flexible because of the rigorous educational mission we have to accomplish in four years. I’m impressed every day by their resilience and perseverance.
Q: Dentistry is a unique skill set. Students need a high intellect and to understand science; need to use their hands to a fine degree with all the dentistry hand instruments and micro treatment procedures; have people skills and a caring attitude to deal with all sorts of patients; be able to think critically; and act ethically. That’s a lot to ask for most students.
A: It IS a hugely unique skillset. It might not be for everyone. We require at least 100 hours of shadowing before students come in because we want them to get a good idea of what dentistry is all about. You don’t really know until you are engaged in it in some way. I think the challenge for some students is realizing that “This is harder than I thought.” Or they may say, “Intellectually, I’m fine, I can manage the academics. But I just can’t get my hands to work with my brain when practicing dental procedures on mannequins in the Sim Lab.” That takes practice, feedback, self-reflection and repetition. For some people, that skill comes sooner and for others it may take a while longer. I’ve yet to meet a student who hasn’t had some challenge at some point with something in dental school. Students who have never experienced academic struggles before may start questioning: Is this really what I want to do? Did I make the right choice? They usually come out the other side stronger, after thinking about why they wanted to be here to begin with and realizing it’s just a setback, something they can learn from and keep moving forward. Particularly in those first two years of rigorous classroom work before they get to regularly treating patients, it is intense. They have to be caring, critically thinking, competent surgeons in four years. No other profession demands that on such a brief timeline. For almost every dental student who walks across the commencement stage, I can think of some triumph, maybe small, maybe huge, something they worked through, perhaps without others even knowing. It’s a pretty significant accomplishment based on what they had to do and where they find themselves now.
Q: What are the highpoints of the message you give to prospective students, about what makes the University of Michigan School of Dentistry exceptional?
A: There are several things I emphasize. One is that, compared to many dental schools, we work to get students clinical experience as soon as possible. The first two years are heavily weighted with didactic courses, but even then we want students to be exposed to the clinic early, usually to assist an upperclassman or to learn reversible procedures with each other. That way, later when they start treating patients on their own, they can focus on the patient, not struggle to remember how to operate the dental chair or how to access the patient record. I also point to our unique Pathways Program. Students come in with varying backgrounds and interests, so Pathways is a way for them to enhance their individual interests, whether it is a selective series of elective courses, or to dig in with a faculty mentor and do a research project in basic science or some other area. I also emphasize our location on central campus and our vibrant university community. Not all dental schools are connected to a university like Michigan. Through our Interprofessional Education opportunities, our students engage with students from medicine, pharmacy, social work and nursing, to name a few. I also promote our Community-Based Collaborative Care and Education Program. Students get the opportunity to go out into communities where patients really need and appreciate the care they receive from students. And most importantly about the dental school, I tell people that the academic opportunities brought me here as a student, but it is the people who brought me back and who keep me here. I think that’s the real difference. What truly sets our dental school apart is the incredible dedication, work ethic, and kindness of our faculty, staff and students. Their commitment is what makes this community so exceptional. It’s this strength that makes me genuinely excited and deeply honored to serve as the next Senior Associate Dean.
###
The University of Michigan School of Dentistry is one of the nation’s leading dental schools engaged in oral healthcare 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. Email: [email protected], or (734) 615-1971.