The fourth round of edify for Department of Public Health Dentistry was held on 15th of February 2018. The Edify started with highlighting the department’s Academic achievements in the last one year. This included the UG and PG attendance, as well as pass percentages and Preventive procedure counts done in the specified time period. Apart from the routine data regarding the publications, Conferences and work shops attended / conducted; three specific accomplishments were shared. The first was compilation of the monographs done by the undergraduate students in to a text book, which has been accepted to be published by ‘Blue Rose Publishers’. By this, 51 UG students would be recognized as contributors for the book. The second accomplishment was, formulation of Nano hydroxy apatite crystals in a more cost effective way. We thought sharing this knowledge in a common platform would enable interested researcher to utilize it in future projects. Third was, selection of scientific paper by our final year post graduate student to be presented in “ANVESHAN 2018” conference, where more than 25 universities all over India have been expected to participate.
The second part of the presentation was on innovative videos by the Department of Public Health Dentistry. Totally three videos were played for the audience. First video was a documentary titled ‘A day in dental public health’, which highlighted on how DPH works behind the scenes to create awareness regarding public issues and instills good oral health habits. Second video was also an awareness video in Tamil, titled “Cancer”. It was created with daily wage workers and construction workers in mind, since they form majority of the working class people with high prevalence of malignant and premalignant conditions. Third was innovative teaching video, for undergraduate students. It was done on “Non probability Sampling technique”. The concept was decoded and made simple with daily life examples, for better understanding application by the students. The third part of the presentation was on camps and out reach activities by the department. The total number of camps, the beneficiaries, the health days celebrated, the status of the current MOU’s signed and upcoming MOU’s were highlighted. Before the meeting concluded, final remarks on progress of the long term follow up camps in “Mahatma Gandhi School” and “Don GuanellaSchool for differently abled children” were briefed out by the head of the department.