January 23, 2008

BCC Receives $32,000 Grant To Purchase Equipment For Dental Hygiene Program

-Students Will Train Using Equipment Thursday-

(TOWN OF DICKINSON, NY) Broome Community College President Dr. Laurence Spraggs today announced the College has received a $32,000 grant to purchase equipment to outfit four dental hygiene operators with computers.

Specifically the grant purchased; eight monitors, four equipment towers, four battery back-ups, four dental remote access terminals (RAT) and one printer. Prior to the new equipment, dental hygienists were using paper charts to chart a variety of dental functions.

“Educating students clinically but not utilizing computers and state of the art software in clinical instruction is a disservice,” said Meghan McGuinness, Assistant Professor in the Dental Hygiene Department. “By providing our students with practical training in computer technology they will be better equipped when they enter the workforce.”

Four stations in the dental hygiene lab will be equipped with two monitors. One monitor will be for the patient, one for the clinician. Another piece of equipment purchased is a hands-free, foot controlled mouse that will enable the clinician to chart and/or navigate dental software using the foot controlled mouse. The equipment is ideal for infection control purposes.

A representative from the company will be on campus tomorrow to train students to use the equipment. The representative works in Idaho, but is a BCC graduate from the class of 1997. Students will train from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the dental lab, which is located in the Decker Building on campus. On Friday, January 25, ten faculty members in the dental hygiene program will train from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.  

The grant was provided through the Decker Foundation.

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