Dental And Medical Associations Form Partnership To Provide Teaching Tools To Educators Worldwide

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Dentistry
Article Date: 20 Mar 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) have formed a partnership that will allow the AAMC to expand its unique MedEdPORTAL teaching tools repository to include dental education resources. The collaboration represents the first time academic medicine and dentistry have come together to share teaching resources across universities and throughout the world. MedEdPORTAL - a collection of high-quality, peer-reviewed educational resources submitted by medical educators - will begin accepting submissions from dental professionals on April 15.

"The potential impact that the collaboration can have on medicine and dentistry is substantial," said ADEA President James Q. Swift, D.D.S. "It benefits not only our students and their learning environment, but also faculty who deserve recognition for their scholarship - and overall health care can only be advanced."

"We are very pleased to collaborate with ADEA to incorporate dental educational resources in MedEdPORTAL," said AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D. "Given the competing demands on faculty time and tight budgets, ready access to high-quality, peer-reviewed teaching materials from a trusted source will be a tremendous benefit to both medicine and dentistry."

Since its launch in 2006, the AAMC's MedEdPORTAL has attracted both national and international recognition as a source of free, high-quality educational resources and a place for educators to receive recognition for their scholarly work. The partnership between ADEA and AAMC enables a higher degree of collaboration and integration between medicine and dentistry. Allowing medical and dental faculty to benefit from one another's knowledge, expertise, and excellence improves medical and dental education and ultimately patient care.

MedEdPORTAL is a central repository of peer-reviewed resources, graphics, tutorials, lab manuals assessment instruments, and faculty development materials, as well as an inventory of virtual patient cases. This storehouse of knowledge and tools, contributed to by faculty and students throughout the world, is available free to other educators and learners, thereby diminishing the need to duplicate valuable and expensive-to-produce resources. While it's widely recognized that educators have long invested time and intellectual capital creating tools with which to teach, they do not always receive recognition for doing so. By submitting materials to MedEdPORTAL, they receive rigorous peer review and feedback. If the materials are accepted for publication in MedEdPORTAL, educators receive recognition for their scholarship, which may be used to support promotion and tenure decisions.

For more information on MedEdPORTAL, go to www.aamc.org/mededportal.

About the American Dental Education Association

The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) is the voice of dental education. Its members include all U.S. and Canadian dental schools and many allied and postdoctoral dental education programs, corporations, faculty, and students. The mission of ADEA is to lead individuals and institutions of the dental education community to address contemporary issues influencing education, research, and the delivery of oral health care for the health of the public. ADEA's activities encompass a wide range of research, advocacy, faculty development, meetings, and communications like the esteemed Journal of Dental Education, as well as the dental school admissions services AADSAS and PASS.

About the Association of American Medical Colleges

The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 129 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and 94 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 109,000 faculty members, 67,000 medical students, and 104,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at http://www.aamc.org/newsroom.

American Dental Education Association
http://www.adea.org