LLU School of Dentistry Dentalgram - 20th Annual Review of Endodontic Biology

Dentalgram

October 2003

20th Annual Review of Endodontic Biology
course held September 21–22

For twenty years, the endodontic faculty has presented an annual two-day review course on the biological aspects of endodontic diagnosis, treatment, and outcome assessment. This year the course, which attracts about 100 participants every year, was held September 21 and 22 at the Hilton Hotel in San Bernardino.

While the review course was originally planned and designed for candidates preparing for the certification examinations of the American Board of Endodontics (ABE), it has also become popular with other dentists including endodontic specialists, who enjoy being updated on the basis for practicing this discipline of dentistry.

The faculty for the review consists of School of Dentistry faculty along with invited presenters; this year the School was represented by Drs. Charles Goodacre, Steve Morrow, James Simon (who has faculty appointments at both LLU and USC), and Lane Thomsen.

The invited speakers were Dr. Shimon Friedman from the University of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. Ashraf Fouad from the University of Connecticut. Also, participating was Dr. Keith Krell from the University of Iowa—he represented the ABE and gave Board candidates and the endodontic residents from the four Southern California endodontic programs (LLU, USC, UCLA, and Long Beach VA) an update on the certification process and helpful hints about how to prepare for the examination.

Planning and presenting these types of courses are time consuming and require considerable effort, but it has been worth it for these many years, according to Leif K. Bakland, SD’63, professor and chair of endodontics, who, along with Dr. Simon, began these programs and has been involved with them since the beginning.

“It is always nice,” says Dr. Bakland, “to have a colleague come up during a meeting to tell you how much these review courses helped in preparing for the ABE boards.”