Opportunities for Collaboration Between Pharmacy and Oral Hygiene Students

Kaelen C. Dunican, PharmD, Professor at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences—Worcester/Manchester, MA, discussed the importance of collaboration between pharmacy programs and other medical fields, including oral hygiene. This video was filmed at the 2019 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Kaelen C. Dunican, PharmD, MA: So obviously, pharmacy students really need to be working with many different health care professionals. There’s lots of opportunities to collaborate both with optometrists; we’ve also done some collaboration with even dental hygiene and (we've) done a project with them about oral health. Pharmacy students get very, you know, only a couple hours of lecture about that oral hygiene, yet it is such an integral part to overall health for patients. So there’s opportunities to collaborate with dental hygiene and have the dental hygiene students teach pharmacy students all about how to take care of their mouth.