School News

Sarah Chang, D3, daughter of Steve Chang, DDS’91, competed June 7, 2021, on the thirteenth season of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior during the second episode of qualifiers. It takes a lot of athleticism and major conditioning even to qualify to compete in the radically challenging televised obstacle course that athletes from across the country attempt to conquer.

Fifteen LLU School of Dentistry dental students swept the table clinic competition at the 2021 CDA Presents, the virtual Art and Science of Dentistry convention, held May 13-16, 2021—nine from the class of 2022 and six from the class of 2021.  The School’s third-year students received the first and second-place awards and one honorable mention, while the graduating class contestants were awarded third place and an honorable mention. The justifiably proud winners are pictured below along with the names of their research mentors.

A 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 2-door driven by Gregory Mitchell, DDS’84, MBA, assistant professor, Division of General Dentistry, spanned and participated in LLUSD history (the remembering and the creating) as it transported graduating dental students from the classes of 2020 and 2021 through the recent precautionary carmencement alternative to traditional commencement services. Dr. Mitchell is bracketed by Dr. Daras and Dr.

Talk about random stuff! Tina Saw, DDS’14, takes selfie with homeless patient not shown. Late last year, a New Jersey man who regularly watched an Ocean Beach waterfront live cam noticed two men with 5-gallon pails picking up trash on the local beach each morning.

LLU School of Dentistry Dean Robert Handysides, DDS’93, was presented by LLUH President Richard Hart, MD, DrPH, a Healing Hands silver pin for the treatment of a grateful patient who donated to the School of Dentistry in the dean’s name. President Hart announces Dean Handyside’s award to LLUSD alumni during the videotelephony gathering. Dean Handysides was honored during an “LLUSD Comes to You” virtual meeting with predominately LLUSD alumni from Central California north through Washington State.

With the announcement by the California Dental Association on March 19 that due to COVID-19 its annual CDA Presents the Art and Science of Dentistry convention in Southern California’s Anaheim Convention Center was canceled, the LLU School of Dentistry lost more than a convention booth; it lost an opportunity that had become a tradition—to reconnect with any of its southwestern United States alumni who ordinarily would have attended the spring 2020 CDA convention. Dean Robert Handysides, DDS’93, hosts the School of Dentistry’s first virtual reception. But LLUSD Dean Robert Handysides, DD

Holli Riter, DDS’98, associate professor, Division of General Dentistry, and director, Clinical Quality Assurance, was appointed Chief Medical Officer for Special Care Dentistry in September 2019. Dr. Riter at her Koppel Special Care Dentistry  Center desk Dr.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has made the safe practice of dentistry extremely difficult. It is impossible to practice social distancing in a dental operatory. And the opportunities for contamination through the air and physical surfaces for both patient and practitioner are continuous.   But the need for oral healthcare services continue and sometimes become urgent.

A motorcade comprised of a wide variety of first responder vehicles drove from the north end of Campus street in a two-mile “U” that concluded at the corner of Anderson and Stewart streets to honor the heroic service that has been provided by LLUH frontline healthcare personnel over the past several weeks in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. LLU personnel applaude LLUH's frontline healthcare workers from Anderson Street. The Appreciation Motorcade took place on Wednesday, April 29, 2020, at 6:30 am, to make certain the respect and appreciation for the unusual and sometimes risk requirin

The Covid-19 virus pandemic is an enormous frustration to dental patients and their care providers at the LLU School of Dentistry.