Page 12 - The Apex - Touro College of Dental Medicine 2024

THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF
RESEARCH
W
hen you consider the most
important qualities of a top-tier dental college, you would
probably include an excellent teaching staff, high achieving,
hardworking, inquisitive students, and a state-of-the-art
facility. Touro Dental offers all of the above along with
one more critical component: a comprehensive research
initiative.
According to Jaffer A. Shariff, DDS, MPH, DPH, MS, BDS,
Touro College of Dental Medicine’s Director of Research,
“TCDM’s aim is to train our dental students to be evidence-
based practitioners. Rather than just following certain
techniques, we want our students to know why they are
doing them, and to be able to evaluate new technologies as
they emerge.”
Laboratory research is, of course, part of the college’s
curriculum, but Dr. Shariff’s goal is for students to go
beyond the classroom and learn to conduct research on
their own. Since he joined the faculty in 2021, Dr. Shariff
has guided student research projects, organized and
hosted the school’s Annual Research Day, and personally
mentored dozens of students. In March, his work was
recognized by the American Association for Dental, Oral,
and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR) when he received the
organization’s National Student Research Group Faculty
Mentor Award.
RESEARCH FOR THE GREATER GOOD
Dr. Shariff is a periodontist with a background in dental
public health who strongly believes that practitioners
need to not only take care of their patients but serve the
community at large. “The value that we have as a school
in Westchester County is that we are able to serve a broad
group of people from different ethnic backgrounds,”
explains Dr. Shariff. “So, we can conduct research to see if
we are making an impact. Has something changed? Do we
need to make some policy changes? By doing research in
public health, we not only help the community, but we can
indirectly inform the state by publishing the data.”
One example of a current public health research project
is being conducted by D4 student Jordan Sahawneh. He
has been working with Dr. Daniela Gurpegui, Assistant
Professor of Dental Medicine, as well as Dr. Shariff, on a
survey project studying the perspectives and knowledge of
opioids among patients, faculty, and students at TCDM. The
objectives include an assessment of the media’s influence
on opioid prescriptions among professionals, as well as
patients’ acceptance of opioids as a prescribed drug for
pain; determination of how social media has influenced the
groups views regarding the “opioid crisis”; and establishing
the participants’ acceptance (or lack thereof) regarding the
intake of opioids for dental pain.
THE SELECTIVE RESEARCH SOCIETY
Within the Research Club of fifty or so students who
elect to pursue research, a handful are selected to be the
Research Society Executive Board. Currently, the group has
9 students who were chosen based on interest and effort.
This is the 4th year of the Society, and students are assigned
a responsibility including president, vice president, and
editor for their journal. To further elevate the importance
and excitement of research, “this year the Research Society
is part of a national group, the American Association of
Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research,” says Dr. Shariff.
“It’s the biggest institution for research in dentistry, part
of the International Association of Dental and Craniofacial
Research. By having a Touro chapter in the Society, research
students not only have internal resources to tap into, but
they can contact fellow colleagues from other universities
and see what other resources are available and what
competitions they can enter.”
All the research students present their projects each
May on Research Day. Although other dental colleges have
research days, TCDM invites a guest speaker to give a talk
based on a certain theme and selects 4 to 6 students to
debate the speaker. “The students study the topic so they
can speak about it,” says Dr. Shariff. Last year the topic
was opioids. The students considered whether prescribing
opioids is a good or bad thing? Is the media scaring us from
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