Recruitment, Development, and Retention of Dental Faculty in a Changing Environment

Abstract

The scarcity of full-time clinical faculty members in dental schools across the country is a major crisis confronting dentistry. Dental schools are experiencing critical faculty shortages and are struggling to maintain appropriate faculty to student ratios. The adage of "doing more with less" applies, in many ways, to dental schools and their mission of educating future dentists. Solutions to the problem have included plans to recruit, develop, and mentor faculty members. However, progress has been slow. Dental schools have created incentive programs to help with faculty shortages and develop future educators in dentistry. This requires commitment and resources and will take years before these efforts and their impact can be assessed. Creative solutions need to be developed both nationally and locally to reverse the trend more rapidly.Dr. John is Chairman,

Comparing feedback from faculty interactions and virtual assessment software in the development of psychomotor skills in preclinical fixed prosthodontics

“…A shortage of faculty has been characterized as the most critical challenge confronting dental schools today (John et al, ). The results of this study show that Compare software may serve as a useful means of immediate feedback for some students.…”

Should dental school faculty be measured and compensated using academic productivity models? Two viewpoints

“…Adequate salary is critical for recruiting and retaining dentists as faculty. A dental school requires a certain number of faculty to sustain productivity in education, research, patient care, and service 1 …”

“…Similarly, incentive payments increased from $3191 to $11,153 per year. Based on this example from medical primary care, the order of incentive payment would not nearly close the salary gap between private practice and academia of $86,000 a year 1 . However, further consideration should be given to the fact that dental procedures are not paid at the scale of medical procedures and incentive payments may make academic jobs more appealing to a small number of potentially motivated faculty members.…”

“…Conventional compensation methods may result in faculty contributions going undefined, leading to more subjective use of recognition, rewards, incentives, and salaries. Perceived and real inequities lead to marginalization and fragmentation of faculty into groups within the institution, loss of motivation, and ultimately faculty attrition to competing settings such as other universities or private practice 1 . This situation is likely to be exacerbated by increasing faculty retirements in the coming decades as 40% of faculty members were over 60 years of age in 2015–2016 2 .…”

Survey on Perspectives of Pursuing a PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders

“…Fields such as dentistry, nursing, and some areas of business (e.g., accounting) are also facing potential faculty shortages (Allan & Aldebron, 2008;Basil & Basil, 2006;Berlin & Sechrist, 2002;Carr, Ennis, & Baus, 2010;DeYoung, Bliss, & Tracy, 2002;Hinshaw, 2001; John et al, 2011; Trapnell, Mero, Williams, & Krull, 2009). Similar to CSD, these fields are concerned about aging faculty reaching retirement without having an adequate number of students in the pipeline to replace them (Allan & Aldebron, 2008;Berlin & Sechrist, 2002;Carr et al, 2010;Hinshaw, 2001;John et al, 2011;Trapnell et al, 2009). These fields also raise concerns about students' interests in obtaining doctoral degrees.…”