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I'm trying to help kick-start a pre-dental club at my school and am looking for advice on how to get people interested...Can you help with ideas about what is good and bad about your clubs?
School Pre-Dent Club participation....and why???
- Thread starter Donnie-Dentite
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Students are generally willing to drop a club in a second when something in their own life comes up...leaving other people hanging on what was supposed to have been done....that's what I'd say is the worst part about almost any club.
Our club does most of the normal stuff. Going to preschools and elementary schools to give hygiene and oral care presentations. GOing to local disabled person's living facilities to help the people brush and floss. We have speakers come on campus to talk (dentists, specialists, admissions officers, and other groups from around town).
We set up a screening clinic, but I don't think that is worthwhile on most college campuses. Most kids want to have more than a screening but then can't afford the dental work the docs who volunteer suggest they get, so it isn't effective.
We were able to work with a former alumni who now comes to campus 4 times a semester to lead the predents in mini-workshops that last just a couple hours like tooth ID, suturing techniques, waxups, etc. It's not comprehensive, but gkives us a taste of more hands on stuff. We each chip in $10-20 a semester for the supplies, and she(the dentist) is cool and has supplies for us to.
Our club does most of the normal stuff. Going to preschools and elementary schools to give hygiene and oral care presentations. GOing to local disabled person's living facilities to help the people brush and floss. We have speakers come on campus to talk (dentists, specialists, admissions officers, and other groups from around town).
We set up a screening clinic, but I don't think that is worthwhile on most college campuses. Most kids want to have more than a screening but then can't afford the dental work the docs who volunteer suggest they get, so it isn't effective.
We were able to work with a former alumni who now comes to campus 4 times a semester to lead the predents in mini-workshops that last just a couple hours like tooth ID, suturing techniques, waxups, etc. It's not comprehensive, but gkives us a taste of more hands on stuff. We each chip in $10-20 a semester for the supplies, and she(the dentist) is cool and has supplies for us to.
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I think we've come up with many similar ideas for our club, but its a great idea that you have about mini-workshops and trying to do something "hands on"... Thanks for your input, now what about getting people to attend, what has worked for you to draw members to the meetings? Does it take a free meal??? It shouldn't be hard because we all need to build our application resume...right?!
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Donnie-Dentite said:
free t-shirt. we charge $20 for the year and haven't done that much in the past, but there's always a t-shirt in it for people who pay. Try to schedule visits to dental schools with the career office at your school and have local dental professionals come in and talk for an hour or so. Doing fun things like going out to bars and doing intramural sports gives people more of an incentive to join too.
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I am in the exact same position. The club was started last semester and has gotten off to a good start. A lot of schools have these huge organized clubs, but at Duke there are about 5-10 or so predents per year, about half of which have attended meetings (i think, but who knows). I put up fliers all around campus, contacted the career center and prehealth advisors so they could hit their mailing lists and am trying now to make a website that can be put up on the prehealth website as a link. We had a few meetings, we had one where we got someone from admissions at UNC to talk and one where we had 2 dental students talk to us. Are you near any dental schools? I know the admissions officer helping us with the presentation was very excited about our org and wanted to help in any way possible. Good Luck!
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Hi in UOP's predental club we have a lot of members because most members are part of the pre-advantage program of 5 yr, 6 yr, and 7 yr. There is a 20 dollar fee for incoming freshman, which includes a shirt. returning members must pay 10 dollars, no shirt included. every meeting has free pizza and soda. we had free chinese food once too x) my freshman year predental club used to have a lot of guest speakers which would just bore everyone and there wouldn't really be a lot of attendees at every single meeting. we foun that predental students are quite busy (duh), so this year we tried to narrow it down to some big meetings, for instance we had dean yarbs from UOP come and have his presentation. The room was packed. we had usc come. before those speakers talked we had some community service people come and explain some opportunities. we had a broomball event. at our school basically every predent is in the club so we didnt needd to advertise that much. okay goodluck with your club! website is quite important as well =)
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To get members to a meeting, food and flyers are good. if you have a prehealth office that has all the prehealth on a listserve, send out a mass email through them announcing the club. Flyer everywhere right before the first meeting too. Before you have a first meeting though, get together with the people who will be the "officers" of the club and talk about what you want the clb to do, what will the club offer to students?
- opportunities to do community service
- speakers (specialist dentists, ADCOMs, etc.) from the community
- predental training
At the first meeting, you need to sell the club to the new members and get them to want to come. You can charge a membership fee if you want.
Make sure your meetings are at regular times and I would suggest 6:00 pm or later so people are off work and there are fewer limitations with class schedules. It is harder to get people to come to late club meetings, but that's where food helps.
mini workshops are a treat too, and here are a few suggestions that may help start off workshops (these workshops are cheap and easy..other ones are a bit more involved)
-tooth ID (have a dentist come in and teach the basic anatomy of teeth, universal and ortho numbering systems, ways to distinguish upper and lower teeth, molars, premolar, etc. Also ask the dentist to teach other dental terms: mesial, occlusal, lingual, labial, etc.) finish up by putting a whole bunsh of extracted teeth on a table and see who can guess what tooth number each tooth is.)
-Instruments (ask a dentist to bring in some very common instruments and teach what each is called and what some of the uses of the instruments are. Ask him to teach tray set up for different procedures, and then see if students can remember what is needed for different set ups and what tools are used for.)
-Radiographic Diagnosis (have a dentist bring in radiographs (digital is great cause you might be able to put them on computer screens) and talk to students about how to tell different diseases from the X-rays.)
even these are somewhat filled with work...minimize the amount of work you need to ask the dentist to do by offering to help him create his presentations. You never know what will work.
- opportunities to do community service
- speakers (specialist dentists, ADCOMs, etc.) from the community
- predental training
At the first meeting, you need to sell the club to the new members and get them to want to come. You can charge a membership fee if you want.
Make sure your meetings are at regular times and I would suggest 6:00 pm or later so people are off work and there are fewer limitations with class schedules. It is harder to get people to come to late club meetings, but that's where food helps.
mini workshops are a treat too, and here are a few suggestions that may help start off workshops (these workshops are cheap and easy..other ones are a bit more involved)
-tooth ID (have a dentist come in and teach the basic anatomy of teeth, universal and ortho numbering systems, ways to distinguish upper and lower teeth, molars, premolar, etc. Also ask the dentist to teach other dental terms: mesial, occlusal, lingual, labial, etc.) finish up by putting a whole bunsh of extracted teeth on a table and see who can guess what tooth number each tooth is.)
-Instruments (ask a dentist to bring in some very common instruments and teach what each is called and what some of the uses of the instruments are. Ask him to teach tray set up for different procedures, and then see if students can remember what is needed for different set ups and what tools are used for.)
-Radiographic Diagnosis (have a dentist bring in radiographs (digital is great cause you might be able to put them on computer screens) and talk to students about how to tell different diseases from the X-rays.)
even these are somewhat filled with work...minimize the amount of work you need to ask the dentist to do by offering to help him create his presentations. You never know what will work.
