DENTEX Awards

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mary williard

DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR AWARD

Mary Williard, DDS, Clinical Instructor with the UW School of Medicine MEDEX program, received the National Rural Health Association's Distinguished Educator Award at New Orleans this May, for her innovative role in training Alaska Native Dental Health Aide Therapists to meet the oral health needs of fellow villagers in the Alaska bush.

In accepting the award in New Orleans this month, Dr. Williard, Clinical Director at the Anchorage DENTEX training center, related, "I am relatively new to teaching, our training center opened January of 2007. However, in this short time, I have learned who the real heroes are - they are the students. These are exceptional people who have chosen to dedicate two years of their lives to learning new skills - skills badly needed in their home villages." To see Mary Williard’s entire speech click here.

According to the National Rural Health Association, their criteria for selecting a recipient is as follows:
Distinguished Educator Award
The NRHA Distinguished Educator Award strives to recognize that education and curriculum development
dedicated to the needs of rural health professionals has the potential to encourage, assist, enhance, expand, and improve rural health careers. Criteria used to review nominees are the scope of accomplishments, the significance of the work to rural health, the sophistication of the scholarly effort (innovativeness and originality, rigor and scientific soundness, and theoretical base), and evidence of the outcome of the work in rural health (effect on heath care policy, contribution to the advancement of the field, significance in changing patterns of health care delivery, and enhancement of rural health careers).

babara berger award in excellence

BARBARA BERGER "EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC HEALTH AWARD"

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's Dental Health Therapy Training program (DENTEX) was awarded the Barbara Berger "Excellence in Public Health Award" Wednesday December 5, 2007 at the Alaska Public Health Association's Annual Summit Awards Lunch.

The program is a collaborative effort between ANTHC and the University of Washington's MEDEX program and is the first US training site for Dental Health Therapists.

This award is based upon an individual or a program that has made substantial and unique contributions to Alaska in the Field of Public Health. Presenting this award was the President of the Alaska Health Education Consortium,
Sarah Grosshuesch.

Receiving the award were Dr. Mary Williard, Clinical Director; Mary Anaruk, Program Manager; Carol Odinzoff, Project Facilitator and students: Danielle Boston of Chistochina, Daniel Kennedy of Klawock, Christopher Evan of Russian Mission and Sheena Nelson of Yakutat.

©2008 DENTEX Dental Health Aide Therapist Training Program