SCOPE: A Year In Review
Presentation Category
Community Oral Health
Introduction/Context/Diagnosis
The Student Community Outreach for Public Education (SCOPE) program is a student-operated volunteer community service organization at the dental school. SCOPE’s mission is to develop dental professionals committed to improving the health of all people. The leaders encourage the student body to take active roles in participating in activities such as prevention education, screenings, and presentations for families, parents, children, senior citizens, and other diverse underserved members of the Bay Area community.
Methods/Treatment Plan
The SCOPE team set out to engage with various professional fields, students and the community. This was accomplished by participating and leading patient-centered volunteer events alongside other medical fields, such as, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, audiology and dental hygiene. Each event focused on a different patient populations, such as Senior Smiles and Give Kids A Smile.
SCOPE has also focused on providing students within the dental school the resources they need to allow them to grow as leaders within their community. This was accomplished through the creation of multiple SCOPE canvas pages, SCOPE LANDINGS and SCOPE and AAPHD Community Health Resource. These pages provide detailed, step-by-step protocols for leading events, previous events that have been completed and will have video resources.
Results/Outcome
In the 2018 to 2019 school year SCOPE has been very successful in its engagement of the student body at UOP. With over 20 events across the San Francisco Bay Area and multiple interdisciplinary projects, SCOPE has had over 50% engagement with the DDS classes.
The SCOPE team has consistently worked throughout the year to engage the student body faculty and schools around us. We’ve worked with over 30 different faculty members who helped us provide screenings at 12 of our events. We’ve provided OHI at 100% of events and dispensed information and goodie bags to over 2000 individuals in our community. We’ve hosted a majority of events in the city of San Francisco and 5 within Northern California.
The creation of the canvas pages has resulted in SCOPE leaders and volunteers being able to hold more successful events. Consulting many other students, we have found that an interactive, visually appealing site will provide the most benefit for its user.
Significance/Conclusions
Through these initiatives SCOPE has seen great success and growth throughout the past year. SCOPE has been able to build a larger community network, bridging between the dental school, the community, and neighboring medical fields. By connecting professionals of various health fields we are able to improve patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and improve relationships with other disciplines. Going forward, SCOPE hopes to engage all willing participants and enable students and faculty to pursue community outreach events.
Format
Event
SCOPE: A Year In Review
The Student Community Outreach for Public Education (SCOPE) program is a student-operated volunteer community service organization at the dental school. SCOPE’s mission is to develop dental professionals committed to improving the health of all people. The leaders encourage the student body to take active roles in participating in activities such as prevention education, screenings, and presentations for families, parents, children, senior citizens, and other diverse underserved members of the Bay Area community.
