To advance the profession of dental hygiene, graduate education is necessary to support growth in research, education, administration, and practice in the discipline and to sustain credibility in a climate in which other health professions require entry-level master's and doctoral degrees. The purpose of this study was to explore what dental hygienists perceive as barriers to pursuing a graduate degree. A survey was developed based on the literature and other national surveys. Data were collected from 160 respondents to the survey: 50 percent held an entry-level baccalaureate degree in dental hygiene, while the rest held an entrylevel associate degree (48 percent) or certiicate (2 percent) in dental hygiene. All respondents had completed a bachelor's degree. The top ive barriers these respondents identiied in pursuing graduate education were as follows: 1) cost of graduate education, 2) family responsibilities are too great, 3) concerns about personal funding to pay for graduate education, 4) inding time for graduate school while working, and 5) fear of thesis research. Dental hygiene is one of the few health professions that still have entry-level degrees at the associate and baccalaureate levels. The profession needs to reduce such barriers to enable dental hygienists to pursue graduate education and thus ensure an adequate supply of future leaders, educators, and researchers.
Rural populations often face higher cancer rates and have lower cancer screening rates than urban populations. Screening disparities may be mediated by limited access to care, less knowledge of screening, and psychosocial factors. While the improved insurance rates and more comprehensive coverage under the Affordable Care Act may address some of these barriers, rural-urban disparities in cancer screening may not be fully attenuated. Faith-based interventions have been an effective approach to improving cancer screening among rural and underserved populations. Similarly, faith community nurses (FCNs) may be an effective agents for implementing evidence-based cancer screening strategies in rural communities. We provide a model for how FCNs standards of professional performance and practice can enable them to implement screening strategies. We also posit two recommendations of services that FCNs can provide to improve cancer screening in rural areas: educational messaging and patient navigation.
No course may be properly assessed before several, almost self-evident, basic questions about course objectives have been answered. Several types of continuous assessment are considered in the light of practical experience which show that continuous assessment techniques tend to produce a more uniform performance throughout a class, with fewer failures but also fewer students with very high marks. Continuous assessment techniques seem to be particularly appropriate for certain first year undergraduate courses.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.