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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,

Objectives. To compare the ability of endodontists to determine the size of apical pathological lesions and select the most appropriate choice of treatment based on lesions' projected image characteristics using 2 D and 3 D images. Study Design. Twenty-four subjects were selected. Radiographic examination of symptomatic study teeth with an intraoral periapical radiograph revealed periapical lesions equal to or greater than 3 mm in the greatest diameter. Cone-beam Computed tomography (CBCT) images were made of the involved teeth after the intraoral periapical radiograph confirmed the size of lesion to be equal to greater than 3 mm. Six observers (endodontists) viewed both the periapical and CBCT images. Upon viewing each of the images from the two imaging modalities, observers (1) measured lesion size and (2) made decisions on treatment based on each radiograph. Chi-square test was used to look for differences in the choice of treatment among observers. Results. No significant difference was noted in the treatment plan selected by observers using the two modalities (χ 2(3) = .036, P > 0.05). Conclusion. Lesion size and choice of treatment of periapical lesions based on CBCT radiographs do not change significantly from those made on the basis of 2 D radiographs.

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Wheater MA, Falvo J, Ruiz F, Byars M. Chlorhexidine, ethanol, lipopolysaccharide and nicotine do not enhance the cytotoxicity of a calcium hydroxide pulp capping material. International Endodontic Journal, 45, 989–995, 2012. Abstract Aim  To determine whether cells pre‐stressed by known cytotoxic or inflammatory agents are more susceptible to the deleterious effects of a calcium hydroxide formulation used in pulp capping. Methodology  Adult human dermal fibroblasts were treated for 48 h with 0.001% chlorhexidine, 0.2% ethanol, 5 μg mL−1Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or 0.05 mmol L−1 nicotine. Cells were subsequently treated with the soluble materials extracted from Dycal pellets for an additional 24 h. Controls included cells cultured in medium only and cells exposed to Dycal only. Cytotoxicity was measured using colorimetric MTT, WST and secreted lactate dehydrogenase assays. In addition, mitotic activity was evaluated using a colorimetric histone H3 phosphorylation assay. Data were statistically analysed using anova with Tukey’s multiple comparison post‐test and significance at P ≤ 0.05. Results  For all assays, measured values for cells treated with chlorhexidine, ethanol, LPS or nicotine plus the soluble materials extracted from Dycal pellets were significantly lower compared to control (P < 0.05) for all comparisons between experimental conditions. However, between treatments and for comparisons of treatments with Dycal, there were no differences observed for any assay. Conclusions  Calcium hydroxide in a formulation used in dental clinical procedures is highly cytotoxic to cultured cells, as evidenced by several cellular assays. However, other known toxic agents, including chlorhexidine, ethanol, bacterial LPS and nicotine, do not appear to function synergistically to increase the deleterious cellular effects of the calcium hydroxide in an in vitro model of cytotoxicity.