Faculty shortage must be rectified.

• Position: Dentistry

Quick and creative solutions to address the growing scarcity of full-time faculty members within the nation's dental school programs are needed, insists a report by Indiana University, Bloomington, with researchers from six other U.S. dental schools.

It cites widening pay gaps between private practice dentists and clinical professors at dental schools as one factor in fewer dentists committing to careers in teaching. Clinical faculty also reports being overwhelmed and burned out by the workload demands of teaching, clinical research, and administrative responsibilities.

Published in the Journal of Dental Education, the paper calls for the development of mandatory mentoring programs, among other recommendations, to help reverse the bend. "We feel it is essential that mentoring programs be considered mandatory within dental schools if this trend toward a major crisis in dentistry is to be reversed as rapidly as possible:' stresses Vanchit John, chairman of the School of Dentistry's Department of Periodontics and Allied Dental Programs and the lead author of the report.

"Clinical faculty shortages could be characterized as the most critical challenge confronting dentistry." Citing an average of almost seven faculty vacancies per dental school and an average pay gap between...