Pictured below from left to right: Ahmad Abazari D19 (D19 Representative), Dr. Kathryn Ragalis (Advisor), Stefane Bourguignon D20 (Secretary), Dr. Huw Thomas (Dean of TUSDM), Dr. Steve Rubin (Advisor), Lauren Hagspiel D19 (Vice President), Ashley Mullaney D19 (Treasurer), Ian Dickinson D19 (President), Jesse Huston D19 (Member at Large)
Tufts Alumni Loves Ethics!
Last month the Student Professionalism and Ethics Association (SPEA) received a generous donation from TUSDM alumnae Dr. Janice Conrad, who sent a check with the award money from winning the Thomas Winkler Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Dentistry.
If you haven’t heard of SPEA (or the ACD), we are an organization focused on encouraging, maintaining, and promoting the further learning of ethical and professional behavior in the dental profession. SPEA is your friendly liaison for ethical queries or when you want policy changes at Tufts.
So how do we help you? In addition to our liaison role, we help prepare you for difficult situations in the clinic. How long do you wait to tell a patient after perforating a tooth during Endo? What if you see a fellow student neglecting infection control? What do you do when you see a previous student’s work on a patient was downright harmful? We help answer these questions and so much more. Plus, you get to hear AMAZING stories from the most experienced dentists actively working in the clinic. Our crowning achievement of last year? Convincing the administration that jeans were acceptable wear on non-clinical floors after they had been banned.
We fill an important role in keeping ethics and professionalism relevant among the students at Tufts. Dr. Conrad knows this, and her donation will go a long way towards holding meetings and activities. And of course we couldn’t function without the constant support of our advisors Dr. Rubin, Dr. Ragalis, and Dr. Nanda. Dean Thomas (Pictured) even came out to help give his thanks to Dr. Conrad.
Since SPEA is self-funded, everyone at Tufts is a member! Come out to our next meeting in September — we look forward to seeing everyone there.
SPEA — Your resource for ethics, connections, and tales from the clinic!
—Ian Dickinson (D19)
President of SPEA @ TUSDM
