College of Dentistry: News

The Graduate Orthodontics Clinic in the southeast corner of the UIC College of Dentistry’s first floor is being refurbished, and will be reconfigured with state-of-the-art equipment and an increased number of dental chairs.

In the first phase, the business area—where patients check in and take care of financial matters—was in March moved across the hall to the current waiting area, and the orthodontics residents’ laboratory will be moved from the fifth floor to the second floor. Then, one of the General Practice clinics on a higher floor will become the Orthodontics Clinic temporarily for the summer while work is performed on the first-floor clinic.

“The current clinic area is going to be emptied out, the flooring and ceiling will be improved, and we will increase our number of chairs from 20 to 28,” explained Dr. Carla Evans, Head of the Department of Orthodontics. “The first-floor technique lab will become sterilization, which will no longer be in the main clinic.”

The size of the Orthodontics Program enrollment, 27, will not change, but there will now be enough chairs for all students. “This will allow them more flexibility in scheduling their patients and in working more efficiently as their own instruments will always be at their workstations,” Dr. Evans said.

Dr. Robert Manasse, Clinical Associate Professor, has been charged with acquiring new equipment for the refurbished clinic. “We want to get a good 20 years out of the new equipment,” he said.

Current equipment in the clinic is 17 years old, and computers are seven years old, so the refurbishing was necessary. “Everything is falling apart,” Dr. Evans stated. “Chair parts aren’t available, so what we have can’t be repaired anymore.”

“The cabinets are Formica, and Formica gives out after a while,” Dr. Manasse noted. “Drawers start to get stuck, rollers don’t work anymore, and the hinges are shot. At home you have to fix things every once in a while; same thing here.”

Dr. Evans noted that she has added two additional dental assistants to her staff “to help with the move and the disruption that working in a different place will cause.”

No State or University money was available to support this project; it has been the generosity of alumni, friends, and faculty of the Department of Orthodontics providing private donations to the department’s “Quest to be the Best” campaign of more than $1 million to date “that has allowed us to be able to refurbish this clinic,” Dr. Evans said.

Work on this project is expected to be completed in August, but Dr. Evans noted, “We have many other projects in the department that need to be done. We want to have a virtual laboratory for the residents to do case planning, for example.”

“This is really only a start,” Dr. Manasse concluded. “There are more rooms that need updating. It really is a ‘Quest.’”

For more information on contributing to the Department of Orthodontics, contact Assistant Dean for Advancement and Alumni Relations Mark Valentino at (312) 413-7702 or mjv@uic.edu.