Best Practices – Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Dental Sciences

Best Practice : 1 (2021-22)

Title of Practice: ORAL ONCOLOGY
The program was designed to cater :
At the primary level – cancer awareness programs for the public and
screening camps in the nearby villages are conducted to identify and educate
the patients.
TCC was established to aid the patients to quit the habits by regular
counselling, awareness pamphlets and free anti – tobacco drugs are given.
At the Secondary level – All Advance surgical procedures are carried out at a
subsidized price.
At the Tertiary level – pain and palliative clinic is functional to treat the
terminally ill patients. Free drugs are distributed to the needy. MOU was
signed with Abayam Palliative care centre.
This program thus ensures that the demand of the community is met at all
levels unequivocally.

Best Practice : 2 (2021-22)

Title of the practice: IMPLANT TRAINING PROGRAM
The objective was to provide hands on training for the students and
faculties. The participants are trained in conventional , zygomatic, basal, mini
and patient specific implants placement procedures. MoUs have been
established with Facex for dental CBCT and Zoriox for patient specific
implants. This program ensures that all the participants are able to place
implants with a much confidence.

Best Practice : 3 (2016-21)

Title of the Practice: PATIENT OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Objectives:

To act as a primary care provider providing emergency and multidisciplinary oral health care, directing health promotion and disease prevention activities, and using advanced treatment modalities.

Diagnose the oral health problems and their effects on the community and to identify the most common oral health problems in order to effectively manage the endemic problems of the community.

To apply scientific principles to the provision of oral health care.

To utilize the values of professional ethics, lifelong learning, and patient centric care, adaptability, and acceptance of cultural diversity.

To imbibe in the students a spirit of social consciousness and an urge for protection of rural health.

Context:

Evidence suggests that the unmet oral health needs of a population are considerably high in a developing country like India.
The subgroups of the population like school children, pregnant women, lactating mothers, geriatric group, physically and mentally challenged have the maximum need for the dental care.
The lack of awareness, affordability, inherent cultural practices, myths, beliefs of the community and the compounding role of dearth of dental public health.

Practice:

Conducting camps in nearby areas such as schools, colleges, old age homes, orphanages, factories, IT companies, Government bodies and local community centres including special needs. Also conducting camps to distant places like Tuticorin, Thiruvannamalai and Chennai leads to awareness about KIDS.
Satellite centres at Pulipakkam village for rural oral health care service which caters to the clustered villages around.
Patients in need of advanced treatment are referred to the institution and are also provided access to free transport from Pulipakkam twice a week for procurement of care at the tertiary level.
Anna nagar – chengalpet Urban Satellite Centre provides oral health needs of population of Anna nagar, Alagesan nagar and surrounding areas.
Oral health awareness and care for the specially abled (mentally and physically) groups and their care givers through regular campaigns of reaching them.
The geriatric population has one of the highest dental treatment needs and hence initiatives to reach them are taken.
Outreach activities are carried out on special days such as World Oral Health Day, World Anti-Cancer Awareness Month, and World No Tobacco Day.

Evidence of Success:

Through this program the college has made efforts to make Pulipakkam a model village transformed into a healthy place through awareness and practices of dental care.

Preventive Dental Health and general health awareness among people.
Awareness creation on Dental Hygiene among people.
School Health Program: Creating awareness of oral health and ill effects of tobacco.
Care of underprivileged/Marginalized groups like the irulas, Gypsies, Fishermen and construction workers.

Problems Encountered and Resources Required:

The major obstacle faced by the institution is in obtaining the approval from the authorities to conduct oral screening cum treatment camps due to government restrictions. The transport of oral healthcare personnel to distance areas along with the equipment and necessary infrastructure becomes an issue of logistics.

Best Practice : 4 (2016-21)

Title of Practice : TOBACCO CESSATION CLINIC

Objectives :

To Recognise the various patterns, biology and epidemiology in our area.
To increase awareness and intention to quit among tobacco users.
Emphasize Consequences of tobacco use and health benefits of tobacco Cessation.
Protection from second-hand smoke.

Context :

The ministry of health and family welfare government of India started tobacco Cessation clinics (TCCS) with the support of world health organisation recognising the importance of Tobacco Cessation.
Tobacco Cessation Clinics were renamed to Tobacco Cessation Centers and more Cessation Centers were established in India.
As per the global adult tobacco survey (GATS), India has over 275 million current tobacco users.
An estimated one million people die every year due to tobacco-related diseases every year.
We need a combination of strategies aimed at avoiding initiation of tobacco by the nonusers and cessation of tobacco among the current users.

Tobacco cessation is the only way to save the current tobacco users from tobacco-related mortality. The consultation time can be effectively used by doctors as an opportunity to promote patients to quit tobacco when they are motivated to listen. In Tamilnadu, less than five percent of adults noticed advertisements or promotion on smokeless tobacco products. Also 91.1 percent of adults believed that smoking caused serious illness. Almost 90 percent were aware of the link between use of smokeless tobacco and dental disease. We have established the Tobacco Cessation Clinic in our dental college (Karpaga Vinayaga Institute Of Dental Sciences) to create awareness among people and provide services for the needy.

Practice :

With our observation, in our outpatients 20-30% were using tobacco in some form or other. The major group who were using tobacco were in the group of 13-35 years. With this in mind, two separate programs were started to identify the real need among the surrounding villages. Department of Public health Dentistry of our college organize school camps to create awareness among students who will be in a better position to inculcate the message and transform to their family members. Among the predominant users, a large number of them were farmers and building labourers. Hence an initiative was taken to target these group of people by organising oral oncology camps in villages.

Evidence of success :

As our college is in a rural setup, first awareness has to be created among the public regarding the menace of tobacco. Awareness was created by conducting specific oral oncology camps targeted on the village peoples where the practice was found to be very high. Regular counselling and collaborative camps are being done to address the issue. Nearly fifty percent of patients have acknowledged their habits and want to lead a happy life.

Problems encountered and resources required:

Tobacco as a menace cannot be handled by a single institution alone it should be an unified collaborative effort.