Joint prophylaxis, effective post-op pain control and current trends in emergency medication: these are some of the vital topics DOCS Education plans to address for free via its website. The free online CE courses will be taught by longstanding members of the DOCS Education faculty and last one hour. Presentations are available to any interested member of the dental community; the first launches next month. According to faculty members Michael Silverman, DMD, and Anthony Feck, DMD, providing CE of consistently high caliber was among the reasons they founded DOCS Education together in 1999. Since then the organization has reached approximately 20,000 dental professionals and expanded both the breadth of its curriculum and the number of its faculty. Current usage trends—combined with heavy traffic to its own initial forays in online education--prompted the decision to debut more courses in this format, they say. The classes will complement existing onsite seminars but also branch into very contemporary areas, CE staff add. New faculty member John Hexem, MD, PhD, for example, draws upon his deep background in anesthesiology and medicine. His courses include Screening for Substance Abuse and Prescription Drug Diversion Issues. Leslie Fang, MD, PhD, is developing classes on prophylaxis in the dental setting for joint patients. Spokesperson Michelle Hannah explains that the DOCS Education philosophy has been to offer top-tier curriculum with immediate applications to the dental setting, and this approach will not change. “We want to stress that we’re continuing to offer first-rate seminars around the United States and Canada. The online program just gives the dental community another way to benefit from the expertise of our faculty.†Readers of Incisor will automatically receive announcements about new CE. Once the course is introduced it is available for free for one month. After that there will be a small charge. DOCS Education expects to debut over 20 new online courses annually.
