Plenary Session 2: Reimagining dentistry within the inter professional healthcare team

Dr. Shenam Ticku is the Instructor and the Pre-doctoral Oral Health Policy and Epidemiology Discipline Director at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. She is also a Rabkin Fellow in Medical Education for AY 2024-2025. She has served as a co-investigator in the national center, the Center for Integration of Primary Care and Oral Health, a program federally funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on Academic Units for Primary Care Training and Enhancement. In this role, she assessed the integration of oral health in primary care training. Moreover, within the Center, she was a sub-project co-Principal Investigator on a study examining behavioral health and social determinants of health within dental workforce training. Other research spearheaded by her also delved into understanding the feasibility of integrating mental health screenings in dental settings, funded by the Eleanor and Miles Shore Faculty Development Award. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of the 100 Million Mouths Campaign, a national program aiming to enhance the primary care workforce’s oral health knowledge, skills, and competencies. Further solidifying her position in the field, she has also led several studies under the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Initiative to Integrate Oral Health and Medicine. These multifaceted roles and their corresponding responsibilities have reinforced her expertise in medical-dental integration, spanning from training and clinical practice to comprehensive policy reform. Dr. Ticku graduated with an MPH in health policy from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and also holds a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from J.S.S Dental College and Hospital, Mysore, India.

Catrine Buck Jensen is a Registered Nurse (RN) and an Associate Professor (Ph.d) at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She holds her main position in the Bachelor’s program in nursing at UiT as well as a part-time position as an RN in Tromsø Municipality. Catrine’s research interests are interprofessional education and supervision, the patient perspective in interprofessional education, and active patient involvement in health professions education. Since 2022, she has been chairing the Norwegian Network for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (NIPEC) and is a part of the Nordic Interprofessional Network (NIPNET).