Patton Selected for ADEA Leadership Institute
Dr. Lauren Patton, professor and interim chair in the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry’s Department of Dental Ecology, has been selected as a Fellow in the 2009-10 American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Leadership Institute.
The year-long program is designed to develop the nation’s most promising dental educators to become future leaders in dental and higher education. Twenty-one dental educators nationwide were selected for the institute’s 2009-10 class, its 10th year.
The 2009-10 Fellows will participate in programs focused on further development of their personal and interpersonal and administrative competencies for leadership, on legislative issues and on faculty development. The 2009-10 program orientation took place in March at the ADEA Annual Session in Phoenix.
Patton also directs the General Practice Residency Program at the School of Dentistry and UNC Hospitals. A UNC-Chapel Hill DDS graduate, she completed a 24-month general practice residency at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1988 and a 24-month oral medicine/clinical research fellowship at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 1990. She joined the University faculty as an assistant professor in 1990.
Patton is a diplomate of the American Board of Special Care Dentistry and a fellow of the American Association of Hospital Dentists and a diplomate and director/treasurer of the American Board of Oral Medicine.
Among her other professional activities, Patton is a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services appointee to the Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions’ Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry and a consultant for the American Dental Association’s Commission on Dental Accreditation and Council on Access, Prevention and Interprofessional Relations.
Her areas of interest include the management of medically complex dental patients and the interaction between oral and systemic disease. In addition, Patton’s research, teaching and policy findings have been published in more than 80 publications.
She is a co-investigator for the National Institutes of Health-funded Oral HIV/AIDS Research Alliance of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group and serves as associate editor for population studies and public health for the journal Oral Diseases.
“Dr. Patton shares her commitment to advancing oral health in many ways,” said Dean John N. Williams, who also is a 2009-10 Leadership Institute adviser. “She takes a global approach to oral health and is equally attentive to the details that contribute to increased access to oral health care in our state. She is very deserving of this highly selective honor and will both learn from and contribute to the institute project over the course of the next year.”
Dr. Janet M. Guthmiller, associate dean for academic affairs, was a Fellow in the 2008-09 Leadership Institute.
