Assistant Surgeon General to Speak at SNDA Impressions Program

The UNC School of Dentistry Student National Dental Association (SNDA) is hosting their fall Impressions Program on Saturday, October 6. The program will feature a keynote address by Rear Admiral Denise Canton, who currently serves as the assistant surgeon general and senior policy advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General’s office.

Admiral Canton will deliver her keynote address, “Oral Health in America: Disparities and Solutions,” at 2 p.m. in the Kirkland Auditorium of Koury Oral Health Sciences. The day’s Impressions Program will also feature mock interviews, presentations from school admissions and financial aid personnel, a question and answer session with current students and residents, and much more. While most of the day is focused on pre-dental students, the keynote address is open to attendance from the entire dental community.

“We are very excited about our upcoming Impressions Program with Rear Admiral Canton,” said Zerita Buchanan, D.D.S. candidate 2014 and president of the school’s SNDA chapter. “This is always a large, successful event for SNDA, and I know that the presence of Rear Admiral Canton is going to make this fall’s program really special.”

Committee chairs for the Impressions Program are Lindsay Moore, D.D.S. candidate 2014, and Jennifer Durham, D.D.S. candidate 2015. The Old North State Dental Society and the UNC chapter of American Student Dental Association also assisted in the planning of the upcoming Impressions Program.

The Impressions program is an innovative recruitment program that focuses primarily on increasing the number of applications and acceptances of minority and underserved students to dental school. It provides pre-dental students exposure to dentistry as a career as well as the application and financial aid process. The program began at the Medical College of Georgia in 1999 and quickly grew to be one of SNDA’s most popular national programs.