Dr. Mary Truhlar Named Dean, Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine
STONY BROOK, NY, January 5, 2015 - Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, Senior Vice President, Health Sciences and Dean, School of Medicine announced today that Dr. Mary Truhlar will serve as the new Dean of the Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine effective immediately.
Dr. Kaushansky noted in his announcement that, "Dr. Truhlar received her Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, and completed her General Practice Residency and Chief Residency at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, before receiving a Masters of Science Degree in Dentistry from Marquette University and a Fellowship Certificate in Geriatric Dentistry from the Milwaukee Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Truhlar also completed a Fellowship in the American Dental Education Association Leadership Institute.
Following her training, Dr. Truhlar began her academic career at the Marquette University School of Dentistry, and then at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, before returning to Long Island to join the faculty of Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine in 1990, in the Department of General Dentistry. Dr. Truhlar established a very active clinical practice early in her career, which she maintains to this day. In addition to her expert clinical skills, Dr. Truhlar developed an impressive and robust educational program from her first days at Stony Brook. Appointed Director of the Division of Geriatric Dentistry upon her recruitment to Stony Brook, Dr. Truhlar established a didactic geriatrics curriculum for pre-doctoral dental students, including courses on the medically compromised and geriatric patient populations, a geriatric dentistry literature review for post-doctoral programs, and numerous rotations for residents and dental students both in the Stony Brook Geriatric Dental Clinic and the Long Island State Veterans Home (LISVH).
In 2005 Dr. Truhlar was appointed Chair of the Department of General Dentistry, in which she provided leadership to the Dental School’s largest department, which included the pre- and post-doctoral curriculum in general dentistry, prosthodontics dentistry, radiology, dental anatomy and operative dentistry, behavioral sciences and practice management, and the Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) General Practice Residency Program. This residency program has been reformatted and expanded over the years to 20 residents, including a special needs patient care program. In recognition of her outstanding clinical skills and years of clinical program development and leadership, Dr. Truhlar was appointed as chairperson of the Subcommittee on Clinical Sciences for the School’s 2013 Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) site visit. She was responsible for school-wide oversight of the development, documentation, presentation and delivery of Clinical Sciences Standards.
In each of these roles, Dr. Truhlar has demonstrated a passion for professional education, within the dental school, off campus and between schools, creating inter-professional educational initiatives. Her educational “calling” has resulted in strong collaborative educational and clinical programs with the School of Medicine, School of Nursing and the LISVH. She was a member of the task force that was instrumental in vertically integrating four teaching foci through the four years of the dental school curriculum: Biomedical Sciences, Ethics and Professionalism, Evidence-based Dentistry, and Patient and Community Centered Care. She assumed co-responsibility for the design, implementation and directorship of a novel 80-hour course, Patient I: Communication and Examination, providing a fully integrated interdisciplinary approach to oral health care. As but two examples of her many successes in the educational realm, Dr. Truhlar co-authored the PACE Center for Senior Health and Wellness at Stony Brook University, a multimillion dollar HRSA grant to foster a collaborative partnership and teaching between the schools of dentistry, nursing and social welfare and to establish an innovative model to improve patient outcomes for at-risk populations by increasing access to health promotion, disease prevention and social services for vulnerable older adults, their families, caregivers and communities. She also oversees and participates in a federally funded dental health program for the Indian Health Service in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, bringing six third-year dental students to the Sioux Nation for two weeks each summer.
In recognition of her many academic accomplishments, most recently Dr. Truhlar was honored as the 2012 American Dental Educators Association (ADEA) Alpha Omega Foundation /Leonard Abrams Scholar, which recognizes a dental educator who exhibits excellence in teaching and compassion toward others and who upholds exemplary ethical and professional standards. She was also the 2014 Woman in Dentistry Awardee of the Nassau and Suffolk County Dental Societies. In short, it is clear that her creative contributions, teaching innovations and administrative skills have indelibly and positively impacted the educational and clinical programs at the Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine."
