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For more than 25 years, the MDA has partnered with our dentist members to host EFDA courses at their offices in various locations around the state. In the early years, we would hold six to eight courses annually, typically certifying between 75-100 auxiliaries per year. In 2022, the MDA held 25 courses and certified 195 auxiliaries. This year, as of September 1, we have scheduled 22 courses and registered 202 auxiliaries, with more courses to come. You can see the demand for the EFDA certification continues and the MDA does its best to ensure we can meet that demand.

We are so thankful for our EFDA leads and trainers, who often host two, three, four and sometimes even more courses a year, as they are ensuring all auxiliaries can begin the EFDA certification process when they are ready. But it certainly is a labor of love. These trainers are committed to the EFDA program because they see its value. They know the training and upskilling of the auxiliaries enhances their career goals and makes them feel like a more essential member of the team, and as well, creates a positive impact on the overall efficiency in dental practices.

Over the years, the methods for hosting courses in our member offices has become more streamlined and efficient, but the basic process has remained the same.

• MDA finds and schedules an available date with the dentist/host office;
• MDA opens course registration and manages and monitors each auxiliary’s prework and coursework;
• MDA prepares course kits for upcoming courses (preps typodonts, orders and restocks materials, sterilize instruments); and,
• MDA ships or delivers kits to the host office for the upcoming course.

While our goal was always to make it easy for our member dentists to host MDA EFDA courses, it still takes a good deal of preparation and planning on their end: unpacking course kits (often having their staff complete this); using their operatory rooms to train during the clinical session; cleanup after the course which can be time consuming (and again, delegated to a staff member); and, packing up the kits to ship back to the MDA.

In recent years, we’ve encountered some difficulties with our usual process, such as:

• More offices are providing regular appointments or treating more difficult cases on Fridays and Saturdays, making it harder to schedule courses.
• There is more demand than available space; smaller offices with fewer operatories means smaller courses (and the need for additional courses).
• If the office is closed on a course day, ensuring (and paying) office staff are available to manage the set up and breakdown of course kits.
• When shipping kits, increasingly lost kits, delayed delivery, and broken, mishandled shipments that equate to increased replacement costs.
• An overlap in timing with returning kits and restocking materials, making it difficult, logistically, to host more than two or three courses each month.

The MDA Executive Office in Jefferson City has always had a large classroom and catering kitchen facility in the lower level, which the MDA uses (such as, for its Basic Skills Review and the MERIT meeting) and rents to various groups for meetings. There also is existing office space that has been vacant for some time, due in part to the great amount of rental property available in Jefferson City.

The MDA Board and staff began to discuss the benefits of turning this unused space into a clinical dental training center that could host EFDA courses (including Restorative II exams and remediation), but also other possible dental team training events like nitrous monitoring training, radiography, sedation and other courses with a hands-on clinical component.

In early May 2023, the MDA Executive Committee recommended to the Board to fund the building and creation of this MDA Educational Center. This plan was approved and since, many Board members have been involved in the design and planning of the space, along with the help of Chad Wind of Burkhart Dental.

“I’m genuinely excited about collaborating with the MDA and eagerly anticipating the expansion of dental education, said Chad. “I’ve had a great experience working alongside the board members to formulate a comprehensive plan for a space that will serve the dental profession well.

The renovated space will include an open clinical training space with eight fully functioning dental chairs, which will allow the MDA to host up to 16 auxiliaries at a time for the majority of our EFDA courses (or 8 for Restorative II courses). With the central location and adjusting course start times for some courses, we hope to allow auxiliaries to drive in the morning of the course and lessen the travel time and expense that is often encountered. In addition, there will be adjacent space for sterilization and lab equipment, as well as materials and instrument storage.