ADHA Announces Participant of 2009 DENTSPLY/ADHA Graduate Student Clinicians Program

Chicago, July 1, 2009—The American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) has recognized Barbara Prema Strecker, RDH, MS, of Austin, Tex., as a participant of the DENTSPLY/ADHA Graduate Student Clinicians Program. She was honored during the DENTSPLY/ADHA Student Clinician Program Awards Banquet at ADHA’s 86th Annual Session in Washington, D.C., on June 19.

The purpose of the DENTSPLY/ADHA Graduate Dental Hygiene Research Program is to promote dental hygiene research by supporting one graduate dental hygiene student from each accredited graduate dental hygiene program offering a Masters of Science Degree in dental hygiene and related disciplines (as identified by the ADHA) to present his/her research at the 2009 ADHA CLL at Annual Session. This program allows the student clinician an opportunity to compete for awards and recognition. The DENTSPLY/ADHA Graduate Dental Hygiene Research Program consists of a poster presentation where the research or clinical findings are presented in a format that includes a hypothesis, methods and materials, results, discussion and a conclusion.

Strecker received her master’s degree in December 2008 from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She currently works as an adjunct professor at Austin Community College Department of Dental Hygiene. She has been working to implement tobacco cessation counseling into the education of the dental hygiene students. Strecker is active in the Austin Tobacco Prevention & Control Coalition (ATP&CC), which is working with other organizations—Lance Armstrong Foundation, Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and others—to promote the Statewide Tobacco-Free Ordinance. Strecker has been an ADHA member since 1981.

ADHA is the largest national organization representing the professional interests of more than 150,000 dental hygienists across the country. Dental hygienists are preventive oral health professionals, licensed in dental hygiene, who provide educational, clinical and therapeutic services that support total health through the promotion of optimal oral health. For more information about ADHA, dental hygiene or the link between oral health and general health, visit ADHA at http://www.adha.org.

-30-