DDSRank Announces 2019 Dental Scholarship Winner
Michelle Rousseau, winner of the 2019 DDSRank Dental Scholarship
Top dental SEO company DDSRank is pleased to announce Michelle Rousseau as the winner of The 2019 DDSRank Dental Scholarship. The scholarship program, which was started to help students dedicated to a career in dentistry afford an education, is being awarded for the fifth time.
Rousseau, who submitted the top entry, is a second-year student at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. She’s a non-traditional student who originally had a career as an engineer. Why did she switch to the field of dentistry? Engineering “was not as interpersonal as I would have liked…I fell in love with the artistic nature of [dentistry] and the ability to heal people using my hands.” She also appreciates the outdoors, spending time hiking, playing tennis, and going to the beach. In addition, she enjoys writing and doing research in the dental field. She looks forward to cultivating relationships with her patients while working to improve their well-being.
“The selection process for our scholarship program always proves challenging; we receive many excellent entries each year,” said Steve Brown, DDSRank’s CEO. “Michelle Rousseau’s essay demonstrated a keen understanding of both the challenges and the advantages the internet provides to those in the field of dentistry.”
The 2019 DDSRank Scholarship entrants responded to the question, How do you think use of the internet will reshape – or is already reshaping – the field of dentistry? Rousseau’s essay emphasized changes the internet has made to our flow of information. “If you told me 15 years ago that YouTube would become one of my go-to resources throughout dental school, I wouldn’t have believed you. Today, I could not imagine a world where I did not have a wealth of information right at my fingertips. … It is clear that the internet is reshaping the way society receives information. Therefore, it is important for dentists to embrace the web in order to leverage their business, inform their patients, and better educate themselves.”
Michelle stresses the value of using the internet to further dental education. “The internet has a wide variety of resources that a dentist can use to research any topic they desire such as PubMed and The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA). Popular apps like Figure1 allow providers to sharpen their clinical skills by presenting and discussing cases with other professionals across the web. Dentists can even collaborate with one another from across the country through a video chat session to discuss the care of a patient who is sitting in their chair.” She also points out the benefit of increased access to online news organizations, which allows dentists “to educate themselves on the latest political issues facing their profession and find ways to get involved.”
Not all of the benefits of the internet are positive, Rousseau notes. Many people are looking to social media sources and other internet-based sites to self-diagnose. “With more information available, there is even more misinformation, which is why it is important for dentists to set the record straight and provide their patients with correct and convenient resources for their dental concerns.”
Michelle had an internship with Cigna Dental Insurance over the summer and found it provided an interesting perspective on how the internet is shaping the way people think about orthodontic care. Says Rousseau, “Direct-To-Consumer orthodontic companies like SmileDirectClub are changing the landscape of care and we as dentists must pay attention to it.”
DDSRank is honored to support the education of outstanding, dedicated dental students like Michelle Rousseau. Congratulations!
DDSRank’s purpose is to help dental professionals succeed in building their practices using SEO and dental marketing. The establishment of the dental scholarship program was a natural extension of that mission – by helping an aspiring dentist afford the education needed to build their own practice. For more information on the award, visit the scholarship page.