Army junior dental officer retention.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the survey were to quantify the extent of indebtedness of junior dental officers and to determine the impact of a loan repayment program on career decisions. METHODS: We designed a customized survey instrument because no preexisting, validated, survey instrument was available. A query was performed in the Medical Operations Data System to identify all captains (0-3) currently on active duty in the Army (N = 348). The survey sample included 64 junior officers with a 2000 date of rank to captain (0-3), of whom only 52 were in the Medical Command Outlook address book or the Army Knowledge Online white pages. The questionnaire was sent out to these targeted junior dental officers through their official e-mail accounts. Dentists assigned to Korea and to dental field units do not use the same e-mail system as the rest of the Dental Command; therefore, their addresses were not available. In an attempt to increase response rates, commanders were asked to emphasize the importance of responding to the questionnaire. RESULTS: From the sample population of 52 officers who were queried directly, 34 responses were received, for a response rate of 65%. However, commanders forwarded the survey to all Dental Command captains and 102 responses were received. The respondents represented 30% of the total Army inventory of captains; 92% of respondents reported that they had dental school loans, with 43% reporting loans in excess of dollar 50,000. The average dental school indebtedness was approximately dollar 60,700. More than 60% of all respondents reported that loan repayment could change their minds about remaining on active duty. Officers not included in the original sample rated the impact of loan repayment statistically higher than did officers in the original sample. CONCLUSIONS: The findings were that the majority of junior Army dental officers had significant student loans and many of these officers indicated that they would consider remaining on active duty if loan repayment or other monetary inducements were offered.

Class 3 dental treatment time.

OBJECTIVE: Dental emergencies take soldiers away from their assigned duties. The objective of this project was to determine the average clinical treatment time needed to correct nondeployable dental conditions using actual treatment times noted in an electronic scheduler. METHODS: The Fort Hood Class Three Intercept Clinic forwarded their daily treatment logs to the Dental Command for each week from November 1, 2002 through February 13, 2003. Clinical treatment times and types of services provided for dental fitness category (DFC) 3 conditions were tracked with the Corporate Dental Application scheduler. RESULTS: The project identified 398 DFC 3 soldiers who were scheduled to receive treatment at the Fort Hood Class Three Intercept Clinic between November 1, 2002 and February 13, 2003. Twenty-three of those soldiers did not receive treatment; therefore, the total sample size was 375. On average, it required 2.2 hours of clinical dental treatment time to make a DFC 3 soldier dentally deployable. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggest that treating DFC 3 conditions is time-intensive but most DFC 3 soldiers can be treated in approximately 2 hours in an efficient and properly staffed dental clinic. Without proper preventive education and maintenance, these soldiers may develop additional oral disease and may require repeated episodes of increasingly intensive dental treatment.