The 2012 Pain Control Labs: A Milestone Successfully Passed for GSDM Class of 2014 DMD Students

While rites of passage in many other circumstances involve activities associated with fun at GSDM, the unofficial rite of passage for DMD students involves giving and receiving shots of anesthetic. This milestone event is the annual Pain Control Lab.

Under the direction of Clinical Associate Professor and Director of Pre-doctoral Education and Vice Chairman of Dentistry & Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery at Boston Medical Center Dr. Richard D’Innocenzo—and in a notably cheerful atmosphere—the GSDM Class of 2014 DMD students participated in the Pain Control Lab on Thursday, July 5, 2012, and Monday, July 9, 2012, on the sixth floor of the Patient Treatment Center. Each of the labs occurred within two days of another significant event on the students’ path to becoming dentists—the White Coat Ceremony, which marks their transition from the study of preclinical to clinical health sciences.

The Pain Control Lab instructs students in a number of important areas, including injection techniques and medical emergency preparedness. The overarching goal of the lab is to imbue these future dentists, through advanced experience in administering anesthetic, with confidence for their first clinical interactions with patients.

When asked for his thoughts on this year’s Pain Control Labs, Dr. D’Innocenzo stated enthusiastically that it “gets better every year” and that this year’s labs boast an even greater faculty to student ratio than previous years. Dr. D’Innocenzo also noted that the faculty was more prepared than ever for the events.

The students shared Dr. D’Innocenzo’s enthusiasm about the Pain Control Labs. During the July 5 lab, an older brother who had already completed the exercise on his way to becoming a dentist accompanied his younger brother to witness his participation in the Pain Control Lab. One group of students during the July 9 lab—slightly giddy, but serious about the purpose of the exercise—conveyed their trust in one another’s ability to perform the tasks successfully. Grant Murray DMD 14 said, “I feel somewhat like a guinea pig, but it’s much better to learn from each other than to feel unprepared in our first clinical experience.”

Photos of the Pain Control Labs can be found on facebook and flickr.