Student Spotlight: GSDM Student Awarded First Place in National Oral Health Literacy video contest
Tim Huang DMD 25 and his brother Scott Huang, a student at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, won the 2024 American Dental Association and the National Advisory Committee Oral Health Literacy in Dentistry Video Contest with an engaging music video promoting oral healthcare tips.
“It didn’t fully hit us [that we won until] we got a call,” Tim said. “We both got the emails at first and we were like ‘Is this happening?’ When we both got phone calls, we said ‘Oh my God, this is real.’ We called up friends [and kept saying] ‘Oh my God, this is real. We just won.”
When the Huang brothers first heard about the contest, they decided it would be a unique opportunity to work together—something they rarely do during their different dental school journeys.
The contest asked for three-to-four-minute video submissions that displayed the “teach-back” method of patient instruction, educating a 17-year-old patient on nutritional counseling and dental caries risk. The sibling duo took an unconventional approach to the contest, opting to write an original spoken rap song depicting a patient’s dental visit with two dentists. The brothers recruited another Tufts dental student, Jamyla Palomar, to sing alongside them as the patient in the video. It took three days for the Huang brothers to write the song, complete with rhyming health facts, and then film, edit, re-record audio, and export the final video submission.
“We were hoping that the whole music video thing would kind of make it stand apart,” Tim said. “Towards the end though, I think we were just like ‘I’m just glad that we’re done.’ And then, we were hoping to win. My brother was like ‘Oh my gosh, we’re putting in so much more time than we thought we would have to. I really hoped this wins.’”
Tim said he and Scott couldn’t be happier that their video won. Going forward, he hopes the video will inspire dental professionals not to be afraid to use creative tactics when trying to connect with patients.
“Because it’s more of in a song kind of fashion and a little gimmicky, I hope it will be easier to remember,” Tim said. “Sometimes, we’re just spitting facts [and] patients don’t always remember. But even if it’s a little cringey, if it’s a song like that, then sometimes patients [will say] ‘Oh, I do remember that part of the song where they said this or that.’”