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(more…)New hi-tech lab opens at Wits to train oral health professionals
Training of dental science students had been interrupted by 2021 fire at Charlotte Maxeke hospital which rendered laboratories inaccessible.
The Wits Health Sciences Campus has a brand new dental skills laboratory as of August 12, to fully equip students with the necessary training to provide quality healthcare to their future patients.
The lab’s opening is significant for health sciences students who could not access labs located at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital after a fire in April 2021 gutted the hospital and interrupted learning and training.
Shaun Du Plessis, a second-year BA dental science student, said, “I was lost for words when I first saw the new dental skills lab. We now have a place where we can receive excellent training, to learn and prepare to treat patients in the future. Patients will also be more at ease knowing the person treating them received the best training that there is.”
The lab coordinator, Professor Judith Bruce said, “The new lab is a huge improvement on the labs that were formerly located within the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital. It is spacious, modern and well-equipped and therefore, it is anticipated that both students and staff will have a more positive experience of their respective roles.”
The lab currently has two sections: the phantom heads section and the prosthodontic section. The former is fitted with 41 head simulators while the latter enables students to learn techniques of replacing or repairing teeth.
Bruce said that the next phase of the lab, the installation of additional 41 simulators, is expected to be complete by the end of the academic year. She added that the creation of the lab was reaffirmation of the faculty’s commitment to preserving and advancing oral health science. “[This may be done] through introducing new programmes that aim to diversify oral health care professionals and increase the number of students within the field,” she said.
A prosthodontic (a specialist in replacing and restoring teeth) and lecturer at the faculty, Dr Meriting Thokoane, said that the lab aims to teach students skills such as how to use dental hand instruments for oral hygiene procedures, to acquire radiographs, plan orthognathic surgery (corrective jaw surgery) and fabricate dentures, and design denture prescriptions.
“[The] technology used in the dental laboratory [consists of] non-immersive screen-based virtual reality such as Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing. [The lab also has] digital technology in the form of intra-oral cameras, optical scanners, and the use of microscopes for endodontic (diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the dental pulp) training,” she said.
Bruce said that the faculty of health science aims to strengthen its partnership with the Gauteng department of health by ensuring that oral health professionals are well-trained in appropriately resourced facilities.
“This will help communities to access not only basic oral health services of high quality but also receive expanded services they’ve not had before and that will enable an improved quality of life,” she said.
FEATURED IMAGE: Wits dental skills lab. Photo: Busisiwe Mdluli
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- Wits Vuvuzela, What’s really happening at Wits Dental School?, August 2021.
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Accountants ditch number crunching for paddles
A trip to the Amazon has proved that the trajectory of climate change may lie in the hands of chartered accountants’ reporting of businesses.
David Attenborough and Bear Grylls had nothing on a pair of Wits accountancy professors as they took to the Rio Madeira, the Amazon’s largest and most important tributary on a month-long trek.
Wits University’s accountancy professors Kurt Sartorius (73) and Wayne van Zijl (33), along with Sartorius’s son, Benn Sartorius (44), headed for Brazil on July 1, 2022 and finished with great effort by July 26, touching back down on South African soil on July 29. The aim of their 1 100km canoe journey was to raise awareness about the business relevance of climate change among corporates and raise funding for high impact research and reforestation initiatives.
“As accountants, we are the storytellers of a business performance and position,” said Van Zijl. Usually, businesses that are not environmentally friendly have large profit margins, compared to those who are more environmentally conscious, he added. This is because of the additional costs.
If these costs are not reported, society judges only by the profit. This disincentivises environmentally sustainable behavior if companies cannot report holistically. Accountants can prevent climate change by developing holistic reporting technology which would single out environmentally friendly companies. Raising funding for this development was one of the aims of the trip.
The senior Sartorius’s journey was a 50-year reunion with Rio Madeira, and a way to highlight the changes that occurred over half a century, as he re-paddled his 1972 route. Benn Sartorius said this is not their first adventure, “he and I have done many other trips together to Peru and elsewhere [but this one] was special.” Van Zijl saw it as an opportunity to finally join his revered lecturer from his university days on one of his “infamous professor Kurt Indiana Jones Sartorius” excursions.
The experience was indeed rewarding but also extremely “unpleasant” said Van Zijl. The younger Sartorius called the trip “brutal”. The team paddled through a tough terrain of low currents and extremely hot days, clocking between 50km to 60km daily through the two-kilometer-wide river.
When they were not on the water, they were on the muddy and insect infested land, where camp was set up by 6pm to avoid being attacked by mosquitos. Massive rainstorms, language barriers and scary characters along the river were all in a day’s work for this crew.
The trip was a collaborative initiative funded by Wits and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and formed part of Wits’s centenary campaign.
Professor Nirupa Padia, head of the school of accountancy told Wits Vuvuzela that, ”[The school] is extremely proud of this accomplishment by [its professors]. It is unheard of for accountants to be so adventurous and to go to this extent to make a difference on climate change and sustainability. It is inspiring for the staff and students to know that accountants too, can help save the planet.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Father and son have taken many trips together but this one was special. Van Zijl was ”amazed at the relationship”. Photos: Wayne van Zijl
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- Wits Vuvuzela, Wits profs contribute to significant climate change publication, May 2020.
- Wits Vuvuzela, Accounting students first to profit from 2022 careers fairs, May 2022.
- Wits Vuvuzela, We can’t breathe! scream the youth, Oct 2019.
Golden quartz dazzles in rare exhibition
The geology department’s “mineralogical treasures” lit up the Origins Centre in first ever public display.
Wits celebrates Health Awareness Month in high spirits
The Wits faculty of health sciences hosted students and staff members at World Health Day celebrations after two years of virtual meetings due to the covid-19 outbreak.
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