Internationally universities (and UP) gain reputation primarily by two things:

1.Quality of learning and teaching producing excellent skilled graduates who get the best jobs and the highest salaries. UP has a dedicated Learning and Teaching department, its very own Learning Platform (UPOP) and E-Learning center to improve quality teaching to international level.

2.Research Quality. UP has published more than 27 international papers in 2020 – believed to be the highest in Cambodia.

The staff and lecturers in the Faculty of Dentistry at UP have been busy publishing articles during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most prolific have been Assistant Prof Adith Venugopal, Assistant Prof Anand Marya, Prof Callum Durward, and Adjunct Assistant Prof Bethy Turton. Dr Bethy has been a lecturer, thesis supervisor and a leader of our community dentistry outreach programs for the past 5 years. She and her team (including a number of UP staff and dental students) have been undertaking important research recently on silver fluoride solutions, which are able to ARREST dental caries in the primary teeth. This research has important implications for the dental health of Cambodian children who on average have 9 decayed primary teeth at age 6. By arresting the decay, the teeth can be allowed to remain in the mouth, without causing pain or infection, and fall out naturally at the normal time. The procedure is simple and inexpensive – our UP dental students use this technique routinely for children in the schools they visit, and also in our UP Dental Clinic. Most of the field research has been led by Dr Horn Rithvitou, a UP graduate and junior lecturer, who hopes in the future to study a Masters of Dental Public Health abroad. He has been in charge of the fieldwork for several studies, including two clinical trials. The latest paper which has just been accepted for publication in the journal Clinical and Experimental Dental Research reported on a 12 month clinical trial of two silver fluoride solutions. The results are reported in the Abstract below. Caries arrest and lesion appearance using two different silver fluoride therapies on primary teeth with and without Potassium Iodide: 12-month results. Clinical and Experimental Dental Research (accepted for publication November 2020). Clinical and Experimental Dental Research. Turton, Bathsheba, Horn, Rithvitou, Durward, Callum; University of Puthisastra, Cambodia

■Background:

Globally, has been an increase in the use of silver fluoride products to arrest carious lesions and a variety of products are available.

■Aim:

To examine differences in caries arrest and lesion colour of primary tooth carious lesions.

■Design:

A four-armed, parallel-design cluster-randomised controlled trial which investigated four protocols for caries arrest at 6m and 12m. Children in Group 1 and Group 2 received Rivastar Silver Diammine Fluoride (SDF), and children in Group 3 and Group 4 received an aqueous silver fluoride solution (AgF). Children in Group 2 and Group 4 received an additional application of KI immediately after the fluoride. Differences in caries arrest and lesion appearance were examined at 6m and 12m using two level logistic regression modelling. Results: The arrest rate varied by group membership; group 1 and group 3 had higher arrest rates (77.3% and 75.3% respectively) than group 2 and group 4 (65.4% and 51.2% respectively). The use of KI was also associated with lower odds of arrest (12m OR 0.25; CI 0.19, 0.34) and higher odds of avoiding black discolouration (12m OR 6.08; 2.36, 15.67).

■Conclusions:

This study demonstrated that both AgF and SDF can effectively arrest carious lesions on primary teeth. The use of KI is associated with poorer caries control but better aesthetic outcomes.

UP becomes a CPD provider recognized by Pharmacy Council of Cambodia

CPD (Continued professional development) is a critical aspect of health education – providing professionals with up-to-date knowledge and skills in rapidly changing health fields and therefore providing the best possible outcomes for patients.

UP is one of the first universities in Cambodia to be accredited for CPD.

UP’s Faculty of Pharmacy is officially recognized as a continuing professional development provider for pharmacists in Cambodia through a Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Puthisastra and the Pharmacy Council of Cambodia. The university is officially recognized by the Royal Government of Cambodia. On May 05, 2020, the University of Puthisastra also received full accreditation in accordance with the requirements of the national standard for 5 years from 2019 to 2023 by the Accreditation Committee of Cambodia. On July 31, 2020, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports also recognized the provision of electronic education services by the University of Puthisastra.

The University of Puthisastra has human resources, professors, trainers and facilitators who are competent and qualified in accordance with the conditions and principles of continuous professional development. To date, University has been investing in sophisticated lab equipment and facilities to train pharmacy students in research in line with national and international curricula. University of Puthisastra is preparing to improve its curriculum in line with international standards, create an eLearning Center, establish a Research Hub, and create research opportunities for pharmacy students to achieve high efficiency, establish a Learning Lounge and Career Corner to motivate pharmacy students to succeed. With this new collaboration, the University of Puthisastra is ready to provide continuing professional development education to pharmacists registered in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

HEALTHY KIDS CAMBODIA RECEIVES INTERNATIONAL AWARD FOR ORAL HEALTH

Our UP team of dental students and dentists has been working together for the past 4 years with One-2-One Cambodia, the Cambodian Dental Association and other partners (including the Oral Health Office of the MOH and School Health Department of MOEYS) in implementing the Healthy Kids Cambodia dental program in primary schools within Phnom Penh and several provinces.

The World Dental Federation (FDI) has recently recognized our work with the “FDI Smile award”. We are very honored to be part of this project and would like to acknowledge that UP staff and students have played an important role in the development and implementation of the Healthy Kids project, including conducting important research to demonstrate its success. This international award confirms that we in Cambodia are following best practice in the prevention of dental caries among the children we are working with. Dr Sourn Monika, President of Cambodian Dental Association, received the award by Video call last week.

Thank you to our past and present dental students of UP for your hard work and dedication to children’s oral health, which has made this award possible.

UP staff take part in customer service training

UP considers that students are at the heart of everything we do so on Saturday, 7th November 2020, 20 UP staff members from a variety of departments, who frequently answer questions and queries from students, parents and UP stakeholders, took part in a session of customer service training and facilitation. The training was provided by Ms. Tuy Manina and Ms. Nichola Heaton from the Department of English Excellence & Employability in association with the Human Resources (HR) Department.

The purpose of the training was for attendees from the different teams within UP to identify ways to enhance their customer skills and become even more effective across all of our customer facing departments. The attendees explored some of the following areas through discussions, as well as sharing their own personal experiences, for example, when they had received customer service that was unhelpful.

Questions and themes that were discussed and worked on, included:

1. What makes good customer service?
2. What barriers do we encounter when it comes to offering great customer service?
3. What would help in terms of improving things and making these areas of the job easier?
4. What are the consequences of bad customer service?
5. How to work successfully with difficult or demanding customers.

An important part of the training centered on managing customer expectations, following up on queries and requests for help, and developing communication skills so that colleagues are better equipped when a customer is feeling confused, angry or upset about something. We have got some great feedback from the participants and this can really help us to improve on collaboration across departments and ensure our overall customer service skills are high quality. Manina and Nichola from the English department wish to thank all those who attended. They really appreciate colleagues taking the time to join them a Saturday afternoon. They are looking forward to providing this training and facilitation again in 2021!

Dr Chea Sin, Dean of Pharmacy, Ouk Soksereivotanak, Director of Department of Laboratory Sciences, joined the 5th ASEAN Association Schools of Medical Technology (AASMT) Congress 2020

Beginning in 2013, the board of AASMT put a great deal of efforts to establish the strategic partnerships with Medical Technology schools among ASEAN countries to exchange and share ideas, experiences and best practices of the teaching and learning approaches to achieve ASEAN MT competencies. These efforts led to establishing the AASMT international conference/congress. On November 5th/6th 2020, Dr Chea Sin, Dean of Pharmacy and Ouk Soksereivotanak, Director of Department of Laboratory Sciences represented Cambodia at the 5th ASEAN Association Schools of Medical Technology (AASMT) Congress 2020, hosted by University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vietnam. The congress focused on research network for medical technology, quality management system, and harmonized curriculum for medical technology.