We are writing this to ask you to sign a petition to help increase awareness of the situation and struggles going on at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. By anonymously signing this you will have the opportunity to voice the concerns you have with the school at the moment. You also will be supporting a possible strike starting November 1st if the school does not make significant changes to clinic in the next 30 days. COVID is here to stay and UMSOD has not acknowledged this harsh fact to give us the education we need within this pandemic when they had 6 months to prepare for the Fall semester. 

What do we need to be changed:

1. More clinic cubicles! Before the pandemic, we lost half of our clinic space. Which, at the time, was already unacceptable. Now with COVID it has reduced the clinic space significantly more.  PPE is no longer an issue as every student has more than enough N95s to see 1-2 patients a day. D3 and D4 students are less than part time right now in clinic an average of 3 half days a week. This is UNACCEPTABLE and needs to be increased in the immediate future. Students have over 50 patients on their list and are neglecting care to over half their patients as they cannot see them due to no clinic chairs. D4s should have 8 appts per week and D3s 6 appts per week, clinic chairs need to be increased!

2. Having a scheduling system in 2 week blocks is not working for anyone. Not for the students, not for the patients, and not for the staff. Long term scheduling needs to be possible for students to plan ahead their patients and appts. Appts should not be a FIGHT they should be a RIGHT. 

3. Our wet lab has no air, no water, no trimmer, no gas. Not to mention that it is not OSHA compliant to be in the same space as patients to pour impressions or to have to use the "clean" simlab (3 floors down) to trim models. 

4. We need more faculty! When construction started, we were promised a faculty to student ratio of around 1:4 or 1:6. Now our faculty ratio ranges from 1:8 to as low as 1:16. The current wait times for limited faculty and axillary is unacceptable. The longer we have to be in clinics the longer we are exposing ourselves and our patients to unnecessary aerosols. We need a faculty ratio of 1:6 for both prosth and restorative. 

We urge the school to increase the clinic space in order to have an acceptable teaching facility for its students and a great institution for patient care. There has been enough time, money, and energy from several exceptional faculty to make this school run smoothly. Let's work together to make this happen!

Please sign this petition if you agree with the current message above. This platform is meant to raise light on the current issues going on, please only write constructive information or solutions. 

We also wanted to thank all of the amazing faculty who have been tirelessly working in the clinic and with the students. We also want to thank all of our amazing patients that continue to have faith in our school and students. We really appreciate you!