PennWell announces partnership with Autism Speaks for continuing dental education

    Jan. 7, 2009
    PennWell presents check to Autism Speaks, representing proceeds from a new online dental course.

    PennWell Corporation, a leading media company whose publications include RDH and Dental Economics, presented a check to Autism Speaks on Dec. 2, 2008, representing proceeds from a new online dental course.

    In the summer of 2008, PennWell featured a dental continuing education course titled "Building Bridges: Dental Care for Patients with Autism" in its dental publications.

    The course, written by Karen Raposa, RDH, MBA, and Ann-Marie DePalma, RDH, MEd, FAADH, presented highly relevant information on the signs and symptoms of autism, proposed etiologies, and management of patients with autism in the dental setting. Raposa is the senior manager for professional relations at Colgate.

    "Patients with autism are often a challenge for the dental clinician to treat," said Aldo Eagle, PennWell's vice president of continuing education. "We saw a great need to bring education to this area of dentistry."

    Based on the prevalence of autism, dental professionals can expect to see at least seven to eight patients with autism on average in a given year.

    The course contains information on the dental implications for treating patients with autism and strategies that can enable successful care for these patients. Dr. Fiona Collins was the editor on this education project and managed its creation.

    "Karen Raposa and Ann-Marie DePalma generously donated their time to create this educational piece, I called on industry friends to cover the printing and PennWell agreed to donate 50% of the revenue for each course taken to Autism Speaks," said Eagle.

    Karen Raposa commented, "Autism is a very personal issue and a dental visit for a patient with autism can be traumatic."

    As the mother of a child with autism, Raposa speaks from experience and has presented extensively on this topic.

    The companies that contributed to the production of the autism continuing education course were:

    *Colgate-Palmolive
    *Kerr
    *Midmark
    *Palodex Group
    *Bisco
    *Spee

    A video of the check presentation can be viewed at check presentation.

    For more information on the autism CE course, go to ineedce.com.

    To view the autism dental continuing education course, go to Building Bridges: Dental Care for Patients with Autism.

    To comment on this subject, go to PennWell Dental Community site.