LDA - Louisiana Dental Association

LDAlouisiana state board of dentistryJames A. Pearce, D.D.S.President, Louisiana State Board of DentistryA New Horizon in Clinical LicensingExaminationsThe Louisiana State Board of Dentistry has contractedwith the Council of Interstate Testing Agencies(CITA) to begin administering the clinical licensingexaminations for dentistry and dental hygiene in thestate of Louisiana beginning in calendar year2008. This is a major step forward for a statethat has maintained its independence forapproximately 130 years. Bob Dylan oncewrote, “The times, they are a-changing” andthose changes are now here.Let me give you a little history of theCouncil of Interstate Testing Agencies. Thistesting agency grew from an earlier organizationcalled the Coalition of Independent Testing Agencies,which was formed back in the 1990s. The originalcoalition was a creation of the independent states thathad been administering their own clinical examinationsin response to the national framework which was beingaltered by the regional licensing examination agencies.Those agencies are the Western Regional ExaminingBoard, Northeast Regional Examining Board, CentralRegional Dental Testing Agency, and the SouthernRegional Testing Agency. Furthermore, in the last fewyears, the American Dental Examining group has alsoformed. All in all, very few states administer their ownindependent examination and those states are expectedto join regional testing agencies in the near future.Much of the regional concept is designed to allowyounger dentists and hygienists more freedom of mobilitydue to our more mobile society. Many states now acceptall of the regional examinations, as does Louisiana.The decision to contract with CITA was made afterboard members had reviewed the examinations of all theregional testing agencies, as well as the other independentstates during the American Association of Dental Examinersmeetings over the last several years. Though there are slightdifferences in the examinations, all test on the same corecurricula, and are extremely similar in content. There aresome differences in scoring methods, but all seem toadequately protect the public from the incompetentpractitioner.CITA has been working with the LSUSD over the pastyear in order to give time to the LSU seniors tounderstand the new examining process whichwill be very patient friendly, although it willbe a different scenario from what ourseniors have been used to in the past. TheCurriculum Integrated Format (CIF) allowsjuniors in their second semester to begintaking the licensing examination on themannequin portion of the examination. Thiswill take a lot of pressure off of them when theytake the clinical examination that is patient based.Presently, the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,North Carolina, and Puerto Rico have CITA administertheir dental and dental hygiene examinations.The aforementioned states and Massachusetts, Maine,Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon,Washington, Virginia, and West Virginia also accept theresults of the CITA examination. However, Virginia willnot begin accepting the results until after September 1,2007. More states are in discussions with CITA at thepresent time.The examinations in each of the states will still beadministered by some of the board members from thosestates. However, in order to assure uniformity, examinersfrom other states will also participate in the examinationsgiven in each state. This means that Louisiana boardmembers will be testing in North Carolina, and the otherstates of CITA as well. We will also utilize the services ofdentists from other states in the Louisiana examinations.We encourage anyone who wishes to participate as anexaminer with CITA to contact either our board office, orCITA directly. You may call them at (919) 678-9792 oryou may email them at info@citaexam.com.We hope we can enlist as many Louisiana dentistsand dental hygienists as possible. You will find that thisis a terrific way to give back to the profession! t32 LDA Journal