大学案内｜ABOUT MDU

The 4th and 5th FD (Faculty Development) workshops were held on Saturday, May 19th and Friday, June 8th. A workshop to prepare for computer based testing (CBT) questions for the common dentistry examinations was held and lectures were given. Computer based testing uses computers to objectively examine the basic knowledge of students who are about to start clinical training. Universities are invited to propose questions for the examinations. During the workshops, once again, participants realized that preparation of good questions assists improvements in teaching and raises the level of the university.

Ichisuke Kawahara (chair of the board of directors), Hidehiro Ozawa (director of the MDU Institute for Oral Science) and Hiroo Miyazawa (professor) were among a group of six people representing Matsumoto Dental University (MDU) in a visit to Tongi University in Shanghai and Shanxi Medial University in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China, from Saturday19th to Tuesday 22nd May, aimed to discuss the strengthening of collaboration and joint research with the MDU Institute for Oral Science.
Tongi University is celebrating its centenary this year. An anniversary ceremony was held on the 20th during the visit by the MDU representatives. The representatives attended the ceremony — a gorgeous event at the university — together with government officials from all over the world and people with links to the university.

The first hospital seminar was held in Room 602 of the main building on Monday, June 18th, with Professor Yuji Sakano of the psychology science department of Health Sciences University of Hokkaido as the guest lecturer. The aim of this seminar was to study the latest dental service trends and treatments. MDU hospital dentists, nurses and dental hygienists attended because Professor Minoru Nakata, the head of the hospital, is leading an investigation into a new system for the hospital.

A group studying dental treatment technology gathered for the first time in the student hall of the library building on Wednesday, June 13th. Eighteen Nagano Prefecture companies participated, comprising seven firms already collaborating with MDU and eleven new participants. The aim of the study is to develop epoch-making products by matching the developments required by the dental service with the technologies of the companies.
At the meeting, Professor Mitsuo Ito of the MDU’s Dental Materials and Technology course stated that the aims of the group were the development of highly sophisticated products in Nagano Prefecture by concentrating the technologies of the member companies, and to be an active forum for the lively and free exchange of opinions. Professor Ito requested the cooperation of the lecturers and of product developers at the participating firms.

The 34th memorial service for donors for dissection was held in the lecture hall on the seventh floor of the main building on Saturday, June 2nd. Members of the donors’ families, guests and university faculty and staff numbered about fifty of those present, and many students from the first, second and third years also attended the service where they offered prayers for the souls of the 26 people who donated their bodies for training in dissection at MDU.

Three-way meetings, where a lecturer meets a student and a parent or parents, were held. Three-way meetings for students in years 1 to 5 were held in the gymnasium on Saturday, June 9th, with 310 pairs of students and their parents attending. Lecturers met each student/parent group separately. They informed parents of their child’s course attendance in the first half of the academic year, weekly test results and progress of study in each subject. They advised students on studying.
Three-way meetings for year 6 students were held on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th. Eighty pairs of students and parents attended.

At the 125th autumn meeting of the Japanese Society of Conservative Dentistry, Assistant Professor Akihiro Hosoya of the Oral Anatomy II course received the society’s Dentsply Award for his presentation titled “Regeneration of alveolar bone after transplantation of a rat molar”. The award presentation ceremony was held at the 126th spring meeting of the society in Saitama on Thursday, June 7th.
Assistant Professor Hosoya’s research was highly assessed as it revealed morphologically that cells capable of regenerating alveolar bone exist in the periodontal membrane where the teeth used to be after extraction of teeth.

Dr. Kaoru Tamura, a fourth-year student in the MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine, received the prize of excellent presentation for his poster presentation at the 6th International Symposium on Titanium in Dentistry held at the Kyoto International Conference Center on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th June. The title of his poster exhibition was “Titanium/titanium alloy bars with different magnetism, hardness of implant products and metal structure”. The poster presented a comparative study of titanium/titanium alloy bars and implant products, and the cause of breakage based on hardness tests and observation of the metal structure.

MDU is working on the use of IT for student services and for improvements of services. Freshmen have been required to have a laptop computer since 2004 and establishment of the student intranet and computerization conditions have advanced. From Monday, May 28th, MDU stopped using paper for notifications to students in years 1 to 4, and started using the student intranet.