How Marina Davar Connects Dental Education with Real-World Practice

Marina Davar has specialized expertise in developing and leading dental education programs, including her role as Dean of Dental Studies at Beckfield College. Her knowledge encompasses curriculum architecture, course sequencing, clinical and laboratory requirements, faculty development, assessment systems, accreditation processes and workforce alignment. She understands the importance of connecting classroom instruction with practical clinical competencies and employer expectations. Marina leadership perspective also includes clinical facility planning, equipment procurement, externship partnerships, advisory boards and student progression systems. Her work reflects a commitment to building dental programs that provide students with strong technical foundations, professional preparation and the practical skills needed to transition successfully into dental practices.

Areas of expertise

1. Clinical and technical dental expertise

The foundation everything else rests on:

• Chairside assisting — four-handed and six-handed dentistry, instrument transfer, moisture control, patient positioning, tray setups by procedure

• Dental radiography — intraoral and extraoral technique, digital sensors and phosphor plates, panoramic and CBCT familiarity, ALARA principles, radiation safety and state radiography credentialing requirements

• Dental materials science — impression materials, restoratives, cements, provisionals, and how handling properties change chairside outcomes

• Infection control and sterilization — OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard, CDC guidelines for dental settings, instrument processing, sterilizer monitoring, waterline management

• Dental anatomy, terminology, charting, and oral pathology recognition

• Specialty procedure knowledge — oral surgery, endodontics, orthodontics, pediatrics, periodontics, prosthodontics

• Medical emergencies in the dental office — vital signs, emergency kit protocols, BLS

• Expanded functions — scope varies significantly between Kentucky and Ohio, which matters for a program serving a bi-state metro

• Business-side operations — scheduling, CDT coding, insurance claims, treatment plan presentation, recall systems, HIPAA

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2. Program architecture and accreditation

This is the rarest part of her résumé and the strongest thought-leadership asset. Most dental educators inherit a program; very few build one.

• Writing a program from zero: mission, program-level outcomes, course sequencing, credit-hour justification, contact-hour distribution across didactic, lab, and clinical

• Accreditation navigation — CODA standards where applicable, plus institutional accreditor requirements, state postsecondary authorization, and state dental board approval

• Alignment to certification pathways — DANB eligibility routes, CDA/RHS/ICE exam blueprints, state-specific credentials

• Clinical facility design — operatory build-out, sterilization suite, radiography and lab space, equipment procurement and vendor negotiation

• Externship infrastructure — affiliation agreements, site vetting, preceptor training, supervision compliance, liability and immunization requirements

• Advisory board formation and stewardship

• Faculty credentialing, hiring, onboarding, and development

• Assessment systems: competency checklists, skill-check rubrics, progression and remediation policies, programmatic review cycles

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3. Academic leadership and administration

• Budgeting, forecasting, and capital requests for a consumables-heavy program

• Enrollment strategy, admissions criteria, and cohort planning

• Retention, persistence, and completion-rate management

• Placement outcomes, employer relationships, and gainful-employment style reporting pressures

• Faculty evaluation, observation, and coaching

• Title IX, ADA/accommodations, FERPA, student conduct, and grievance processes

• Cross-departmental leadership within a career college structure

• Crisis and continuity management — clinical incidents, site disruptions, staffing gaps

4. Teaching and student development

The "beloved by students" reputation is a real competency, not a personality trait — and it's the most publishable one:

• Teaching psychomotor skills to adult learners: demonstration, guided practice, deliberate repetition, feedback timing

• Simulation and lab pedagogy, plus the transfer problem — moving skills from typodont to live patient

• Competency-based education and mastery grading

• Working with the career-college population specifically: first-generation students, career changers, adults with jobs and dependents, students with prior negative academic experiences

• Building clinical confidence and reducing performance anxiety in students who freeze in front of a real patient

• Professionalism formation — punctuality, communication, appearance, judgment, ethics

• Mentorship and advising, including nonacademic barrier removal (transportation, childcare, financial stress)

• Recognizing and responding to student distress; knowing where the referral line is

• Alumni network cultivation

5. Industry, workforce, and forward-looking domains

• The dental assistant shortage — causes, wage compression, burnout, turnover economics for practice owners

• DSO consolidation and how it reshapes hiring, onboarding, and career ladders for assistants

• Digital dentistry — intraoral scanning, CAD/CAM, 3D printing, and the training implications

• AI-assisted radiographic diagnostics and what assistants need to understand about it

• Teledentistry and remote workflows

• Access-to-care and oral health disparities in the region she serves

• Career laddering — assistant to expanded functions to hygiene to office management

• Regulatory literacy across state lines and the licensure-portability problem

Where the thought leadership actually lives

Most dental education content is generic. Her differentiators are specific:

1. She built a program from nothing. That's a "how to" series with real authority: designing curriculum backward from employer need, the accreditation grind, equipping a clinic on a career-college budget, the mistakes she'd undo.

2. She teaches adults who can't afford to fail. Career-college students carry different stakes than traditional undergrads. Retention writing grounded in that population is genuinely underserved.

3. She sits between two states. Bi-state scope-of-practice differences are a concrete, expert-only topic that also functions as advocacy.

4. Students love her, and that's measurable. Reframe it: what she actually does that produces it — feedback methods, how she handles the student who fails a skill check three times, what she says before a first live patient. That's a teaching-practice article, not a warm anecdote.

5. She talks to employers constantly. Advisory boards and externship sites give her real-time signal on what practices actually need. That's a recurring "state of the workforce" franchise.

Suggested pillars: Building the Program (founder authority) · Teaching the Hands (skill pedagogy) · The Student Nobody Bet On (retention and adult learners) · What Practices Actually Need (employer-side workforce commentary) · The Next Five Years (digital dentistry, AI, scope expansion).