Two RSDM Students Receive NJLEND Fellowship
Chao Chen and Maha Ibrahim of the Class of 2023 have been awarded New Jersey’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (NJLEND) fellowship. They are the first RSDM students to participate in the program.
“There were numerous students from across RBHS, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, and the School of Social Work that applied,” said Vice Dean Kim Fenesy. “We did hear terrific feedback on how impressed the interviewers were with our dental students, noting they were amongst the top in terms of their background and the caliber of their answers. I am very much looking forward towards this upcoming year as an NJLEND faculty member, lecturer, and mentor within this terrific fellowship opportunity.”
NJLEND brings together Rutgers graduate and doctoral students across disciplines as well as those with lived experiences, such as family members and advocates. The fellows attend weekly lectures, do clinical trainings, have one-on-one mentorship with a faculty member, and complete a leadership capstone project.
NJLEND at RSDM is part of the school’s Special Care Dentistry Honors program, which awards students with a distinction in special care at graduation.
Chao Chen is an NJLEND fellow and a DMD candidate at RSDM.
Chen and Ibrahim will undergo a nine-month interdisciplinary training to learn about the needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), related developmental disabilities, and other maternal and child health populations. They will then apply this knowledge to serve patients with special needs and improve their oral health.
“The moment I saw it was for children with autism, that got me really interested,” said Chen, a microbiologist turned dental student. “I feel like this [program] will give me a very wholesome perspective on how to approach patients.” After graduation, Chen aspires to go into private practice. “I just really want to be competent in treating special needs patients culturally and clinically.”
A Chinese native, she also wants to help her community, where she observed families of children with autism might experience barriers to dental care access and tend to visit practitioners from the same cultural background. “I’d like to feel comfortable seeing patients with ASD and welcome them to my office.”
In her NJLEND project, Chen hopes to focus on oral health “because it’s an integral part of our overall health.”
Maha Ibrahim, an NJLEND fellow, is currently pursuing her degree in RSDM’s internationally educated DMD program.
Ibrahim agreed. She wants to help caregivers and patients with basic oral hygiene. “When special needs patients need a really long treatment, sometimes it's so difficult to do it,” she said. “So, preventing the disease before it happens is a big goal for me.”
Another goal of hers is to specialize in pediatric dentistry after completing the internationally educated DMD program. Ibrahim holds a DDS from Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon.
“The best thing that I had as a work experience in Lebanon was treating patients with special needs,” she said. “I was so happy that there was something like this program, and especially because it will be with other health care professions, not just dental school [students].”
Like Chen, Ibrahim believes this interdisciplinary training will give her a unique understanding of communicating and taking care of patients with ASD. It will also be a way for her to get involved in the community—something she longed for during the pandemic.
“I wanted to volunteer, help with the community that I will be part of next year as a dentist,” she said, “and then to get closer to actual patients with special needs.”
