School of Dentistry students awarded in national video contest

Could Kaiser and Smyth be a modern-day Abbott and Costello, or the next Penn and Teller?

Probably not. This parodying pair has performed to ensure there’s no funny business in their profession.

Third-year University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry students Kevin Kaiser and Liam Smyth won the grand prize in the American Dental Association’s Student Ethics Video Contest. When the two heard the news, it drew plenty of laughs.

“Neither one of us had made a video before,” Kaiser said and chuckled in the school canteen as he discussed their national recognition.

“We did it to get out of writing a paper,” Smyth said and snickered.

The two friends plotted the video when they were driving back from a week-long clinical rotation in Hillsboro, Missouri, a rural community outside their hometowns in the St. Louis area.

Since 2010, the ADA has annually sponsored the video contest to draw student attention to the ethical dilemmas that dental students and professional dentists might encounter, and provide an exercise focusing on appropriate responses based on the ADA Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct.

Kaiser and Smyth wrote a rough script and filmed the piece on an iPhone in the school’s Innovation Clinic, a test and simulation lab for students to get hands-on experience with the latest in state-of-the-art equipment. The UMKC School of Dentistry is one of just a few dental schools in the nation to have this type of clinic.

The video was decent — except the audio. They spent hours with editing equipment, dubbing voice overs so the sound matched their mouth movement.

“It was pretty hilarious,” Smyth said.

The ADA must have appreciated their efforts; its Council on Ethics, Bylaws and Judicial Affairs announced Kaiser and Smyth’s 4-minute-20-second video “To Treat or Not to Treat” won the main category. The video focuses on the ADA Code sections of nonmaleficence (doing no harm), justice and veracity. It features Smyth as a dentist — who checks his Facebook page when he should be examining X-rays — and Kaiser as the patient.

The two are splitting the $2,500 prize. Kaiser plans to use it for his upcoming wedding or for his additional education — he soon will become an orthodontics resident. Smyth plans to use it toward his education, too.

Smyth and Kaiser hope to collaborate again in the future. Only this time, professionally, and on what they’re trained for: oral care. They hope to give each other referrals.