Murray Dickson, DDS, DPed, MPH
Murray has worked in community health and oral health promotion in marginalized communities locally and internationally for several decades. As a CUSO cooperant, he and his family lived for two-year periods in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Mozambique. He twice evaluated a national dental training program in Cambodia, and has been a member of the project monitoring team for an HIV/AIDS control project in Kenya. Currently he is training consultant for the Training for Health Renewal Program (THRP), a partnership between the University of Saskatchewan and Mozambique’s Ministry of Health. Within THRP, he coordinated the development and implementation of two (12 month) ‘training of trainers’ courses called ‘participatory teaching, learning and research’ which aims to improve community health teaching and practice in Mozambique. Author of Where There Is No Dentist, now published in more than 20 languages, he is an associate of the PRHPRC and part time faculty in the College of Dentistry.
Health promotion and specific research/practice interests
They centre on relating health promotion with primary health care via experiential learning so that health professionals acquire more encompassing views and more empowering approaches to pursuing community health development. A critical methodology is participatory-action research (PAR) whereby health professionals learn with local communities and thereafter work together on issues and underlying factors that are affecting both community well-being and the existing health system. An ever-present desire is to relate such things to dentistry and move its institutional thinking and forms of practice.
Centre projects currently working on
Documentation of the Training of Trainers courses and, with the facilitation team in Mozambique, design of additional courses and a distance education concept for the country that will first be piloted in the province where our training centre is located.
Publications/reports
Dickson, M., Abegg, C. (2000). Desafios e Oportunidades para a Promocao de Saude Bucal. Chapter in Promocao de Saude Bucal na Clinica Odontologica. Editora Artes Medicas Ltda, Brasil.
Dickson, Murray (1999). Pasantia: A Living Pedagogy. Monograph of the Prairie Region Health Promotion Research Centre, University of Saskatchewan.
Dickson, M., Dunn-Pierce, T., Rosenbloom, J. (1996) Pasantia: a process for engaging communities in dialogue. Canadian Journal of Community Dentistry 11(1), 12-15.
Dickson, M., Mautsch, W. (1996). The Primary Health Care Approach. Chapter in Community Oral Health. Butterworth-Heinemann Limited.
Dickson, M. (1995). Oral Health Promotion and Participatory Research in Dentistry. Chapter in Promoting Oral Health in Deprived Communities. German Foundation for International Development.
Dickson, M. (1993). Oral Health Promotion in Developing Countries. Chapter in Oral Health Promotion. Oxford University Press.
Dickson, M. (1983). Where There Is No Dentist. The Hesperian Foundation.
