Malcolm X College Dental Hygiene Faculty to Teach Hands-On Workshop at City-Wide Dental Meeting

Malcolm X College City Colleges of Chicago

Two Malcolm X College instructors from the Dental Hygiene program will soon be sharing their expertise with industry professionals.

Assistant Professor Dr. Sherece Thompson, DDS and Registered Dental Hygienist Marissa Gora, RDH will be facilitating a lecture and hands-on workshop at the Chicago Dental Society’s 2024 Midwinter Meeting.

Their workshop called X-Out Your X-Ray Errors: Hands-On Workshop to Improve Your Digital Images will teach dental professionals how to improve their radiographic images and correct common mistakes made with dental X-rays.

The Chicago Dental Society’s 2024 Midwinter Meeting will take place February 22-24, 2024 at McCormick Place.

Dr. Thompson is an assistant professor of Health Science & Career Programs – Dental Hygiene and the community outreach coordinator of the Dental Hygiene program at Malcolm X College. She joined City Colleges in 2012.

A woman in a white dental coat smiles. She has short dark brown hair. — Assistant Professor Dr. Sherece Thompson, DDS

Dr. Thompson’s passion for community dental health began when she worked at TCH Health, a federally qualified healthcare center serving Altgeld Gardens, one of the Chicago Public Housing developments on Chicago’s far South Side. She later offered free dental care to patients through the Free People’s Clinic in the basement of a former church building in Garfield Park. Those experiences encouraged her to split her time between her private dental practice and affordable health clinics to make a wider impact. She retired from private practice in 2022, but continues her work at Malcolm X College while serving as a part-time clinical instructor at the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Dentistry and volunteering at the Chicago Dental Society Foundation clinic.

A woman with shoulder length dark hair stands outside smiling brightly. She has on a short sleeve pink and white button down. — Registered Dental Hygienist Marissa Gora, RDH

Gora is a City Colleges alumnus, so it’s a full-circle experience for her to now be an instructor. She attended classes at Daley, Harold Washington, and Malcolm X from 2010-2014. Gora was in the Dental Hygiene program at Kennedy-King from 2014-2016 before becoming an adjunct faculty member at Malcolm X in 2019. Currently, Gora is the first-year clinical coordinator for Malcolm X’s Dental Hygiene program and is in the process of becoming a tenured faculty member.