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Pre-doctoral Training in General, Pediatric & Public Health Dentistry and Dental Hygiene

FY2011Abstracts

Minnesota

Children’s Dental Services
Project Director: Sarah Wovcha
636 Broadway Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Phone:  (612) 746-1530 ext. 204
Fax:  (612) 746-1531
Grant number: D85HP22650

Under the Pre-doctoral Training in General, Pediatric or Public Health Dentistry, and Dental Hygiene (HRSA-10-262) training program, Children’s Dental Services (CDS) requests $495,560 to support the expansion of clinical training opportunities for twenty-five dental hygiene students across Minnesota.  CDS will provide hands-on training to 20 Restorative Expanded Functions students and 5 Advanced Dental Hygiene students annually, expanding the public health dental workforce by 125 dental hygienists over 5 years.  Children’s Dental Services, an independent non-profit agency, has provided dental care to low-income youth since 1919 and is committed to improving the oral health of children from families with low-incomes by providing accessible treatment, education, and training across Minnesota.  Training to dental hygiene students will take place at portable clinical locations using innovative portable dental equipment across the state, including in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Cloud, Duluth, Iron Range, and International Falls/Canadian border regions.   As a direct result of this project, 5,000 additional low-income children and pregnant women will receive culturally targeted dental care each year, increasing the number of underserved children and pregnant women to 25,000 served by Children’s Dental Services over five years.  

North Carolina

East Carolina University
CODE: Creating Opportunities for Dental Education
Project Director: Dr. Margaret Wilson
Lakeside Annex #7, MS 701
Greenville, NC 27834
Phone: (252) 737-7210
Fax: (252) 737-7049
Grant number: D85HP22651

The School of Dental Medicine (SODM) at East Carolina University (ECU) proposes to develop a program that will provide financial assistance for students from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. This program - Creating Opportunities for Dental Education - (CODE) will support the recruitment and training of students from rural areas, from disadvantaged backgrounds, and from underrepresented minority populations. Funding for the project will assist students, who for financial reasons, might otherwise have to delay or forfeit their entry into the Doctor of Dental Medicine program. The project will also enhance the diversity of the dental workforce in North Carolina, while increasing access to oral health care services within communities of need and supporting comprehensive economic development efforts in North Carolina.

The SODM at ECU was established to specifically address the shortage and uneven distribution of dentists in regions of North Carolina. Moreover, the dental work force lacks diversity, when compared with the state population. Central to the mission of the School is to recruit, admit, enroll and graduate talented individuals who reflect the diversity of today’s society, provide them with the best possible dental education, and encourage them to become primary care dentists, serving in communities of need throughout the state of North Carolina.
Commitment to service, moral obligations to society and cultural competency are themes that pervade the curriculum and organizational culture. The curriculum is specifically structured to prepare general dentists to serve in areas where they will not have ready access to specialists for referrals. In the fourth year of the Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) program, students will spend the majority of their time providing care for patients in Community Service Learning Centers (CSLCs), located in rural and underserved areas across the state. A substantial portion of the students’ learning experiences will take place in the very same communities where graduates will be educated to serve as primary care dentists. Dental students’ experiences in caring for underserved patients in community-based settings positively impact the students’ commitment to providing service for underserved patients in their practices.

Health professionals who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or are members of under-represented minorities are more likely to provide care in communities of need. At the same time, these students face disproportionately greater cultural, educational and financial challenges. Student indebtedness presents the most significant barrier to dental graduates entering practice within communities of need, where projected compensation expectations are lower. Providing a steady stream of sizeable financial support for students during their four years in the DMD program will substantially reduce the degree of debt the students will need to incur. Reducing the debt burden on students will lessen the impact of financial considerations on their practice plans, and facilitate their ability to practice in communities of need.
Funding for the CODE Scholarship program for rural, disadvantaged and underrepresented minority students will allow the School of Dental Medicine at East Carolina to further leverage its unique educational and patient care model to achieve its commitment to increasing the students’ access to dental education, while enriching the diversity of the dental profession and increasing oral health access for all North Carolinians.

Ohio

Case Western Reserve University
Project Director: Dr. Sena Narendran
10900 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106
Phone: (216) 368-1311
Fax: (216) 368-5888
Grant number: D85HP22649

The need to augment the dental public health infrastructure at local, state, and national levels has been identified by various stakeholders. The goal of Northeastern Ohio Predoctoral Training in Dental Public Health (NEOPREDPH) program is to provide additional training to dental students. The proposed pre-doctoral training consists of two components: i) a combined Doctor of Dental Medicine/Master’s in Public Health (DMD/MPH) degree program through which dental students could earn an MPH degree in addition to their DMD, and ii) Family First Program where all the second year dental students will learn to assess risk for certain oral diseases (dental caries, periodontal diseases, and oral cancer) in underserved populations; supplemented with small group seminars on population health, cultural competency, health literacy, risk assessment, and oral-systemic health link. Dental students interested in pursuing a career in dental public health will be able to earn a Master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) administered by the School of Medicine at CWRU, which would entail an additional 12 months of didactic activities. 

Dental students wishing to pursue the DMD/MPH degree could choose one of the following options for their designated MPH year of training: 1) Before they start the DMD training; 2) between years 1 and 2 of the regular DMD curriculum, 3) between years 2 and 3 of the regular DMD curriculum, or 4) at the end of the fourth year. It may not be pragmatic for the dental students to take a year off to pursue the MPH program between years 3 and 4 of the DMD curriculum because of issues related to continuity of patient care. Students in the combined degree program will have the option of choosing one of the four available majors. The purpose of the Family First program is to increase dental students’ cultural sensitivity and their awareness of health literacy, by performing risk assessment for certain oral diseases among underserved populations. 

The family units/patients will be recruited from East Cleveland, an underserved area in Cuyahoga County, located in close proximity to the Case School of Dental Medicine. All sophomore dental students will participate in the Family First program and the program would also serve as a pipeline for the DMD/MPH program, as a result increased awareness of social determinants of oral health through cultural competency and health literacy seminars as well as exposure to vulnerable populations. 

The primary training site will be the School of Dental Medicine at CWRU, with extramural sites in Ohio and Michigan. The training sites have been carefully chosen to increase residents’ cultural sensitivity and understanding, particularly about two underrepresented minority groups: African-Americans and Hispanics. The program will make a concerted effort to recruit trainees from the aforementioned minority groups, and the trainees will be working with the homeless and migrant farm workers. Appropriate quantitative and qualitative assessments will ensure the success of the proposed program.