Challenges to Integrating Oral Health into a Medical School Curriculum and Family Medicine Residency Training Program

The 2000 Surgeon General's Report on Oral Health in America highlighted disparities in Oral Health (OH) status and stated that the mouth reflected general health and well being. Since then, there has been a movement towards increased integration between medicine and oral health to improve patient outcomes and increase access to diagnostic and preventive services. One approach to improving children's access to oral health services is to integrate effective preventive and screening services into primary care settings, where children have more frequent, regular contact during early childhood. This lecture will describe an oral health training program whose ultimate goals are to increase access to oral health services for children in underserved communities, institutionalize OH training into medical and resident education, and produce Family Medicine physicians competent in integrating OH into future practice. The challenges encountered in designing and implementing the clinical, teaching and evaluation components of the program will be reviewed. Existing policy and politics on both a national and local level have impact on the development of this OH program.