Dental Public Health Residency Training in Community Based Settings

Community based organizations such as community health centers are assuming a greater role in the training of the health professions workforce, including oral health professionals.  Much of the training is at the undergraduate level, where dental and dental hygiene students take brief rotations at community health centers where they gain experience providing dental care to underserved populations.  However community-based training of dentists at the post-graduate level, such as in advanced general dentistry and specialty programs, occurs less frequently.

 Lutheran Medical Center (LMC) has developed an innovative dental residency model that offers advanced general dentistry and specialty training that is based at community health centers rather than at dental schools or hospitals.  In 2014, LMC enrolled nearly 400 dental residents, mostly in the primary care disciplines of general and pediatric dentistry. These residents received their training at over 150 LMC-affiliated community health centers.  This past year LMC gained initial accreditation for a new Dental Public Health (DPH) residency that was adapted to this established model of community-based training.

 This session describes our experience implementing the DPH program during its first year with an enrollment of 7 residents. Major program strengths are described, such as a scalable training model, a stable funding source that allows payment of stipends to all residents, multiple training sites that promote recruitment, and the benefits that accrue to the host health center. Program challenges are also discussed, such as the need to provide didactic coursework over distance and the dearth of public health-trained faculty at training sites.