Dental Residency Goals, Length, and Rotations

Goals & Objectives

Advanced Education Programs in General Practice Residency are educational programs designed to provide training beyond the level of pre-doctoral education in oral healthcare, using applied basic and behavioral sciences. Education in these programs is based on the concept that oral health is an integral and interactive part of total health. MAHEC’s residency training is designed to expand the scope and depth of the graduates’ knowledge and skills to enable them to provide comprehensive oral healthcare to a wide range of population groups.

1. Act as a primary care provider for individuals and groups of patients. This includes: providing emergency and multidisciplinary comprehensive oral healthcare; providing patient focused care that is coordinated by the general practitioner; directing health promotion and disease prevention activities, and using advanced dental treatment modalities.
2. Plan and provide multidisciplinary oral healthcare for a wide variety of patients including patients with special needs.
3. Manage the delivery of oral healthcare by applying concepts of patient and practice management and quality improvement that are responsive to a dynamic health care environment.
4. Function effectively within the hospital and other healthcare environments.
5. Function effectively within interdisciplinary healthcare teams.
6. Apply scientific principles to learning and oral healthcare. This includes using critical thinking, evidence or outcomes-based clinical decision-making and technology-based information retrieval systems.
7. Utilize the values of professional ethics, lifelong learning, patient centered care, adaptability, and acceptance of cultural diversity in professional practice.
8. Understand the oral health needs of communities and engage in community service.

Definition of Community Service

The dental residents will have an opportunity to contribute to the oral health of the under privileged and elderly citizens of Western North Carolina through rotations at Public Health Service clinics.

Program Length

The GPR Program consists of 12 months of advanced dental education in clinical dentistry and is conducted primarily within a private practice environment but also with hospital experience at Mission Hospital. An optional second GPR year is available on a competitive basis. This latter position is generally limited to two positions per year and is dependent upon qualifications.

The program begins July 1st and concludes June 30th of the following year. Residents are required to come two weeks in June for organizational and program orientations for which they are financially compensated.

Rotations

MAHEC Dental Health Center

Residents spend approximately 65% of their year at the Dental Health Center, where the majority of time is spent providing hands-on comprehensive patient treatment. This time is spread out during the entire year to assure continuity of care. During this time residents gain a wide variety of experiences by providing complex dental treatment for primarily ambulatory patients. Opportunities exist for providing comprehensive dental care, including fixed and removable prosthodontics, implant restoration, rotary endodontics, periodontics, implant placement, oral surgery, and advanced esthetic operative dentistry. Residents also gain extensive experience in management of patients with complex medical conditions.

Anesthesia - 70 Hours

During this rotation, residents actively participate in the care of surgery patients via assignment to the Department of Anesthesiology at Mission Hospital. Residents receive experience in physical evaluation of the pre-anesthetic patient, starting and maintaining intravenous lines, oral and nasal intubation, monitoring vital signs, maintaining optimum airways, utilizing various equipment/instrumentation for monitoring the anesthetized patient, and patient recovery.

Family Medicine - 70 Hours

The residents will be assigned to a block rotation in the Family Practice Service inpatient and Family Health Center rotation with a PGY 2 or PGY 3 resident physician in the Family Medicine Asheville Residency Program. This will include on call assignments and emergency room coverage as now provided by the Family Medicine Asheville Program.

Community Rotation - 64 Hours

The residents will spend two weeks at community-based or public health centers providing dental care to a dentally underserved population. During this time they will perform both comprehensive and emergency treatment for patients of all ages. They will work side-by-side with dedicated general dentists and oral surgeons serving these populations.

Pediatric Hospital Rotation - 40 Hours

The residents will spend a total of 40 hours providing same-day dental treatment to pediatric dental patients under general anesthesia at the Asheville Same Day Surgery Center.

Didactics

The residents receive formal courses in Physical Diagnosis and Minimal Oral Conscious Sedation (18 hours). Approximately 70 hours of lectures are given in all specialties of dentistry, dental material, practice management, and infection control. Residents are eligible to attend all MAHEC sponsored Dental Continuing Education programs as well as relevant conferences at Mission Hospital, with Director approval.