Admissions and Programs
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Program Description

Overview

The University of the Pacific School of Dentistry has two sites for its Advanced Education in General Dentistry Program. The Union City site is located approximately 35 miles Southeast of San Francisco. The Stockton site is located on the University of the Pacific's main campus in the Thomas J. Long Health Sciences Building. The facilities in these sites are described below.

The AEGD program at both sites consists of a one-year, accredited postgraduate residency in general dentistry with an optional second year. The core of the program involves providing advanced clinical treatment to patients requiring comprehensive general dental care. Stockton residents provide comprehensive dental care along with supplemented seminars and rotations and work with dental hygiene students in the dental combined hygiene and dental services community clinic.

There is an opportunity to gain more in-depth training in an optional accredited second year residency training program. The second year allows greater flexibility to pursue individual interests, advanced clinical cases, teaching, or research projects.

The start date for the program is July 1, 2009. Residents have time off during the school's Christmas break, school holidays and 10 days of leave that can be scheduled with the approval of the site director.

There are no tuition requirements to participate in either site. First-year residents receive an educational stipend of $25,000 per year which is paid bi-monthly over a 12-month period.

Residents are required to participate in the School of Dentistry student health and disability programs. Malpractice insurance is covered by the School of Dentistry.

Program Goals

  1. Provide high-quality, comprehensive general dental care for healthy and medically compromised patients.
  2. Integrate all phases of dentistry in a manner suitable for providing dental care to healthy and medically compromised patients.
  3. Be able to act as the primary dental care provider for a group of healthy and medically compromised patients and to control and direct the services of dental specialists and other health practitioners appropriately.
  4. Interact with a variety of health professionals and social agencies to coordinate dental services with other care for individuals with complex medical, emotional, and social backgrounds.
  5. Function effectively in a hospital setting.

For a detailed list of expected areas of resident competency after completion of the program, please see our Competency and Proficiency Statements.

Physical Facilities

The Union City site is located at the University of the Pacific's Union City Dental Care Center. The clinic has a private practice setting and is located 35 miles Southeast of San Francisco. In addition to being close to San Francisco, Union City is near Yosemite Valley, the Sierra Mountains and San Jose. The clinic is a state-of-the-art 13-chair facility which was completed April 2002. Prior to this time, the clinic was an unaccredited Advanced Clinical Education residency and served the community for close to 30 years.

The Stockton site is located at the University of the Pacific Main Campus in Stockton and located in the Central Valley of California, approximately a 2 hour drive from San Francisco. The clinic is in the Health Sciences Learning Center, which includes the Dental Hygiene program as well as the Speech and Pathology clinic.

Clinical Dentistry

There is specialty supervision available in endodontics, esthetics, implants, orthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, periodontics, and fixed and removable prosthodontics. There is also supervised dental care for special patients with developmental disabilities or severe medical problems and geriatric individuals.

In addition to the specialties listed above, there is an emphasis placed on patient management with specific instruction in working with fearful dental patients, using nitrous oxide and other sedatives, providing dental care in the hospital operating room with general anesthesia, and managing patients with oral lesions and facial pain. Also, residents are given the opportunity to co-instruct and supervise dental students during their clinical rotation in the AEGD clinics.

Residents work with dental staff members in the management of their practices and the delivery of dental services. Instruction is provided in four-handed dentistry techniques and practice management concepts.

Rotations

Rotations at the Stockton and Union City sites each feature hospital dentistry experiences in their county hospital where wher they work on a variety of patients. The Union City residents spend time in a community clinic treating diverse populations and perform pediatric dentistry. Our Stockton residents are assigned twice a month at a community clinic where preventative, restorative, endodontics and oral surgery procedures are performed on patients who are indigent and un-insured in the Central Valley. Regular patient care will still be scheduled at the clinic and the residents are expect to return to the clinic.

Seminars

During the year, residents may also attend medical specialty clinics, medical seminars and other hospital sponsored lectures. In addition, lectures are conducted in the dental school by physicians and dentists in various specialties. We offer an Implant Restorative Lecture series which a certificate is given at completion. We have also offered Invisalign training and certification.

After-Hours Emergencies

After office hours and on weekends, one resident from each site is assigned to see patients who have dental emergencies. At times when the resident is not in the dental clinics, he or she can answer calls on a citywide pager. The resident may also spend time in the hospital emergency room. During that time, the resident will have an opportunity not only to treat dental emergencies but also to observe the management of patients with medical emergencies.