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, 2010. Residents have time off during the school's winter break, school holidays and an additional 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 will be given the option of participating dental school's medical coverage program, but will be required to participate in the disability coverage program. Malpractice insurance is covered by the School of Dentistry.
For a detailed list of expected areas of resident competency after completion of the program, please see our Competency and Proficiency Statements.
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 Pacific Dental Care Clinic is located in the Thomas J. Long Health Sciences Building. Other programs in the building include the Dental Hygiene, Pharmacy and Physical Therapy programs as well as the Speech, Language and Pathology clinic.
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 at the Stockton and Union City sites have various rotations based on demographic needs of the area.
There is a series of seminars on each aspect of dentistry taught in the program in the areas of endodontics, esthetics, fixed and removable prosthodontics, hospital dentistry, oral and maxillofacial surgery, oral pathology-facial pain, orthodontics, periodontics and treatment planning. Seminar topics also include quality assurance, practice management, literature review, dental emergencies and medical risk assessment.
Residents at both program sites participate in the same seminars via videoconferencing technology.
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, the resident can answer calls at home or use a communicating device which will be supplied to the resident. 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.
After hours, the Union City residents rotate on-call dental school emergencies. The resident is supplied with a cellular phone and receives calls from an answering service. A dental school faculty is the second on-call.
