Dental Residency Program

Comprehensive Course of Study
Sacred Heart’s Dental Residency Program provides fully accredited training which incorporates all fields of medicine and dentistry. As a dental resident, you will develop the full range of skills needed to evaluate, plan and treat patients in a variety of clinical settings.

Gain clinical and educational experience in the following areas:

- Operative Dentistry
- Endodontics
- Pediatric Dentistry
- Orthodontics
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
- Prosthetics
- Special Care Patients
- Internal Medicine
- Family Practice
- Emergency Care Unit
- General Anesthesia and Pain Control
- Pathology
- Radiology

Sacred Heart’s instructors are dedicated to helping you fulfill your career goals. You will receive chairside and didactic instruction from a team of volunteer dentists who serve the local community as private practitioners. The Dental Center has three dental assistants, a full-time dental hygentist and a full-time receptionist, who are supervised by the Program Director.

Program Schedule and Educational Opportunities
The 52-week program challenges dental residents with a variety of learning experiences. In addition to full-time clinical practice duties, residents will be responsible for inpatient management and hospital rotations. Experience will also include the management of special care patients such as medically compromised individuals and handicapped persons.

Patients at the center include Sacred Heart employees, inpatients and members of the local community. Sacred Heart Hospital is committed to local school children who do not have access to dental care. The dental residents provide free dental care to many children in the local school district who have no form of dental insurance. This is a unique opportunity to gain experience with the pediatric dental population.Sacred Heart dental residents have the flexibility to attend continuing education programs, conferences, seminars and lectures free of charge.

Program Philosophy and Residency Objectives

• Provide clinical, didactic and hospital experience
• Prepare residents to diagnose oral and maxillofacial diseases and provide dental care in the context of each patient’s total health care needs
• Build communication skills which enable residents to function effectively with other health care professionals in a variety of settings
• Teach residents to plan and provide both routine and complex dental care
• Develop confidence in all stages of patient care
• Build skills to treat patients with systemic disorders, including those with physical and behavioral problems
• Increase competency in diagnostic sciences, preventative and restorative dentistry, periodontics, endodontics, oral surgery, pain and anxiety control, emergency medical and dental care, and medical risk assessment
• Offer insight to dental and surgical care
• Teach management skills in the care of inpatients or same-day surgery patients
• Demonstrate hospital organization and function
• Discuss the importance of maintaining hospital privileges after residency, and continuing dental and medical education
• Develop skills needed to operate and manage a private dental practice

Resident Pictures