The Faculty of Dentistry operates and maintains an excellent, state-of-the-art clinical facility in support of all of the clinical programs. The main undergraduate clinic provides over 150 individual, dental cubicles which are assigned to senior students for their dedicated use during the academic year, and shared by first and second year students for pre-clinical and patient care activities. Students have the opportunity to work with clinical faculty members representing every dental specialty, as well as general practitioners. The dental chairs are set up to facilitate the use of state-of-the-art phantom/mannequin heads for pre-clinical skill training. A full range of dental, support personnel are employed to assist and support the students in their clinical experiences including dispensary, radiology, nursing, stores, reception and accounting services. A full-time dental assistant supports every group of eight students, sterilization of all patient care instruments is provided by full time staff. The clinic facilities are continually maintained by full time, professional, dental technicians.
Specialty clinics are designed to support oral diagnosis, radiology instruction, oral surgical treatment, implant treatment procedures, TMD, and periodontic surgery clinics. A recall and emergency clinic provides continuity of patient care. The graduate program in Prosthodontics clinic features an adjacent, eight station, KaVo dental laboratory. Included in these clinics is the Dr. J.D.McLean Centre, a clinic jointly developed and supported by the Faculty of Dentistry and the dental industry. It includes the best dental cubicle and support equipment available in dentistry today.
The Faculty of Dentistry also operates two outreach dentistry clinics in public elementary schools in the area, providing community dentistry experiences for students and access to dental care for school age children and others in the community.
Open to the public, the dentistry clinics plan treatment for approximately 1800 new patients annually. Each student is provided with a family of dentistry patients, and students in the D.D.S. and dental hygiene programs will provide patient care for approximately 10,000 patients each year. The Faculty of Dentistry clinics have a recall list of 50,000 patients. Care is provided at a reduced rate compared to general dentists in the area to encourage the public to seek care at the Faculty clinics.
The Faculty maintains a full service, professional dental laboratory, providing students with the opportunity to work directly with dental laboratory technicians representing most of the specialty areas as, including implants, orthodontics, prosthodontics and aesthetics.
The Faculty clinics have state-of-the-art electronic patient record systems. In the Fall of 2006, first year students will be provided with a powerful laptop computer configured to access their patients electronic records, including digital radiographs, in their clinic cubicle. For appointment and study purposes, students will have access to the clinic charts for their own patient family from home or campus study areas. The system will provide interactive access to current prescription drug information and all textbooks in electronic, searchable text.
The Faculty of Dentistry at Dalhousie University has been providing public dental care as part of its educational programs for nearly 100 years. Our graduates receive an excellent and broad clinical experience that provides well-recognized and outstanding reference to internship and graduate programs in all disciplines anywhere in North America.