DMD Program: Course of Study

First Year | Second Year | Third Year | Fourth Year | Selectives

Fourth-Year Curriculum
The fourth-year curriculum continues to expand the intellectual and clinical experiences of students, including a four-week hospital externship. Part of the externship requirement may be fulfilled in affiliated institutions in other countries. By graduation, students will have demonstrated competence, confidence, and maturity to qualify as safe, beginning, general dental practitioners.

Health Promotion Practicum
Clinical experiences provide students with the opportunity to apply knowledge and develop competencies related to oral health promotion and disease prevention activities with individual patients in the clinics at Penn Dental Medicine.

Adjunctive Orthodontics Clinic
Adjunctive orthodontic intervention involves the management of orthodontic problems prior to restorative treatment. Each student is required to complete the treatment of a clinical case which may involve the following:

1. Repositioning teeth that have drifted after extraction or bone loss caused by periodontal disease
2. Forced eruption of broken teeth to expose sound root structure on which to place permanent restorations
3. Correction of crossbites which do not involve a skeletal discrepancy
4. Alignment of anterior teeth for more esthetic restorations

Restorative Dentistry Clinic
Comprehensive care is defined as the overall patient care delivery system that includes all dental services, including emergency care, treatment planning, general dentistry, specialty care, and maintenance programs. The delivery of such care revolves around the Primary Care Unit (PCU) Program. Within each unit, third- and fourth-year students perform examination and diagnostic procedures, comprehensive treatment planning, all restorative dental procedures, fixed and removable prosthodontic procedures, including implant supported restorations, non-surgical periodontal procedures, and maintenance therapy. The PCU program goal is to produce a practitioner who can integrate basic science knowledge with clinical proficiency in all phases of general dentistry, based on the concept of recognition and treatment of oral disease.

Pediatric Dentistry Clinic
This clinic exposes the student to many components of pediatric dentistry, including but not limited to diagnosis, prevention, restorative dentistry, pulp therapy, management of the developing occlusion, behavior guidance, and care of special children. Penn Dental Medicine competency statements, as they apply to children, adolescents, and special needs patients are the focus.

Endodontics Clinic
The Endodontic Clinic trains predoctoral students to become competent in basic endodontic procedures on vital and non-vital teeth. This includes instruction in diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment/obturation, post-endodontic restoration and related entities (bleaching of non-vital teeth, treatment of traumatic injuries, etc.).

Admissions and Emergency Clinic
The Admissions and Emergency Care Clinic rotation consists of combined rotations in the Emergency Care Clinic and the Oral Diagnosis Clinic. The Emergency Care Clinic provides emergency care to 'walk-in' non-registered patients. Emphasis is placed on efficient and thorough dental care to ensure that the patient receives the highest quality of emergency dental care in a timely manner. Students gain knowledge and experience in emergency care of the dental patient.

The Admissions or Oral Diagnosis Clinic provides an initial evaluation for Penn Dental Medicine patients who register for comprehensive care on an appointment basis. Students that rotate through the Oral Diagnosis Clinic assess the medical and oral health status of the patients. Additionally, the medical status of all patients (except ASA I patients) are reassessed annually in the Oral Diagnosis Clinic.

Oral Surgery Clinic
Students perform uncomplicated exodontia and minor pre-prosthetic surgical procedures that are approved by the clinical instructors, assist the instructors in complicated surgical procedures, and observe the administration of intravenous sedation and general anesthesia.

Radiology Clinic
Students are assigned 12-15 rotations in the Radiology Clinic during their third and fourth years. During their rotations, they take full-mouth x-ray series on newly admitted patients who are sent to Radiology from the Admissions Clinic.

Periodontics Clinic
The Periodontics Clinic provides third and fourth year students the opportunity to treat patients with differences of severity in existing periodontal disease. In most cases, the patients afford the students adequate experiences and impart to them comprehensive knowledge of the tissues of the periodontium and the fundamental principles underlying the prevention and treatment of diseases that afflict the periodontal tissues.

Hospital Assignment
Students spend four weeks of their senior year in an extramural program. This time must take place in an affiliated hospital or a non-affiliated hospital program approved by the Associate Dean for Hospital Affairs. During the hospital rotation, students evaluate hospitalized patients to reinforce principles of physical and laboratory diagnosis, participate in dental treatment for patients with severe medical problems, and learn to request and answer consultations from other clinical departments such as radiology and otolaryngology.

Clinic Seminar
The seminar is an open forum discussion in which students make case presentations, after which the diagnosis, treatment plan, and therapy are analyzed and evaluated. Initially, the PCU leader presents cases in order to establish the proper method of case presentation; thereafter, it is the student's responsibility to present thoroughly documented cases which include photographic slides of pretreatment, a complete dental and medical evaluation, study models, radiographs, and other pertinent data.

Practicum in Community Oral Health
Experiences in alternate oral health care delivery settings provide students with the opportunity to develop and expand their skills in providing comprehensive oral health care in community based settings under the direct supervision of faculty members. Students are scheduled in the mobile dental vehicle, PennSmiles, and are also scheduled at Community Volunteers in Medicine, a community based medical and dental treatment facility in West Chester, PA. Students attend small group seminars to discuss their experiences and theoretical underpinnings of community oral health activities.

Senior Honors Program
The senior honors program is available for outstanding senior students who complete their graduation requirements early. This program allows students to continue active learning in specialty areas of dentistry, including clinical rotations in implant or pediatric dentistry, a clinical education program, or an independent research project.