Dental Rotations and Didactics
About the rotation sites:
CHA Windsor Street Care Center, located in a multi-purpose community center at 119 Windsor Street in Cambridge, is one of CHA's busiest care centers. Health care services provided include adult and pediatric primary care, mental health services and dentistry. Windsor Street serves as the primary site for outpatient dental care at CHA, with seven dental operatories and over 12,000 annual patient visits.
The Harvard Dental Center (HDC) is the clinical site of the General Practice Residency (GPR) program at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. It is located on the first floor at 188 Longwood Avenue in Boston. This facility is also utilized by the postdoctoral programs and the residents practice side by side with world renowned Harvard faculty. The HDC is a modern facility with 24 dental operatories, a radiology facility, laboratory, sterilization area, reception area and business office.
About the Experience
Building upon existing residencies for dentists and physicians within Harvard-affiliated hospitals, the didactic and clinical experience of general practice dental and medical residents will be interwoven to provide adjunctive training and experience in the provision of limited primary preventive care as oral physicians in addition to responsibilities for dental care.
The GPR curriculum at Cambridge Health Alliance has rotations in Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia and Oral Physician which afford the residents the opportunity to interact with physician residents in providing limited primary care as oral physicians and will also familiarize the medical residents with knowledge and experience about the reciprocal relationship between orofacial and systemic illness. The impact of this program is evaluated for effectiveness, knowledge and attitudes of faculty, staff, residents and patients.
Rotation Descriptions
Anesthesia: This is a two week, full time assignment to the Department of Anesthesiology. Residents participate in the administration of general anesthesia to inpatients and ambulatory surgery patients under direction of a staff anesthesiologist.
Medicine: This is a two week, full time assignment to the Family Medicine Residency to observe and participate in the management of non-dental patients from admission to discharge in accordance with ambulatory care and hospital protocols.
Emergency Medicine: This is a two week, full time assignment to one of the CHA emergency rooms with duties to be assigned by the designated emergency room physician.
Oral Physician: Consists of didactics, case conference and supervised clinical experience at CHA and Harvard affiliated sites including: 1. Case studies to integrate medical, dental and social history with vital signs and physical examination information; 2. Individually monitored exercise in the use and interpretation of electronic patient records; 3. Oral manifestations of local and systemically administered drugs; 4. Pathophysiology and management of the orofacial implications of systemic disease and interventions such as dialysis, radiation and chemotherapy; and 5. Discussion on cultural sensitivity for staff, clinicians and patient care.
Patient Care Activities
Clinical Dental Services: Residents are responsible for the comprehensive and emergency dental care of patients at both the Windsor Street Health Center (a total of 6 months) and the Harvard Dental Center (a total of 3 months) interspersed throughout the year. They are supervised by full-time and voluntary part-time dental staff, both general dentists and specialists, all of whom are faculty of Harvard. The clinical schedules are typically from 8:30am to Noon and from 1:00pm to 5:00pm at HSDM and 8:30am to 12:15pm and 1:15pm to 5:00pm (with some early evening and Saturday hours interspersed) at the Windsor Clinic.
After Hours On-call Duty: Each resident is required to perform emergency first call duties for the Cambridge Health Alliance hospitals on a rotational basis. Program faculty members provide second call service on a rotational basis as well.
Didactic Program
GPR Seminars are held throughout the year. Topics span all the various medical/dental and public health disciplines including literature review and case presentation. Some are arranged specifically for the residents and some are ongoing presentations in which the residents participate.