Comprehensive Care Modules (CCM) have been developed to support the clinical component of the First Professional (DMD) Program curriculum. The modules function in much the same fashion as a private practice.
The program’s clinical facility comprises approximately 92 chairs which are divided into 4 teams and 5 clinics. Students receive individual curricular schedules which support exposure to all disciplines of the profession and include patient care, departmental rotations, community-based care, and independent studies/selective courses. Students benefit from the direct oversight of team leaders who gage progress of individual predoctoral students via regularly scheduled progress meetings with an emphasis toward competency as a general dentist. Predoctoral students enter the modules during the first term of their first year and are able to gain experience with patients prior to being assigned patients during the summer of their second year. Students continue to progress through the CCM until graduation.
To assure uniformity of instruction, training in the Simulation Clinic has been vertically integrated with patient care clinical instruction. This philosophy is maintained from three perspectives. First, the director of the Simulation Clinic is responsible for ensuring that instructional philosophies and dental materials used in the Simulation Clinic are concurrent with what is being taught in the CCM, assuring continuity and uniformity of a student’s clinical education throughout the four years of the First Professional Program. Second, supportive and enthusiastic CCM faculty supervise the treatment of patients in the modules with restorative procedures and treatment planning. Third, CCM faculty, who currently supervise patient care activities, instruct students in the Simulation Clinic to strengthen the integration of clinical and preclinical instruction. This approach provides autonomy of philosophy and dental materials across the didactic, preclinical, and clinical curricula. It is the intention that this repetition of theory will allow for an accelerated path of clinical experience leading to proficiency. In addition, all third- and fourth-year predoctoral students are enrolled in a course titled Clinical Responsibility, which emphasizes professionalism, ethics, preparation for patient care, patient care activity, patient scheduling, patient assignment, business office compliance, and quality assurance procedures.
Other clinical areas where students have experiences include: