General Practice Dentistry Residency Program Curriculum: Rotations

Residents are on call one week, every eight weeks, to evaluate and treat dental emergencies and traumas, and to perform inpatient consultations. Residents rotate on-call one week at a time, and call is taken from home. There also is an oral surgeon on call for resident consultation on serious facial trauma.

Anesthesia Rotation

The resident will take a two-week course of instruction in anesthesia and will be exposed to most types of anesthesia and resuscitative techniques under the direct supervision of the department of anesthesia.

The anesthesia rotation consists of a minimum of 70 hours in the ambulatory surgical unit and operating rooms. The resident reports each morning to the anesthesiologist on-call and follows his/her direction for the session. Prior to starting this rotation, residents will have received virtual training in IV insertion.

Objectives of anesthesia rotation

Your supervised clinical experience will include:

• Preoperative evaluation
• Assessment of the effects of behavioral and pharmacologic techniques
• Venipuncture technique
• Patient monitoring
• Airway management and intubation
• Administration of pharmacologic agents
• Understanding of anesthetic agents and their effects
• Prevention and treatment of any anesthetic emergencies
• Assessment of patient recovery from anesthesia

Didactic training will include preoperative evaluation, assessment of the effect of pharmacologic agents, venipuncture technique and administration of IV agents, patient monitoring, anesthetic induction and intubation, administration of anesthetic agents, prevention and treatment of anesthetic emergencies, and assessment of patient recovery from anesthesia.

Emergency Medicine Rotation

This rotation will familiarize the resident with hospital protocol in treating emergency patients. He or she will assist the attending physician in all aspects of emergency care, with particular attention to oral trauma and infection. The resident will learn to suture both intra-oral and extra-oral tissues.

The emergency room rotation consists of 36 hours in the ER under the direct supervision of the emergency department attendings. This will allow residents to anticipate, diagnose and treat medical emergencies that may occur during dental treatment.

Objectives of emergency medicine rotation

At the completion of this rotation, the resident will be able to:

• Identify hospital protocols for treatment of medical emergencies, including triage, history and physical examination, diagnostic tests and treatment rendered
• Gain knowledge/skill to review a medical history to recognize factors which predispose a patient to systemic emergency during dental treatment
• Gain knowledge/skill to diagnose the primary systemic abnormalities in a patient with a medical emergency
• Obtain and interpret a patient’s chief complaint and medical and social history, as well as review symptoms
• Obtain and interpret clinical and diagnostic data from other health care providers used in the diagnosis of oral and systematic diseases
• Use the services of clinical, medical and pathology laboratories
• Perform a history and physical evaluation along with the collection of other data necessary to establish a medical assessment

Family Practice/Internal Medicine Rotation

The resident will become familiar with the care and management of patients with various systematic diseases and will perform complete history and physical examinations with emphasis on the head and neck areas.

This rotation consists of 36 hours with the family practice or internal medicine residents and attending physicians. The dental resident will report to the rotation each assigned day and meet with the senior resident. Daily activities include the morning report, rounds with residents and lectures.

Objectives/Outcomes of Training

The program will provide formal instruction and supervised clinical experience in physical evaluation and medical risk assessment, including:

• Obtaining and interpreting a patient’s chief complaint and medical and social history, as well as review symptoms
• Obtaining and interpreting clinical and diagnostic data from other health care providers used in the diagnosis of oral and systematic diseases
• Using the services of clinical, medical and pathology laboratories
• Performing a history and physical evaluation along with the collection of other data necessary to establish a medical assessment