UCLA

UCLA School of Dentistry: Successes, Challenges and Opportunities

No-Hee Park, DMD, PhD

Copyright 2002 Journal of the California Dental Association.

Author
No-Hee Park, DMD, PhD, is dean of the University of California at Los Angeles School of Dentistry.

The University of California at Lost Angeles School of Dentistry has a vision to be one of the most respected dental schools in the nation. Encompassed in this vision are the school’s core ideology (core purpose and core value) and an envisioned future. The core purpose of the UCLA School of Dentistry is to improve the oral health of the people of California and the United States. We seek to accomplish this purpose with the school’s core values of integrity, collegiality, care, allegiance of disciplines, and academic freedom. More specifically, the school makes an effort to carry out the core purpose through the following means:

* Educating and training individuals who will provide the highest quality dental care with established and new bases of knowledge;

* Conducting outstanding research into the cause, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of oral and craniofacial diseases and abnormalities; and

* Offering services to the community including patient care services, educational programs, and expertise.

Our envisioned future is that the achievements of the school with respect to teaching, research, and service be recognized for, if not synonymous with, excellence.

I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of our school. It is essential to note that our successes do not always come easily. In this article, I have highlighted some of accomplishments and some of our significant internal and external challenges.

Student Admissions

On a consistent basis, the UCLA School of Dentistry admits one of the top classes academically among all 54 dental schools. The Class of 2005, admitted in September 2001, is no exception. This class had an average GPA of 3.61 and scored close to the 95th percentile on the academic portion of the Dental Admission Test. It is important to note that we do not rely on scores alone for our decision-making regarding admissions. We have recently reinstated the personal interview in the admission process because we believe that personal interviews complement the review of an applicant’s academic record and assist us in identifying the applicants most likely to possess the personal skills required to successfully complete our rigorous educational program.

There are a number of factors that contribute to our success in recruiting. These factors include the reputation of the School of Dentistry, reasonable tuition, excellent faculty, and the reputation of UCLA. Other important contributing factors include our graduates’ successful acceptance rate into excellent residency/postgraduate programs and the achievements of our graduates, who excel not only in the practice of general dentistry, but also in varied specialties and in unique leadership positions.

Student Performance

Throughout the four years of the dental education program, our students meet high standards of performance. One measure of student performance is the National Board Dental Examination, the standard exam that provides the nation’s dental schools with benchmarks of their educational progress and excellence. UCLA dental students consistently rank in the top five among dental schools in performance on the National Boards Part I. In addition, UCLA graduates have performed exceptionally well on the California Dental Board exam, reflecting the clinical training they received while students. A third indicator of the success of the academic program is our students’ high rate of placement in residency/postdoctoral programs. For example, approximately 60 percent of the graduates from the Class of 2002 were accepted to residency/postgraduate programs; in fact, close to 90 percent of those graduates who applied for such programs were accepted. This statistic is particularly impressive given the fact that the number of open slots for residencies is far less than the number of applicants.

Although our teaching program has been successful -- as demonstrated by our students’ scores, acceptances to residency/postdoctoral programs, and job placements -- we recognize that there is a critical need to incorporate new instructional methods and technologies into the curriculum. The integration of problem-based and service-based learning methodologies and clinical simulation technologies into the curriculum will provide an even better educational experience for our students. This represents a divergence from the traditional didactic instruction characteristic of most dental schools. This shift in philosophy is a challenge not only for our faculty (who must find the time to develop and implement these methodologies sometime between their other teaching, research, and clinical obligations), but also for our students who tend to be resistant to these less traditional teaching styles and learning techniques. An additional barrier is that problem-based and service-based learning require an increased number of faculty members to provide appropriate supervision, resulting in an increased number of required full-time-equivalent positions. Given our limited resources, we seek the involvement of volunteer clinical faculty. The students greatly appreciate the real-world experiences shared by these faculty members.

Financial Concerns of Students

Debt is one of the greatest challenges facing our students. The average indebtedness of our 2001 graduating class members was $78,000. Eliminating the students who were able to pay for their schooling without loans, the average indebtedness was nearly $85,000. This is an insurmountable sum, which serves to limit the options of our graduating students. This oppressive debt discourages these graduates from pursuing careers in academia, entering solo practices, and purchasing practices of retiring dentists.

To alleviate our students’ debt obligations, we have increased our development campaigns for various student scholarships, with positive results. We consistently seek and communicate opportunities to our students regarding scholarships and debt forgiveness.

Faculty Recruitment and Retention

The UCLA School of Dentistry continues to undertake a number of significant recruitments and academic personnel actions. Among the areas of recruitment in the past year were advanced prosthodontics, oral biology and medicine, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics, combined orthodontics-pediatric dentistry, public health and community dentistry, restorative dentistry, and the Dental Research Institute. The school was pleased to attract a highly qualified and competitive group of applicants for these positions. It is clear, however, that advancement opportunities are critical for retention of faculty. We are pleased that we were able to promote several members of the faculty.

Although we have been successful with our efforts to recruit and retain faculty, we are continually faced with the challenge of identifying and obtaining adequate resources for faculty recruitment and support. In particular, we must provide the current ladder-rank faculty with the resources necessary to teach and conduct research. A second challenge is the fact that our faculty is aging. We must identify resources to hire new faculty to ensure an appropriate transition plan that will minimize the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise of these invaluable faculty members. Finally, we face the challenge of attracting graduates to enter academia. As mentioned above, debt serves as a primary deterrent for graduating students to pursue an academic career. One way we have sought to address these challenges is through the establishment of endowed chairs. We have recently implemented the Tarrson Family Endowed Chair in Periodontics and established the Dr. Jack A. Weichman Endowed Chair in Endodontics and the Dr. Thomas R. Bales Endowed Chair in Orthodontics. I have every intention of pursuing additional funding to increase the number of endowed chair positions.

Research and Creative Activities

The UCLA School of Dentistry has outstanding sponsored research activities. We continued to advance science in traditional areas and to create new research opportunities in nontraditional areas of inquiry. Our research, traditionally individually focused, has expanded in recent years to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary efforts. Research currently being conducted at the UCLA School of Dentistry can be categorized into six major areas:

* Oral cancer and carcinogenesis research -- Topics falling under this area include early detection of head and neck cancer using biomarkers, mechanisms of carcinogenesis, signal transmission studies in oral cancer, oral cancer and immunology studies, bioengineering studies in oral cancer, and gene therapy for oral cancer.

* Oral microbiology research -- Topics falling under this area include molecular biology studies in dental caries, motility of bacteria, and the role of oral bacteria in the development of systemic diseases such as myocardial infarction and diabetes.

* Oral health disparities research -- Topics falling under this area include minority oral health disparities with caries, orofacial trauma, and HIV infection.

* Bone biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials research -- Topics falling under this area include the molecular basis for craniosynostosis and craniofacial development, the molecular basis for tissue damage and repair processes, the mechanisms of bone formation and resorption, the mechanisms of collagen formation, early detection of osteoporosis using X-rays, and allergies and dental materials.

* Health services research -- Topics falling under this area include research regarding outcomes, quality assurance, and access to oral health care.

* Clinical research -- Topics falling under this area include clinical drug trials, material testing, biocompatibility research, and clinical outcome studies.

The school is pleased to have secured National Institutes of Health funding and donations from friends to build the Jane and Jerry Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology, a 5,000 square foot state-of-the-art research facility for basic, translational, and clinical research. In addition to the Weintraub Center, the school also has two other research centers: the Dental Research Institute and the Center for Oral Microbiology Research.

Clinic Operations and Specialty Training Under Graduate Medical Education Program

The school operates a 200-chair dental center at the Westwood campus and additional clinics at the Wilson-Jennings-Bloomfield UCLA Venice Dental Center and the UCLA Children’s Dental Center at the Edward R. Roybal Comprehensive Health Center in East Los Angeles. We are known as a safety-net provider, offering inexpensive comprehensive care to low-income or indigent residents of Los Angeles.

In addition to the student clinics, the school has a number of specialty clinics that train future specialists through residency programs. These specialties include advanced education in general dentistry, dental anesthesiology, endodontics, general practice residency, maxillofacial prosthetics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orofacial pain and dysfunction, orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, periodontics, and prosthodontics. These residency programs have operated under the Graduate Medical Education Program for the past seven years, providing stipends for the residents. In addition to the specialty clinics, we also have various faculty clinics, including faculty group dental practices and faculty clinics specializing in hospital dentistry, maxillofacial prosthetics, oral and maxillofacial pathology, oral and maxillofacial radiology, oral maxillofacial surgery, oral medicine, orofacial pain, and periodontics.

We have strived to bring our clinical operations into the 21st century with the implementation of a new management information system. This system is to be utilized for clinical management with an electronic medical record feature, student instruction, research, and evaluation. The School of Dentistry partnered with Software of Excellence to develop and implement the first phase of the new management information system.

Community Relations

The UCLA School of Dentistry’s involvement with the community is not limited to providing services at our dental centers. The school has taken a leadership role in a number of community-based initiatives such as community-based screening, oral hygiene instruction, and sealant programs.

We are proud of the school’s community service accomplishments to date and hope that future state budgetary constraints will not hinder our ability to expand our community service activities in both the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley communities.

New Academic Programs

We recently established a combined DDS/MBA program, which is a collaborative effort with the Anderson School at UCLA. In this five-year program, students attend classes at the Anderson School after completing three years at the School of Dentistry and then return to dentistry to complete their fourth year. In the 2001-02 academic year, the first dental student was admitted into the combined DDS/MBA Program.

We are also pleased to inform you that the school has just established a formal DDS/PhD program. Beginning in fall 2002, there will be two slots per year for students interested in pursuing a joint DDS/PhD. We hope this program will encourage the development of future faculty.

The school has also established a two-year Professional Program for International Dentists for graduates of non-U.S. dental schools in response to an appeal from the California Legislature. This program is part of the phase-out of the California "bench" exam for foreign-trained dentists. The goal of this program is to graduate dentists who will possess the necessary scientific knowledge and clinical skills to provide competent comprehensive dental care as practiced within the United States. Graduates of the program will be eligible to take the dental licensing examinations throughout most of the United States. The first entering class of six students began June 24, 2002. For each year hereafter, we anticipate accepting 10 students.

I hope this article has provided you with some insight regarding the activities at the UCLA School of Dentistry. As is evident from the description above, there are many successes, challenges and opportunities as the UCLA School of Dentistry continues to fulfill its mission. I am both proud and honored to serve as dean of this institution during this exciting time.