Touro Dental Health, the dental teaching practice of the Touro College of Dental Medicine (TCDM) in Hawthorne, New York, recently completed a 6,800-square-foot expansion that added 28 new dental chairs. The facility now encompasses 38,000 square feet and offers 109 dental chairs for treatment.
The new space houses two new general dental practices with 14 chairs each, overseen by three or four experienced faculty dentists. These new practices were built to accommodate the addition of third-year dental students from the class of 2021 who, in June, transitioned to providing clinical care.
“Our expanded training facility now allows us to pair third-year students with their more experienced fourth-year partners to ensure better continuity of care for patients,” said vice dean Edward F. Farkas, DDS, MS, who spearheaded the project and was instrumental in the school’s inception.
“With this unique pairing model, patients will always be familiar with at least one member of their dental team, even as students move on. Not only will this make the experience more comfortable for patients, but creating this dental home will allow us to better manage their ongoing dental treatment and oral health,” said Farkas.
The expansion and the addition of the school’s fourth class of students in July has led TCDM to increase its clinical and preclinical faculty by 30%, hiring more than 30 experienced dental professionals within the last three months.
TCDM’s faculty of nearly 100 general dentists and dental specialists including periodontists, prosthodontists, endodontists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, dental anesthesiologists, and radiologists enables the school to provide a full range of dental care under one roof while providing students with hands-on exposure in all dental disciplines, TCDM says.
“We’ve put great effort into recruiting a diverse and skilled faculty from across the region who are committed to investing their time and knowledge in training the next generation of oral healthcare providers,” said TCDM dean Ronnie Myers, DDS.
“With this growth, we’re now equipped to reach our full patient care capacity of 400+ patients per day and meet the demand of underserved populations and others in the community who seek quality, low-cost dental care,” said Myers.
Touro Dental Health now offers eight comprehensive general dental practices as well as specialty practices in pediatrics, endodontics, orthodontics, and oral surgery. Over the next few months, TCDM will unveil additional patient care facilities in its remaining vacant space including a new family-friendly pediatric dental practice and a family medicine practice staffed by New York Medical College faculty physicians.
“We are committed to continuing our legacy of building the dental school of the future through advancements in technology and innovations in patient care delivery,” said Myers.
“We’re training our students to evaluate and identify the connections between oral health and overall health so that we can better care for the whole patient. Providing interprofessional, easy access to additional health resources will be a significant benefit to our patients,” said Myers.
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