LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said Tuesday that it will use a $1.56 million contribution from the Delta Dental of Arkansas Foundation to expand an oral health clinic.
The money will be combined with a $440,000 grant given to the school last year by Delta Dental’s foundation, the university said.
UAMS hopes to have a dental residency program by 2014.
The first five of the clinic’s 18 individual treatment rooms are already open. Officials said completion of the clinic, which will be named the Delta Dental of Arkansas Foundation Oral Health Clinic, is expected in 2014.
UAMS is working toward gaining accreditation for postgraduate residency programs in advanced general dentistry and oral surgery, and the clinic will provide a place for the dentists to receive practical experience, said Dr. Dan Rahn, the UAMS chancellor.
When the clinic expansion is completed, UAMS plans to begin accepting dental residents, Rahn said. The clinic is part of the UAMS Center for Dental Education.
“Through a partnership with the University of Tennessee, where many Arkansas residents go for dental school, we plan to begin offering clinical rotations,” Rahn said. “And between eight and 10 years, we hope to have a dental school of our own. But that is a long-range plan.”
About 70 percent of Arkansas dental students attend school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry in Memphis and at Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry in Nashville, according to UAMS officials.
The oral health clinic also will complement and enhance the UAMS dental hygiene program, which sees patients in an adjacent clinic, Rahn said.
Ed Choate, president and chief executive officer at UAMS, praised Delta Dental for its donations.
“The new state-of-the-art dental clinic and dental residency program will help ensure that the people of Arkansas will continue to receive the highest standard of patient care,” said Choate said.
According to a listing by the American Dental Education Association, Arkansas is among 14 states that offer no predoctoral dental education program.
In all, 36 states have between one and six such dental programs.
When one program in the District of Columbia and another in the territory of Puerto Rico are included, there are 63 programs housed as “colleges” within medical schools or as “schools” within higher education institutions.
Dental programs in states neighboring Arkansas that can draw Arkansans away for study and training include two in Tennessee, one in Missouri, one in Oklahoma, three in Texas, and one each in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/30/2013