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Dugoni School Partners with Stanford University on New Interprofessional Education, Clinical and Research Opportunities

Dr. Gary Roberts '88 and Dr. Dyani Gaudilliere from Stanford University Medical Center recently participated in a seminar with DDS and IDS students as part of the new collaborations.

University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry is embarking on a new partnership with the Stanford University School of Medicine. The goal is to develop new opportunities for students and residents to connect on interprofessional education, clinical and research opportunities. Collaborations include a new rotation for dental students, guest faculty lectures, joint research projects, and treatment for pre-surgical patients at the Dugoni School's Advanced Education in General Dentistry clinic in Union City.

A new dental medicine and surgery rotation is now available for pre-doctoral dental students from the Dugoni School to give them hands-on experience working with faculty and patients at Stanford University Hospitals and Clinics. Third-year students have the opportunity to attend clinical sessions at Stanford for two consecutive weeks. They will receive training and provide oral surgical and hospital dentistry services appropriate to their skill level under the direct supervision of Stanford School of Medicine faculty members in the Department of Surgery.

Collaborations also include guest faculty lectures and seminars. Two faculty members, Dr. Dyani Gaudilliere, Chief, Section of Dentistry and Dr. Gary Roberts '88 from Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at The Stanford University Medical Center recently visited the Dugoni School to give an overview of the new rotation, and discussed opportunities in academic dentistry and an overview of the dental services that can be provided in a hospital setting. Dr. Roberts is a 1988 DDS alumnus of the Dugoni School. He and Dr. Gaudilliere now serve as adjunct faculty members at the Dugoni School, in addition to their positions with Stanford.

In a seminar with DDS '19 and IDS '19 students in the Integrated Clinical Sciences (ICS) II course, Drs. Gaudilliere and Roberts discussed some advantages of performing clinical work in an academic setting, including multidisciplinary care opportunities, working with a team, research collaborations, access to cutting-edge methods, and access to mentors and mentees. They also shared knowledge about topics such as dental management of medically complex patients, dental trauma, oral medicine and pathology, dental oncology, sleep surgery, special needs dentistry and odontogenic infections.

The partnership with Stanford also includes biomedical research. Dugoni School faculty members Dr. Anders Nattestad and Dr. Steve Sadowsky, along with Dr. David Ojcius, chair of the Dugoni School's Department of Biomedical Science, recently started working with Stanford professor Dr. Jill Helms on a research project involving osseointegration. Dugoni School faculty members also have been attending Dr. Helms' journal club meetings at Stanford. Dr. Helms also has been named as one of the founding editors of University of the Pacific's new Pacific Journal of Health being launched this year.

At the Dugoni School's AEGD residency dental clinic in Union City, residents and faculty members are now seeing pre-surgical and post-surgical rehabilitation patients from Stanford Medical Center. Dental health clearance is often required by patients in preparation for a variety of surgeries.

Other collaborative activities have included a presentation by Sabine Girod MD, DDS, PhD, FACS, chief of the Oral Medicine & Maxillofacial Surgery Service at Stanford University Hospitals, as part of the Dugoni School's Dean's Speaker Series last September.

"These exciting collaborations will help bridge the fields of medicine and dentistry and fit in well with several of themes that are part of our strategic plan implementation," said Dr. Nader A. Nadershahi, dean of the Dugoni School of Dentistry. "Through this growing partnership our students will experience even more opportunities for interprofessional education and cross-professional development that will add to their skillset. Our hope is that we are preparing our students for the future of oral healthcare, which we see as more collaborative and integrated."

Learn more about the Dugoni School's strategic plan — "Transforming the Future of Oral Health Education" — online.

Contact: Office of Marketing and Communications, 415.929.6434, pr@pacific.edu