Postgraduate Prosthodontics Mission, Goals and Objectives
Mission
The Advanced Prosthodontics Program seeks to further the educational, research, clinical, and community service missions of the UTHSC and the College of Dentistry by providing an environment wherein:
- prosthodontic residents are educated to provide high quality oral health care based on sound scientific principles
- patients receive comprehensive, competent, prosthodontic care.
- faculty, residents, and program staff members value all patients and share responsibility by working together toward academic, professional, and personal growth.
- scholarly activity and research provide a foundation for evidence-based learning and enhanced health care
- the Program attracts and retains a superior faculty, residents and staff who are motivate to excellence
- the community benefits from Program service and commitment to quality health care.
Goals and Objectives
Educate residents in the practice of prosthodontics.
- Objective 1.1: Student Selection - Identify, interview, and select applicants with exceptional integrity, motivation, industry, work ethic, resourcefulness, and the knowledge.
- Objective 1.2: Biomedical Sciences - Expose residents to the biomedical sciences, emphasize basic science-prosthodontic interrelationships, and encourage synthesis and application of this knowledge in clinical practice.
- Objective 1.3: Diagnosis & Treatment Planning - Provide residents with sufficient clinical and laboratory experience to become proficient in diagnostic data collection, diagnosis, treatment planning and treatment sequencing of complicated prosthodontic patients.
- Objective 1.4: Review of Relevant Professional Literature - Expose residents to prosthodontic and related literature to develop historical perspective and provide theoretical bases for diagnostics, techniques and procedures, management, successes, and failures/complications in the clinical practice of fixed, removable, implant, and maxillofacial prosthodontics.
- Objective 1.5: Dental Laboratory Skills - Ensure resident proficiency in laboratory procedures necessary to support the clinical diagnosis and treatment of prosthodontic patients.
- Objective 1.6: American Board of Prosthodontics - Prepare residents to meet the requirements for certification and successfully challenge the American Board of Prosthodontics examination.
Guide residents in the proficient delivery of state-of-the-art prosthodontic care to a therapeutically diverse patient population. Residents will manage their clinical activities so that patients are comfortable and treated in a timely and efficient manner.
- Objective 2.1: Clinical Proficiency - Train residents to provide prosthodontic care that addresses patients' needs in the areas of comfort, function, and esthetics.
- Objective 2.2: Patient Satisfaction - Train residents to provide quality, complete patient care in a timely and efficient manner using state-of-the-art technology and patient management skills so that patients are satisfied and become ambassadors for the program.
- Objective 2.3: Faculty - Provide a faculty composed of high quality dentists and prosthodontists with broad clinical skills, knowledge, and expertise.
Educate residents in the accomplishment of professionally valuable scientific research and scholarly activities.
- Objective 3.1: Research & Scholarly Activity - Provide formal instruction on research design, research protocol development, biostatistics, and report/thesis writing.
- Objective 3.2: Master of Dental Science Program - Ensure that all residents accomplish scientific research, provide public defense of this work, submit a thesis, and receive a Master of Dental Science degree upon successful completion.
Provide the opportunity for residents to participate in prosthodontic dental teaching and other service-based activities to prepare them to become emissaries for the College of Dentistry, the dental profession, and the specialty of prosthodontics.
- Objective 4.1: Teaching - Arrange for residents to serve as teaching assistants in the predoctoral prosthodontic curriculum at the College of Dentistry.
- Objective 4.2: Service - Encourage residents to join national and international prosthodontic organizations with the expectation that they will contribute to dentistry, to their specialty, and to their local communities through service.