“A Fantastic Partnership, with Outstanding People, that We’d Like to Continue Forever”

Talk to any of our fourth-year dental students, and it’s safe to say, they will tell you that their experiences with our School’s community outreach partners were the highlight of their four years in dental school. Dental hygiene students echo this response.

It’s easy to understand why.

Dr. Bill Piskorowski

At community dental clinics across Michigan, hospitals, schools, federally qualified health care centers, and elsewhere, U-M School of Dentistry students gain “real world” experience at sites, such as those described in the following pages of this publication, that builds on the outstanding classroom and clinical education they receive here in Ann Arbor.

Our students enjoy working side-by-side with the entire dental team at these sites - other dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants, and administrators. They’re thrilled with the challenge and opportunity to treat more patients and enjoy hearing many of them talk about their lives, families, and interests. They also delight in being educators and passing along useful knowledge and practical advice that patients can use to improve their oral health.

Our outreach partners are, in a word, outstanding. They are the heart and soul behind the success of our program.

They are profoundly grateful to have our students in their clinics to help them meet the growing demand for dental services in their communities. They delight in the enthusiasm our students bring, their willingness to help, and their receptiveness to advice and suggestions from other professionals in their clinics who have spent, in many cases, an entire career as a public oral health care provider.

My hope is that we can do more.

From Four Weeks to Six Weeks

We are always looking to enhance the outreach experiences for our students, as well as our partners and their patients.

In the not too distant future, I’m hopeful that we can expand the time our students spend at outreach sites from four weeks to six. Taking a longer-term view, my hope is that outreach rotations could become even longer than that, be it with current partners or at new sites across Michigan. For that to happen, however, there are a number of challenges we will need to address.

Extending the rotations will allow our students to gain more experience, acquire greater proficiency, gain a better understanding of the various needs among residents in communities across this state, and perhaps convince even more of them to become public health dentists. In the short time I’ve been here, I’m gratified to know that many of our students are now looking at public health dentistry as their first career choice.

As a private practitioner for 27 years and part-time teacher here for the past seven, I’m energized every time I talk to our students when they return to Ann Arbor to tell me about their experiences. I see in their faces and hear in their voices more energy, more enthusiasm, and more desire to make a difference. Jared Van Ittersum, who’s featured on page 18, and dental hygiene student Sahara Willoughby, featured on page 19, are stellar examples.

There’s no other way to describe it. The School of Dentistry’s community outreach program is a fantastic partnership, with outstanding people, that we would like to continue forever.