Taking Oral Health Overseas

Earlier this week, Boston University officials joined government ministers of the United Arab Emirates at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for two dental facilities that BU’s School of Dental Medicine will operate in a regional medical complex in Dubai, known as Dubai Healthcare City.

Joseph Mercurio, BU’s executive vice president, and Jeffrey Hutter, dean ad interim of BU’s School of Dental Medicine, along with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE vice president, and Muhadditha Al-Hashimi, chief executive officer of Dubai Healthcare City, were among the dignitaries who celebrated the establishment of the Boston University Institute for Dental Research and Education and the Boston University Dental Health Center.

The Dental Health Center will provide comprehensive, prevention-oriented dental services to residents of the region and visitors to Dubai and will begin seeing patients immediately. Eventually, the center will have 47 chairs for dental exams and procedures.

The institute, which will admit its first class of residents this summer, is currently submitting an application for accreditation from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the United Arab Emirates. It will offer training in a wide range of specialties to dentists who have graduated from dental school. Training programs will be developed and overseen by dental school faculty, including Thomas Kilgore, associate dean of SDM’s office of advanced education, who will become the institute’s chief academic officer.

Kilgore says the type of training provided by the institute is largely missing in the region. SDM’s initiatives in Dubai fit the school’s mission of providing both education and care in the real world, he says, “to be out there and not isolated,” whether that means working in Boston’s community health clinics or overseas.

“Our hallmark is that we’ll be offering an American standard, heavily prevention-oriented, state-of-the-art new technology dental practice,” says Kilgore. He will be joined by about a dozen full-time Boston University faculty, who will initially staff both the institute and the dental care facility. Senior dental school faculty also will fly in to teach small courses, give lectures, and provide clinical demonstrations.

Dubai Healthcare City is a 500-acre free-trade zone within the Emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates that is being developed in partnership with several international health-care institutions, with the goal of becoming a world-class academic medical campus.

“Several years ago,” Kilgore explains, “the ruler of Dubai, understanding that gas and oil were not the economy of the future, decided to reinvent the emirate and look to develop science, technology, tourism, and business.”

Tax-free zones such as Dubai Healthcare City were created to attract businesses and investment. Currently the campus contains mainly clinics and corporate offices of pharmaceutical and medical technology firms. In addition to BU’s dental facilities, the campus will eventually contain a wellness center, private clinics, and a major teaching hospital.

“The collaboration with such a renowned world-class American medical and academic institution will further consolidate our position as a regional health-care hub,” Al-Hashimi says of the partnership with BU. “This strengthens our status as a center for health-care quality and excellence in the Middle East.”

Chris Berdik can be reached at cberdik@bu.edu.