Patient Centered Comprehensive Care

GSDM is an educational institution committed to providing patient-centered, comprehensive care.

What does “patient-centered” mean? This means that the School provides appropriate oral health care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensures that these help guide clinical decisions for and by the patient.¹

What does “comprehensive” mean? This means that the School’s philosophy is to provide total oral health care to patients. Comprehensive care is a system of patient care in which individual students or providers, examine and evaluate patients; develop and prescribe a treatment plan; perform the majority of care required, including care in several disciplines of dentistry; refer patients to recognized dental specialists
as appropriate; and assume responsibility for ensuring acceptable outcomes of treatment.²

What is the School’s commitment to patient-centered, comprehensive care? The School appreciates and respects the valuable role that patients have in the education and training of our students and residents. To ensure that the oral health care needs of patients are commensurate with the educational needs of students/residents, individuals seeking care in the School will be initially screened to ascertain the complexity of their treatment needs and the appropriateness of their receiving care at the School. Individuals accepted as patients of the School will be subsequently assigned either to a predoctoral (i.e., “student”) clinic or to a postdoctoral (i.e., “resident”) clinic. Such assignment is based on patient needs and values as well as on the School’s ability to accommodate the patient’s stage of life, language, special needs or other unique considerations. It should be further noted that the School’s educational program requires students/residents to participate in various intramural and extramural rotations or externships (i.e., “fieldwork”) for several weeks at a time. This may interrupt and possibly delay patient care. In these instances, continuity and timeliness of patient care will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In these ways the School demonstrates its commitment to realizing the mutual goals of our patients and our students/residents.

1 Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press, 2001.
2 Self-Study Guide for Dental Education Programs. Commission on Dental Accreditation, American Dental Association, 2014.