General Practice Residency in Dentistry

Truman Medical Center Lakewood sponsors a one year General Practice Residency in Dentistry. It is Fully Accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation of the American Dental Association. The program is housed in the hospital on the Lakewood campus in Kansas City, Missouri ( A Locator Map is available on this website). This program is affiliated with UMKC School of Dentistry and provides the first year training for the Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology program at UMKC.

The vision and goals of the General Practice Residency program is to provide residents advanced training in the full use the resources of the hospital as a site for the practice of dentistry. In doing so provide experiences in management of patients with medical, mental, and physical problems that would challenge the routine delivery of dental treatment in a timely fashion. In order to accomplish this, the resident will receive instruction and experience providing dental treatment experience to advance their skills beyond their dental school training to prepare residents to achieve the following goals.

Program Goals

1. Act as a limited referral primary care provider for individuals and groups of patients.  This includes providing emergency and multidisciplinary comprehensive oral health care; providing patient focused care that is coordinated by the general practitioner; directing health promotion and disease prevention activities; and using advanced dental treatment modalities.
2. Plan and provide multidisciplinary oral health care for a wide variety of patients including patients with special needs.
3. Manage the delivery of oral health care by applying concepts of patient and practice management and quality improvement that are responsive to a dynamic health care environment.
4. Function effectively within the hospital, function effectively within interdisciplinary health care teams, other health care environments and use skills developed in the program to promote an understanding of patient's systemic diseases and relationship to oral health. Pursue individual areas of interest and achieve career goals.
5. Apply scientific principles to learning and oral health care.  This includes using critical thinking, evidence or outcomes-based clinical decision-making, and technology-based information retrieval systems.
6. Utilize the values of professional ethics, lifelong learning, patient centered care, adaptability, and acceptance of cultural diversity in professional practice.
7. Understand the oral health needs of communities, engage in community service and provide services within the limits of the state in which they practice.