Name of Training Program: Northwest Dental Residency Program Discipline of the Residency Program: General Dentistry Type of Application: Expansion Eligible Entity Type: Federally Qualified Health Center Year Program First Began Training Residents: 2006 Organization Website: www.yvfwc.org Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic (YVFWC) is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that provides comprehensive, primary, preventive, enabling and additional health services to underserved communities in Washington and Oregon. In 2006, YVFWC became one of the first community health centers in the nation to establish an advanced education in general dentistry (AEGD) residency program, the Northwest Dental Residency (NDR). This Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) accredited program provides immersion experiences for post-graduate dentists to foster passion and dedication to a future career serving rural and underserved areas and populations. The one-year residency program equips graduates with clinical and didactic experiences in general dentistry and specialties of dentistry, with an emphasis on public health, rural communities, and serving a diverse and vulnerable patient population, including low-income patients, migrant/seasonal agricultural workers, patients with special health care needs, and underserved residents of all ages. This project will utilize an expanded NDR network of internal and external specialists and general dentists to provide evidence-based training that emphasizes cultural competency, ethics and risk management, effective treatment planning, and team-based care, meeting or exceeding all requirements of CODA for an AEGD residency program. NDR program goals include providing residents didactic and clinical experiences that will enable them to provide comprehensive dental care to a broad-based population, including special patient groups such as children, adults, medically compromised patients, special-needs patients, and those wh
o are financially challenged; providing residents with an understanding of practice in rural communities with an emphasis on public health and cultural competency; providing residents with training in quality assurance protocols, ethics, and risk management techniques; enhancing each resident’s ability to make sound clinical judgments in arriving at a diagnosis and treatment plan; and providing training in practice-management skills to prepare residents to become productive members of the dental profession. Through this funding opportunity, NDR is requesting support to fund an additional 8.0 FTE resident positions, for a total of 12 THCGME-funded positions. YVFWC will partner with another FQHC, Columbia Valley Community Health (CVCH), to provide resident training at eight community-based ambulatory patient care sites in Chelan County, Spokane County, Walla Walla County, and Yakima County. The patient population varies by clinic site but can be broadly defined as underrepresented and underserved. Patients of YVFWC and CVCH are more like to be minority, low-income, and uninsured than patients of other types of dental clinics. The total FTE positions requested to be funded under this program for all years of training is 32 (8-8-8-8). The FTE positions requested to be funded under this program for AY 2022-2023 is 8 (8-0-0-0).