Dental Students Get Hands-On Experience at Aspen Dental Practices
Externships allow dental students to complete rotations and gain real-world experience at Aspen Dental practices.
Dental Students Get Hands-On Experience at Aspen Dental Practices. Image: © Aspen Dental
Doctors in the Aspen Dental network will join the University of Washington as adjunct faculty, providing expertise in a clinical externship program. This program, which also exists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Michigan, will allow students to complete rotations in a variety of different practice models. Aspen Dental aims to represent the dental service organization (DSO) model, per Dr Arwinder Judge, chief clinical officer at Aspen Dental.
“The vision of the ongoing collaboration with university externship programs is to inspire students to develop the skills clinically and socially for continued professional growth, which we are champions of day in and day out,” Dr Judge says in a press release from the company. “Dental students on the precipice of their professional careers are gaining real-world experience to determine what path is best for them, while potentially matching with an immediate post-graduate opportunity within an organization that will support them through their journey as a new doctor.”
These externships allow students to simultaneously complete rotations and learn the skills necessary for real-world dentistry. At Aspen Dental locations, students will get the unique experience of practicing dentistry at a DSO location, serving different patient bases and working with different technologies.
“There is no substitute for hands-on experience,” Bill Piskorowski, associate dean of community-based clinical education at UCLA, says in the press release. “This program prepares out students to deliver person-centered care in an integrated health care delivery system. We have started to see a shift in the industry with historically non-traditional practice opportunities becoming traditional.”
Per numbers from Aspen Dental, about 60 students from the 3 universities will be on rotation in Aspen Dental practices for the class of 2024.
