Meharry Medical College, School of Dentistry

The School of Dentistry is committed to helping meet the oral health needs of the local population and to providing comprehensive care regardless of patients’ social or economic circumstances, geographic origin, or race. Consistent with this mission, 64 percent of Meharry dental graduates practice in socio-economically deprived areas, and 67 percent of the patients are low-income.

The School has been involved in community outreach efforts for many years. These efforts include, but are not limited to, externships to local public schools and community health centers and student/faculty missions to South America, the West Indies, and Africa.

Project Activities
Over the next four years, the School of Dentistry will:

1. Develop rotations for freshman and sophomore students in nursing homes and private dental offices and have them participate in community oral health education programs.
2. Contract with additional community clinical sites and increase the number of days that the students rotate to these sites.
3. Revise the four-year undergraduate curriculum to increase emphasis on ethnic diversity and community services.
4. Develop a 10-hour section on basic Spanish within the Community Dental Health course.
5. Increase recruitment efforts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and schools with large numbers of Hispanic and American Indian students.
6. Provide additional financial aid to underrepresented minority students from low-income backgrounds.
7. Engage alumni and members of the Hispanic Dental Association, National Dental Association, and the Capital City Dental Society in recruitment efforts at the high school and college levels.