KOHC members and other dental health professionals attending the Madisonville Regional Oral Health Summit this month were excited to hear updates about the College of Dental Medicine at the University of Pikeville (UPike) from Dr. Pam Stein who serves as dean. The college will focus on recruiting students from rural Kentucky, and is slated to admit up to 60 students per year starting as soon as summer 2025.
UPike Dental College is being designed to address several of Kentucky’s biggest barriers to dental health while providing students with the tools to succeed in practice. As KOHC is learning more in depth from our landscape assessment, there are major workforce deficits that prevent Kentuckians from accessing care, with some counties having few if any full-time dentists and even fewer accepting Medicaid patients. UPike plans to address these needs by recruiting rural students who are more likely to stay in Kentucky and by holding high curricular standards for community service.
UPike Dental is committing to a culture of wellness and care for students, integrating interprofessional practices of science, medicine, wellness, and taking care of patients. The dental college program will include education on health promotion and health literacy to emphasize the importance of educating patients as part of their professional role. To help ensure a strong community of care, UPike is building partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), the health departments in the region, and addiction recovery centers. As Dr. Stein pointed out, toothaches can be a risk for people in recovery, and having optimal dental health helps them with overall health and employment. UPike Dental will also partner with the business school to teach students how to be successful in a rural area, as well as provide supports with loan repayment and scholarships.
UPike dental students will receive a robust clinical education, combining digital dentistry with innovative technology and materials. With a goal for every junior and senior student to have their own chair and perform rotations the program will ensure high clinical competence with extractions, infections, and other more in-depth needs. This all helps to address another barrier to dental care for many rural Kentuckians: transportation. Fewer appointments and more integrated care within those appointments will lessen the burden many Kentuckians currently experience in getting to both routine appointments and particularly for more in-depth care which often requires longer travel times to specialists in other counties.
UPike Dental College will have a special needs clinic to treat people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the medically fragile, as well as a traditional and pediatric dental clinic that will serve community members with appointments and for urgent care, all on site at the UPike campus.
The UPike Dental College will be located in downtown Pikeville in the facility formerly occupied by the Appalachian News Express. They received an anonymous $25 million donation – the largest ever donation to a Kentucky college – as seed money to help move forward on their innovative efforts. You can follow along as the program develops on their website.
Cover photo sourced by University of Pikeville College of Dental Medicine
