Program Overview
The General Practice Residency program at St. Joseph’s Health Hospital demonstrates that dentistry is truly an important part of primary care medicine.
Fully approved by the Commission on Dental Accreditation, it illustrates that successful treatment of diseases of the oral cavity impacts directly on the status of other body systems. The program gives the new graduate a greater insight into the complex mechanisms of the human body through opportunities to work with professional colleagues and to experience and discuss the interrelationships of medicine and dentistry. The GPR is housed in the newly renovated St. Joseph’s Primary Care Center, along with the Family Medicine and Transitional Residency programs. The completely redesigned and state-of-the-art facility enhances the educational collaboration between medicine and dental residents for their mutual benefit.
Residents receive a broad experience in all of the specialty areas — from pediatric to geriatric dentistry — that will enable them to treat most patients who present to their offices. The General Practice Residency program provides residents with hands-on training in the Dental Office, which is equipped with 12 operatories. Approximately 280 patients visit the Dental Office at St. Joseph’s each week.
The faculty — comprised of dental practitioners from the Central New York dental community — teaches and supervises residents. Attendings precept during all operating hours. The residency program director, who oversees the program, is responsible to the director of medical education at St. Joseph’s Hospital. The program also employs a clinical manager and a full staff.
Accreditation
The General Practice Residency Program is accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) of American Dental Association.
For more information about St. Joseph’s General Practice Residency Program call (315) 448-5536 or email Dr. Matthew Hall.
St. Joseph’s participates in both PASS and the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program
ADEA
This program is participating in American Dental Education Association – Postdoctoral Application Support Service (PASS).
American Dental Education Association – Postdoctoral Application Support Service (PASS)
Salary & Benefits
2024 – 2025 Salary $64,869.00
View our 2021-2022 Contract Draft for more information.
Benefits
St. Joseph’s General Practice Residency offers competitive benefits for its residents.
- Four weeks annual paid vacation per year — one-week blocks, Monday-Friday, with weekends on both sides
- Professional Liability Insurance: Residents are covered by the hospital’s professional liability insurance while performing duties within the scope of their medical education.
- Comprehensive insurance package with three medical plan options, two dental plan options and two vision plan options. You’ll also enjoy a lower deductible, copay and coinsurance when you use St. Joseph’s or Trinity Health facilities and aligned providers. Plus, you will be eligible for basic life and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance provided by Trinity Health and voluntary (colleague paid) options for supplemental life, supplemental AD&D and dependent life.
- Relocation allowance: PGY1 Residents who have matched and are beginning Residency at St. Joseph’s on July 1 are eligible for $500 in moving expenses. The resident must be relocating to the Syracuse area and must provide valid receipts. The moving expenses are a taxable expense.
- Access to the SUNY Upstate gym and fitness center
Curriculum
The Dental Office is subdivided into the various ADA-recognized discipline areas. In addition, there are sections on dentistry for special patients under general anesthesia and diagnostic sciences. Hours of formal lectures will be presented from the varied disciplines in the Dental Office. Literature reviews are held on a regular basis. Sometime during the year, each resident will present a formal treatment plan before the dental staff. The plan must include slides, radiographs, study casts, etc. Because it is impossible to detail all phases of dentistry, only basic materials and philosophies will be presented formally. The bulk of educational instruction and guidance will be at chairside. Each resident will spend:
- two weeks in anesthesiology
- one week in the emergency department
- two weeks in family practice/physical diagnosis
In addition to the dental didactic and clinical hours, assignments will be made to various other services in the hospital to help broaden medical knowledge. A rotational on-call for evenings and weekends has been established for the Dental Office and the hospital’s emergency department. Residents take call at home. Patients are accepted for total dental care, from diagnosis and treatment planning through final restorative procedures.
Program Goals
The philosophy of the General Practice Residency program is to prepare residents for the general practice of dentistry in which they care for the patient’s total needs in an efficient and effective manner as part of the patient’s “primary care team.” The training enables residents to provide their patients with comprehensive care, including:
- Acting as a 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.
- Planning and providing multidisciplinary oral health care for a wide variety of patients, including patients with special needs.
- Managing 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.
- Functioning effectively within the hospital and other health care environments.
- Functioning effectively within interdisciplinary health care teams.
- Applying 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.
- Utilizing the values of professional ethics, lifelong learning, patient-centered care, adaptability, and acceptance of cultural diversity in professional practice.
- Understanding the oral health needs of communities and engaging in community service.
Residents are given experience in the treatment of medically compromised patients and exposure to the field of hospital dentistry, including operating room and emergency procedures. Residents will gain self-confidence, improve their diagnostic skill, increase speed of treatment and sharpen their all-around clinical abilities through exposure to techniques and modalities that may not have been completely addressed in predoctoral programs.
The purpose of exposure to each discipline is not to present a definite course in a special area. It is intended to give residents increased insight into the diagnosis and treatment of each area in order that they may place the disciplines into their proper perspective of comprehensive care as part of the primary care team. Residents will gain sufficient knowledge and experience in order that they may comfortably fulfill the role of a member of the dental profession and participate in all of the activities related to the delivery of total patient care, whether in private practice or as a member of a hospital medical staff.
Competencies
Intended outcomes of residency education are based on the ADA competencies listed below. The stated competencies are meant to be used initially as a guide for a resident to focus attention on the breadth and depth of learning that is expected, and specifically to provide residents with information required to complete the program. A resident’s general ability in the particular area addressed by each competency is evaluated periodically by the program director using several validation methods and a specific rating scale. These competencies are:
- Medical risk assessment
- Restoration of teeth
- Pulpal therapy
- Periodontal therapy
- Replacement of teeth
- Patient assessment and diagnosis
- Planning and providing multidisciplinary comprehensive care
- Obtain informed consent
- Promoting oral and systemic health and disease prevention
- Sedation, pain and anxiety control
- Hard and soft tissue therapy
- Treatment of medical and dental emergencies
- Request and respond to requests for consultations
- Practice management
- Pediatric dentistry
- Same day surgery/inpatients
- Oral pathology, oral surgery and hospital protocol
Current Dental Residents
Our current residents are listed below or view our Resident Photo Sheet.
