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WesternU played a large role in Care Harbor Fairplex, a free mega-clinic

Clinical Experiences

Clinical Experiences offer hands-on training in a variety of settings with diverse populations. Hallmarks of your WesternU clinical curriculum include:

  • Early direct patient care integrated with the acquisition of foundational knowledge and clinical skills in the first two years.
  • Early service learning opportunities in a variety of community-based locations in the first two years, emphasizing how to meet the needs of the community through assessment, education, and preventive programs.
  • Preclinical simulation that allows you to develop foundational clinical skills through a multidisciplinary approach across all traditional dental disciplines.
  • Focusing on oral-systemic connections by integrating dental students into the human systems courses in the first two years, advanced case-based seminars and inter-professional clinical rotations in the last two years.
  • Unique inter-professional curriculum featuring case-based learning with small groups of students from several other WesternU health science programs, so you will learn how to work together for patient’s best interest.
  • Patient-centered WesternU dental clinic where as a student “associate” you work with faculty mentors to best meet the needs of patients by emphasizing low student-to-faculty ratios, short appointments, and increased opportunities for 4-handed dentistry in a new clinic with state-of-the-art equipment.
  • Extensive Community-based clinical education in a variety of locations in southern California and the region, where you will provide oral health care for diverse populations using a variety of delivery models.