CDA Essentials 2019 • Volume 6 • Issue 4

I ssues and P eople Dr. Chris Wyatt Shunhau To Dr. Leeann Donnelly Dr. Mario Brondani 24 | 2019 | Issue 4 Current and future dentistry and dental hygiene students will now have thorough, concentrated training in care for vulnerable seniors. Shunhau To, program manager of UBC’s geriatric clinic, says: “We have graduates who are interested in geriatrics and want to serve that population. That didn’t happen before.” For decades, UBC Dentistry covered geriatric dental care only in bits and pieces as a small component of different courses. No dedicated training or clinical and didactic content addressed this patient group until 2010. Now the new Dentistry 430 Geriatrics I module teaches third-year students a team-based, compassionate approach to patient-centred elder care, says Ms. To. Both UBC dentistry and dental hygiene students are learning to spend time with elderly patients, to build caring relationships with them, and to view them as more than just an oral health challenge. Students are learning to feel at ease with frail seniors’ complex dental and medical conditions, including missing teeth, limited mobility, anxiety, dementia and Parkinson’s disease. In 2015, UBC Dentistry served 40 patients over age 100; their five most frequent medical conditions were hypertension, dementia, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and fractures. Each of these patients has at least two medical conditions and is taking at least three or four prescribed medications. Students learn to understand and deliver collaborative interprofessional oral care to geriatric patients in both long- term-care settings and private practice. In third year, they observe how a dentist works with family members to decide on treatment. By fourth year, they understand how treatment can become a team effort involving a dentist, dental hygienist, nutritionist and nurse or doctor working together with the family. Fourth-year students perform hands-on geriatric patient care in community settings, supervised by UBC faculty and other dentists. “We’re making a difference by training students and exposing them to years of commitment to community service and outreach,” says Ms. To. As a key part of community outreach, both dentistry and dental hygiene students are doing rotations at free clinics in two Vancouver seniors’ facilities: Villa Cathay Care Home and Simon K.Y. Lee Seniors Care Home. The students also rotate once a week to observe and assist with patient care at UBC’s Nobel Biocare Oral Health Centre. The new Dentistry 430 Geriatrics I module teaches third-year students a team-based, compassionate approach to patient-centred elder care. – Shunhau To