Hackensack University Medical Center

Hackensack University Medical Center (HackensackUMC) is a 781 plus bed teaching and research medical center and a part of Hackensack Meridian Healthcare Organization. HackensackUMC is the largest provider of in-patient and out-patient services in the State of New Jersey and is the fourth largest provider of service in the nation; our nurses have made this a magnet hospital. HackensackUMC is one of America’s fifth-best hospitals according to health grades and is the only hospital in New Jersey, New York, and New England to receive this recognition. They have also received New York magazines – best overall hospital distinction.

The Center for Dentistry at HackensackUMC is a CODA approved post-graduate dental training program for general practice dental residents. After fulfilling their residency year, residents have the opportunity to apply for a teaching position in the residency program.

The modern dental clinic has computers in each eighteen fully equipped operatories and digital x-rays throughout, as well as a cone–beam unit. The Center for Dentistry has a full marketing program and multiple websites. 

The program accepts eighteen residents – nine starting July 1^st and nine starting August 1^st. This overlap allows “buddy” type systems where one group can assist the other.

The on-call schedule is approximately every eighteen days, with a second resident on call to help when necessary.

The goals of the program establish for the residents an understanding of oral and systemic relationships in health and disease; it also trains the dentist to provide care within the context of total patient health. The training is also designed to develop the skills necessary to diagnose and treat the majority of dental conditions found in private practice and provides specialty referral when appropriate.

There are over seventy-five dental attendings, including all the specialists who provide both clinical and didactic training (lectures and demonstrations) in all phases of dentistry for both ambulatory and hospital patients. There is a Chairman and Chief Associate Program Director and a Vice-Chairman and Program Director. There are section chiefs for each of the specialties, and there are key restorative attendings and specialists who cover the clinic on a daily basis. The patient pool is composed of private patients, Medicaid patients, and insurance patients.

Besides the positions outlined, our office staff is composed of a general manager, department coordinator, Human Resource Manager, residency coordinator, and an OR coordinator.  The front desk personal and dental assistant work with residents to create a warm, caring, and friendly clinical setting.

Resident’s benefits include: salary, parking, meal tickets, liability insurance, paid time off, holiday party, and graduation luncheon.

Residents receive a full departmental manual and a full departmental orientation before beginning. They also receive correspondence on everything needed to become a resident.

Residents receive hospital orientation, E-learning, EPIC training (the hospital’s computer system), and Dentrix training (the dental center’s computer system).

Residents must attend departmental meetings which are held two times a year.

Residents participate in rotations in anesthesia, medicine, emergency medicine and private offices.  Residents also participate in Children’s Dental Health Month in February and in Oral Cancer Screening Month in April.

Dental residents will receive didactics and perform the following disciplines: 

• Residents “clear dentally” patients scheduled for cardiac surgery, head and neck radiation, stem cell, and bone marrow therapy, organ transplantation.
• Resident’s perform consultations for patients in all hospital departments.
• Fixed prosthodontics – crowns, bridges, laminates, bonding, inlays, and Onlays
• Removable prosthodontics – dentures, partials, and over-dentures.
• Cosmetics dentistry and bleaching.
• Demonstration on Botox.
• Lectures on implants and table clinics to practice placing and restoring implants. Then placing and restoring implants for patients.
• Periodontics - Lectures on the diagnosis, etiology, classification, and treatment – Periodontal scaling and root planning, flap surgery, bone augmentation, and guided tissue regeneration.
• Endodontics – Lectures and table clinics on rotary endo. Treating molars for patients with rotary endo. Assisting apicoectomies.
• Pedodontics – Lectures, pulpotomies, stainless steel crowns, behavior management.
• Orthodontics – Lectures – basic and Invisalign; Bracketing full cases and maintenance.
• Oral and maxillofacial surgery and trauma.
•  Incision and drainage (I&D) and infection management.
• Operating room admission and general dentistry and oral and maxillofacial surgery.
• Treat dental, oral, and maxillofacial injuries including splinting for avulsed teeth.
• Evaluate physical status and appropriate uses of local or general anesthesia.
• Nitrous oxide lectures and demonstration and patient treatment by residents.
• Oral medicine, oral pathology, and biopsies.
• TMD and TMJ – lectures, splints, differential facial pain diagnosis.
• Managing the medically complex and the medically compromised patient.

• Lectures on medical emergencies in the dental office.
• Special needs patients.
• Pharmacology
• Dental materials
• Ethics
• Practice management – running a private practice, personal financial planning for the practitioner, chart audits, journal club, and case presentations by the resident, treatment planning seminars (treatment plans are signed by an attending and followed through by the resident.)

Mandatory – Can and will be provided.

• BLS – CPR: Basic Life Support (necessary)
• ACLS: Advanced Cardiac Life Support (necessary)

Recommended

• PALS: Pediatric Advanced Life Support
• ITLS: International Trauma Life Support
• ATLS: Advanced Trauma Life Support