About Comprehensive Dentistry
Patient Advocate & Manager
Modern health care requires caring, competent primary care providers who place patient welfare above all other considerations. In dentistry, the General Dentist fulfills that role. The dental specialties support general dentists by providing expert care for those patients whose diagnostic or treatment needs demand advanced levels of skill and expertise. It is the responsibility of the general dentist to lead the referral team and constantly insure that the best interests of the patient are met.
Comprehensive Dentistry Mission
The mission of Texas A&M University College of Dentistry is to improve the oral health of Texans and shape the future of dentistry by:
- Preparing students to diagnose and provide comprehensive oral health services in a professional manner.
- Provide students a clinical experience that mirrors a general dental practice, including personnel and patient management.
- Demonstrate the commitment by the dental profession to provide competent care in a timely manner while respecting the patient’s values and interests.
Objectives & Philosophy
Behavioral Objectives
The department’s vision is to consistently produce ethical graduates who are diagnostically, managerially, and therapeutically competent in keeping with Texas A&M University College of Dentistry’s competencies document.
By the end of the General Dentistry program the student should be able to:
By the end of the General Dentistry program the student should be able to:
- Examine and evaluate patients’ general health status.
- Diagnose conditions, identify and list patients’ dental needs.
- Prescribe treatment plans, effectively communicate them, and perform patient care competently.
- Recognize the need to refer patients to a specialist when the scope of required treatment is beyond the student practitioner’s competence.
- Manage and delegate to appropriate others, duties such as patient scheduling and other patient services that do not require the skill and judgment of a dentist.
- Demonstrate concern and understanding for patients.
- Model the intellectual, ethical, and behavioral aspects of professionalism.
Comprehensive Care Philosophy
The College’s definition of comprehensive patient care is: “a system of clinical instruction and operation which allows the student to provide or be responsible for all aspects of a given patient’s treatment needs in a manner that closely resembles the way the student will provide care in private practice after graduation.”
The objectives of our comprehensive care programs are:
The term “competency” then, is a threshold outcome of clinical training and experience that denotes the ability and willingness to practice dentistry consistently and independently at acceptable levels of performance.
Such performance has the following characteristics:
The objectives of our comprehensive care programs are:
- to provide comprehensive oral health services in a professional manner;
- to provide a clinical experience that resembles a broadly-based general dental practice;
- to provide competent care in a timely manner while respecting the patient’s values and interest.
The term “competency” then, is a threshold outcome of clinical training and experience that denotes the ability and willingness to practice dentistry consistently and independently at acceptable levels of performance.
Such performance has the following characteristics:
- it is a typical part of the general practice of dentistry;
- it is a combination of knowledge and attitude, psychomotor skills, and/or communication skills;
- it is performed in a clinical setting or clinical context, and;
- it is consistently at or above the profession’s defined standards of care.
DDS admissions
Ready to learn more about what it takes to be an Aggie Dentist?
Take me to the DDS Admissions page