Patient Care

After seven years of pain and questions, relief came for Gloria Derks through the School of Dentistry.

The Cleft and Craniofacial Clinic at the School of Dentistry is entering its sixth decade with a new director and renewed enthusiasm for interprofessionalism and patient care.

The University of Minnesota School of Dentistry and People’s Center Clinics & Services in Minneapolis have come together to provide excellence in care and education.

The Mobile Dental Clinic was shortlisted for the 2024 Denobi Team award for the National Mobile and Teledentistry Conference.

A new School of Dentistry clinic received a Clinical Dental Education and Innovations Grant from the Minnesota Department of Health to support technological and facility needs.

Let’s all do our part to create a clinical environment that is person-centered for all. 

Questions are what drive scientific discovery. Big questions—the ones that keep us up at night—foster a desire for learning that never stops. They dare us to dream, to think differently. And they are how we transform our patient care. The School of Dentistry holds as a guiding principle a commitment to lifelong discovery through research that innovates the practice and study of dentistry. A core part of that commitment is the Oral Health Clinical Research Center (OHCRC).

One of our core values is “service to all communities.” The educational model of our school has allowed us to fulfill this value and operate our Moos Tower clinics as safety-net clinics. Within our predoctoral clinics, we provide dental care to patients with commercial insurance, public insurance and no insurance at all.  For a variety of reasons, the patients treated in our clinics may have few options of places to seek care. By improving their oral health, we also positively impact their overall health. 

Alvin Wee, DDS, PhD, MPH, wears plenty of hats in his position at the School of Dentistry. He is the Director of the Division of Prosthodontics, a leader in care for patients with complex oral rehabilitation needs and a researcher focusing on color sciences and early detection of oral cancer. But one of the obligations he treasures most happens outside the walls of Moos Tower: serving in private practice at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

On a sunny day in mid-June, Amy Ahnefeld brings her two children into the Hibbing Community College Dental Clinic for oral health care. A single mother to Finn and Hannah, she knows what is important to her: community, efficiency and excellence in care. She gets all those things and more at Hibbing—and that is why she has continued to return for nine years.