Dominican Republic, La Romana Municipality
Faculty and dental students make annual trips to focus on pediatric patients from local schools and orphanages in this village, where many residents work in local sugar cane fields.
Outreach
Outreach & Community Service
For millions in New Jersey and around the globe, oral healthcare is unaffordable and inaccessible. RSDM students and faculty treat a multitude of underserved patients locally and internationally, providing a safety net for many who would otherwise go without desperately needed treatment. RSDM also works to educate diverse populations worldwide about oral health and its connection to overall health and wellbeing.
Local
At RSDM’s student clinics in Newark, we offer free screenings and preventive treatment to local children on Give Kids a Smile Day, a national event for underserved children, and through other pediatric preventive care programs. We also visit local schools and hospitals to provide oral health education to children and adults. Dental students work with an interdisciplinary team of RBHS students at Rutgers Student Family Health Care Center and University Hospital’s OB-GYN and pediatric primary care clinics.
Overseas
RSDM students and faculty treat a multitude of underserved patients internationally
Haiti and Dominican Republic
On the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a team sets up clinics to provide oral healthcare, in addition to screening for diabetes and hypertension. Faculty and students treat more than 1,000 patients during the week-long dental mission.
Bangladesh, Smile Bangladesh
Faculty and residents from the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department perform cleft lip and palate surgery in Bangladesh, where there is a severe shortage of qualified surgeons. They also hold symposiums on corrective surgery at a local dental hospital.
American Indian and Alaska Natives - Indian Health services
On annual RSDM dental missions to Indian Health Services clinics in the West and Midwest, students and faculty care for Native American patients, filling in for staff dentists during their summer break.