Lasting Impressions | Fall 2014

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 25 trying to get the children to feel comfortable in their surroundings. That will be beneficial for me with all of my patients. I don’t know of any clinic that offers this kind of opportunity for students and for families of children with autism. And I know I would not have been exposed to this kind of setting at another university.” Padilla agrees. “Rotations through special needs clinics are very typical in pediatric dentist- ry residency programs, but what is not typical is for our residents to rotate through a special needs clinic that has a multi or interdisciplin- ary aspect. This behavioral guidance protocol is something very rare.” And just as essential as it is to the CDM, the collaboration is “critically important” to the Mailman Segal Center for Human Development, according to Roni Cohen Leiderman, Ph.D., dean of MSC. “One of our very strong mission goals is to continually train and educate anyone who works with children, and the population of children with special needs, and to provide these education- al experiences on campus. With the statistics of children on the autism spectrum, every dental practice is going to have someone with special needs in their dental chairs. “The ripple effect of this clinic is huge, and it doesn’t just benefit children here, but thousands of children who will be served by these dentists when they go out into the world and are practicing professionals,” she added. u The dental clinic at the Mailman Segal Center for Human Development (MSC) is funded through a $2.5 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). This HRSA grant is designed to develop and implement a collaborative oral health education and training program between NSU’s College of Dental Medicine, MSC, the NSU-CDM Pediatric Special Needs Dental Clinic at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, and South Florida Autism Charter School in Hialeah. “This initiative offers pediatric dentistry residents education and train- ing, focusing on children and adolescents with special health care needs, specifically Autism Spectrum Disorder,” said Romer Ocanto, D.D.S., associate professor and chair in the CDM’s Department of Pediatric Dentistry. According to Ocanto, the dental clinic at MSC and the other projects associated with the five-year HRSA grant have helped to develop an oral health curriculum for pediatric dental residents, and have allowed for multidisciplinary collaboration with other providers in managing treatment for children and adolescents with special needs. The grant ends on June 30, 2015. Ocanto says that there are plans to reapply to HRSA, but “for a different award that will expand on what we already have accomplished. However, comprehensive dental services to these children will continue to be offered at MSC and at our Joe DiMaggio dental clinic.” A new grant, whether from HRSA or from other sources, will have different goals. “One of the goals is to expand on our interprofessional activities and include other dental disciplines. We also want to focus on training general dentists (and predoctoral dental students) in the same behavioral principles our residents are using to treat these children, then applying them in their practice so children with autism spectrum have more access to care,” he said. u About The Grant: Moving Forward Sirisha Giovindaiah spent her last day as a CDM student working with young patients at the Mailman Segal Center clinic.