The Advanced Education in General Dentistry Program at the Augusta University is a one year program fulfilling the requirements for advanced training in general dentistry as outlined by the Commission on Dental Accreditation of the American Dental Association leading to a certificate. The program is designed to provide clinical and didactic experience at the postdoctoral level in all areas of dentistry with an emphasis on treatment planning complex cases, treating medically complex patients, and training in advanced techniques such as rotary endodontics, implants, and IV sedation.

Residents receive an advanced program of didactic and clinical training in implant, fixed, and removable prosthodontics with the support of highly trained laboratory technicians; instruction in the management of medically compromised patients, geriatric patients, phobic patients, and didactic and clinical experience in the implementation of IV sedation techniques.

The majority of time is spent providing comprehensive patient care in state of the art operatories staffed by dental assistants and clerks simulating a small group dental practice.

The year of training includes clinical rotations in emergency medicine, pedodontics and anesthesiology.

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anonymous

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I watched this program harm patients it was very unethical what I saw. It is a matter of time before this program is shut down by proper authorities.
4 years ago
andrewcurriedmd

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I’m a firm believer that there is just too much to learn while in dental school to become skilled at almost any of it while there. Dental school gives us the basics, and hopefully enough training to avoid hurting someone and to recognize procedures that are out of our depth. If you enter straight into private practice, there’s no doubt you’ll be slow, likely lack confidence (or you probably should), have a working knowledge of outdated materials but not current ones, and have a limited scope of procedures. A GPR/AEGD provides much more private-practice like setting of autonomy, current materials, trained chair-side assistants (my dental school didn’t provide an assistant unless you were doing something like a crown impression), a large patient base that allow for a great variety and volume of procedural opportunities, but also the golden parachute of attending doctors who can bail you out of a crisis. Your rate of learning and ability catapults forward. In early private practice you may or may not have a stream of patients who may or may not be able to afford the proposed treatment — dental school prices allow for much higher enrollment. They also expect the same quality of dentistry as a private practice dentist of 20 years of experience would provide — and that’s fair. We’re licensed and boarded by then, so (theoretically) we should all be capable and competent. Not all programs are created equally by any means, so do your research depending on which skills you want to target. I did two years in a GPR at the Medical College of Georgia because I thought it to be the best implant residency in the nation at the time. It’s changed names over the years, but now it is the Dental College of Georgia at Augusta University, and I’d still recommend it, or something like it, to anyone who wants to offer more invasive procedures in private practice. 

Private practice is not the place to experiment with riskier procedures. I do a ton of CE, but I don’t think a weekend course here or there is adequate to safely learn certain things like sedation or invasive surgeries. If you have some deeper training than dental school (including years of private practice), then sure, you can build on that and expand your skill set with CE…but if you haven’t been put through some intensive scenarios of having to spend time in a hospital with anesthesia intubating for OR cases, dealing with bleeds, pivoting from an established plan to do a very different surgery…then you can end up in hot water fast. I did a GPR so that if I had my worst day there, it would put me at a risk level of 10 and I’d know how to deal with it. In my private practice, I try to keep my risk level in at a 5 or lower, so on my worst day in private practice maybe I land at a 7 but I’m equipped to manage it. I fear for weekend CE warriors who are trained on slam dunk cases that have low risk. When they have their level 7 day happen, they’ve never dealt with anything above a 4 and everyone is in trouble of injury or malpractice. A GPR or AEGD can provide a really great level of knowledge, experience, exposure, and accelerated learning to allow you to enter private practice a year or two behind your classmates, but 5 years ahead of their skills.
4 years ago

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Augusta University Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD/GPR)

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Augusta University Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD/GPR)

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