Brian Bast, DMD, MDWhen I became chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at UCSF, our department was struggling financially. It was affecting everything. It was difficult to support teaching and research while also providing patient care for underserved communities and those who lacked access to dental care. It became clear to me that we needed to solve our financial problems if we wanted to fully support and expand our department and school’s missions.
The way to do that was to grow our clinical operations to bring revenue into the department. With the new revenue, we invested and dedicated funding to patient care, teaching, research, and serving underserved communities. But the change was difficult. There was resistance. Today, we can see that the changes worked and helped the department expand its impact.
UCSF School of Dentistry is taking a similar approach at a larger scale with the ultimate goal of supporting our vision for the dental school of the future.
For the past 20 years, academic dentistry has been experiencing increasing financial pressure as funding models that depend solely on state and research dollars can no longer support schools. The last two years have only magnified the issue.
At the same time, a dental degree is the most expensive health professional degree to obtain, and many schools would like to decrease tuition and other costs associated with education. But by adopting a clinically-focused funding model, academic dentistry has a chance to turn things around and achieve financial sustainability.
UCSF Dentistry, and other academic dental institutions, should be on board for this much needed change. The possibilities are endless for what a sustainable dental school can do. Maybe one day we can even make dental education free.
– Brian Bast, DMD, MD, is chief dental officer, chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and a professor at UCSF School of Dentistry; and an oral and maxillofacial surgeon and service chief of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital
