The program is designed to provide a carefully integrated, high quality combined course of study in clinical specialty and research training. Dentists with outstanding potential to become productive clinician scientists will be recruited to the program. The combined program is structured to lead to a clinical specialty qualification (equivalent to two years of training) and a PhD in a basic research discipline. The clinical programs offered include: endodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, periodontics, prosthodontics, radiology, public health and general practice. The basic research disciplines include those offered by the University of North Carolina, Duke University and North Carolina State University. This broad spectrum of high quality programs provides an usually rich range of research expertise and resources on which to draw. The program is highly flexible. It can be tailored to accommodate the specific combinations of clinical and research disciplines and individual career objectives within the context of the program objectives. In the first year of the program approximately 80% effort is devoted to research training in the basic discipline and 20% to clinical specialty training. In 02 and 03 years the balance is reversed with emphasis on clinical training. The 04 and 05 years are devoted heavily to the dissertation research, but with some continuing clinical activity. At the time of this application we have completed three years in the originally funded program (9/1/85-6/30/90). We have attracted outstanding people to our fellowship positions. Each of them is progressing in excellent fashion. Their discipline combinations are: periodontics-biology; pediatric dentistry-epidemiology; public health-microbiology/ immunology; orthodontics-biomedical engineering and physics; pediatric dentistry-biochemistry; orthodontics-pharmacology; periodontics-microbiology/immunology. All of the departments involved have worked well in the program and enthusiastically support it.
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