California - La Clinica de la Raza- Oakland - PEDS

The La Clínica de la Raza Health Center (La Clínica) is home to the NYU Langone Dental Medicine Pediatric Dentistry Program in Oakland, CA.

La Clínica was founded in 1971 and influenced by the philosophies of Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez for its mission to "Improve the quality of life of the diverse communities we serve by providing culturally appropriate, high quality, and accessible health care for all."

La Clínica is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), which has seen significant expansion over the years and now has sites in three different East Bay counties. Historically, La Clínica has served over 90,000 patients annually. With the rapid increase in the number of patients, new services have been added to benefit the community, and additional clinics have been built to meet the need. La Clínica has 35 medical and dental service sites to date. It has had a decades long affiliation with the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital-Oakland (B-CHO) Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland California where it has provided comprehensive pediatric dental services to hospital patients and since 2018, housed a CODA approved Pediatric Dentistry residency training site for the UCSF School of Dentistry.

Serving primarily low-income and underserved children in Northern, California, La Clínica is located in one of the state's most underserved neighborhoods, with its pediatric patients from aged from birth to age 18 years and of diverse race and ethnicity (Hispanic, African American, White/non-Hispanic, and Asian). La Clínica's pediatric population includes children with special health care needs including, but not limited to, autism, asthma, ADD/ADHD, cerebral palsy, sickle cell disease, and craniofacial anomalies.

With La Clínica's modern clinical facilities and more than 40 operatories at its Oakland, Vallejo, and Union City clinics, residents have access to electronic dental records, digital radiography, and a dedicated operatory for conscious sedation procedures to fulfill the CODA-required 50 oral conscious sedations (25 as the operator; 25 as monitor). All residents work with a dental assistant, treat a large number of patients, and acquire a wide variety of clinical skills that prepare graduates to practice competently and confidently in any setting.

Residents typically complete 80+ cases in the operating rooms at Benioff Children's Hospital-Oakland and at the B-CHO outpatient surgery center in Walnut Creek, CA. The residents are actively involved with the B-CHO Craniofacial Team. On-call rotations in the B-CHO Emergency Department (a Level 1 Trauma Center), provide residents with a wide variety of experiences in managing dentofacial trauma.

Throughout the 2-year program, residents gain exposure to collaborative community activities and policy advocacy efforts with state/national partners.

In addition to the core didactic curriculum conducted by the NYU Langone Dental faculty, this program offers a robust onsite didactic curriculum taught by full time pediatric dental and orthodontic faculty. These seminars cover a range of topics including Growth and Development, Interceptive and Phase 1 orthodontics, craniofacial malformations, pediatric oral pathology and dental anomalies.

For questions about the NYU Langone Dental Medicine-Oakland, CA site, contact Dr. Ray Stewart, Associate Program Director. Email: Ray.Stewart@nyulangone.org.