UCSF School of Dentistry

School of Dentistry
Established	1881
Type	Public
Parent institution	University of California, San Francisco
Location	San Francisco, California 37°45′46″N 122°27′29″W / 37.7627°N 122.4581°W / 37.7627; -122.4581Coordinates: 37°45′46″N 122°27′29″W / 37.7627°N 122.4581°W / 37.7627; -122.4581
Dean	Michael Reddy
Academic staff	863
Students	817
Doctoral students	152
Alumni	7,002
Website	https://dentistry.ucsf.edu/

The UCSF School of Dentistry is the dental school of the University of California, San Francisco, in San Francisco, California, in the United States. Founded in 1881, it is the oldest dental school in California and the western United States. It is accredited by the American Dental Association.^[1] In 2016, it had received the highest NIH funding of any US dental school for 25 consecutive years.^[2]

History

The Dental College was established in 1881 by the University of California Regents September 7, 1881, and became the third of the Affiliated Colleges (together with Medicine and Pharmacy). The first class, which started in 1882, was composed of 25 men and one woman. In 1892 the Dental Clinic was transferred to downtown San Francisco to be closer to the population. In 1906, the dental clinic also moved to Mount Sutro after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroys its downtown site. The dental clinic helped minister to the refugee population, which was camped out in nearby Golden Gate Park. Guy S. Millberry, who graduate himself from the dental school in 1901, became the dean of the College in 1914 and during his 25 year tenure he modernized the school. He secured funding from the American Dental Association and the Carnegie Corporation in order to make the dental program one of the most advanced in the country. He also revived the curriculum and developed a dental hygiene program. He also was fundamental in the construction of the Clinics Buildings at Parnassus^[3]

Campus was officially designated as the University of California San Francisco in 1970 and it gains more independence from the UC system. Many graduate programs were transferred to Parnassus from the UC Berkeley campus (where they had been before UCSF was made more autonomous) and post-graduate programs in dental public health was launched. The community dental clinics at Buchanan Street and San Francisco General Hospital opened in 1979. Major improvements to facilities came with the opening of the Dental Clinics Building. Assistant U.S. Surgeon General John C. Greene became dean of the School in 1981 and embarks on a campaign to strengthen basic and applied research at the school. During his tenure, he led the school from the middle third of US schools to being number one in the country by most indices.^[4] During this period Greene engaged in a campaign to raise public awareness of the dangers of smokeless tobacco. His work led to the largest and most comprehensive study of the health effects of smokeless tobacco among professional baseball players (Ernster et al. 1990). He was a co–principal investigator of the study.^[5] In 1984, the School of Dentistry was chosen to spearhead the strategic planning and implementation phases of the Pew National Dental Education Program.

In John D.B. Featherstone, became dean in 2007 and he increased the school's endowed professorships and chairs and focused on recruiting underrepresented minorities. He also implemented digital radiography throughout the Dental Center. Pre-Clinical Lab was renovated in 2009, and named in honor of former UCSF Dentistry Dean and UCSF Chancellor Willard Corwin Fleming. More modernization came in 2009-10 with the UCSF Dental Center patient reception areas revamped and Pediatric Dentistry Clinic expanded.^[6] Under his deanship, the school started a process to review its curriculum by 2019. The Craniofacial and Mesenchymal Biology (CMB) lab opened in 2010, and the Dentistry Global Oral Health Initiative launched in 2011. The UCSF School of Dentistry joined all other three UCSF schools in 2014 in becoming the #1 funded schools of their kind by the National Institutes of Health.^[7]

References