A student operated, faculty mentored dental clinic service experience at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for the underserved refugee community: an interprofessional approach.

BACKGROUND: As the number of refugees settling in San Antonio increases, so will their health care needs. Due to limited resources and stress, they suffer from acute and chronic diseases, reducing their potential for success in their new host country. The need for proper health education coupled with a stable holistic health care facility is essential for their future success. OBJECTIVES: In 2009, nursing students began serving the San Antonio refugee population. By 2011, dental and medical students joined to create the student-run San Antonio Refugee Health Clinic (SARHC). SARHC serves the refugees by providing free health care/education while connecting them to San Antonio's primary health care system. METHODS: Select dental, medical, and nursing students under the mentorship of their faculty operate the SARHC clinic. The students work in collaborative teams where select members of the refugee community and bilingual students provide translational assistance. The nursing students take vital signs and medical students perform physical exams after gathering a history of present illness. Dental students provide oral health/nutritional education and screenings inclusive of head and neck examination and oral cancer risk assessment. RESULTS: Thirty-two dental, 83 medical, and 118 nursing students rotated through the clinic last year, serving patients with the most common chief complaints of dental, musculoskeletal, dermatological, and gastrointestinal nature. The most common dental findings for this population have been dental caries, periodontal disease, and other dental diseases requiring urgent care. Sub-programs such as the student interpreter program, ladies' health education, and the Refugee Accompaniment Health Partnership have resulted from the SARHC initiative to meet the refugees' needs. Currently under development is a future collaboration with local San Antonio clinics such as the San Antonio Christian Dental Clinic to serve as their dental home. CONCLUSION: The use of this interprofessional model has resulted in holistic and accessible health care for the refugees in San Antonio. Patients receive complimentary comprehensive care while students benefit from development of cultural competence reinforcement of humanitarian values. It is difficult to conclude which group is the biggest beneficiary of attending SARHC. As the dental students reflected, "We started attending the clinic as a service learning project. We then became their advocates, treated them at our dental school, and became knowledgeable about our community's dental clinics while offering tailored referrals."

Teaching evidence-based practice at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio dental school.

The overarching goal of the Evidence-Based Practice Program at San Antonio is to provide our graduates with life-long learning skills that will enable them to keep up-to-date and equip them with the best possible patient care skills during their 30-40 years of practice. Students are taught to (1) ask focused clinical questions, (2) search the biomedical research literature (PubMed) for the most recent and highest level of evidence, (3) critically evaluate the evidence, and (4) make clinical judgments about the applicability of the evidence for their patients. Students must demonstrate competency with these "just-in-time" learning skills through writing concise one-page Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) on focused clinical questions. The school has established an online searchable library of these Critically Appraised Topics. This library provides students and faculty with rapid, up-to-date evidence-based answers to clinical questions. The long-range plan is to make this online library available to practitioners and the public.