Meet Luis and hear about his experience at the Children’s Dental Health Clinic!

Click here to read his story in Charting Winter 2025.

Our Training Community

Our collaboration with the Post-Graduate Pediatric Dental program at USC’s Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center is more than 35-years strong! Each year, we help provide hands-on training for a group of Pediatric Dental Residents as they help us provide preventative and therapeutic treatments, including all levels of sedation, both in our clinic and in the operating rooms at Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital. They are also on-call 24/7 for the hospital’s emergency and operating rooms, and they join us in serving on the hospital’s integrated hematology, oncology and cleft palate/cranio-facial teams.

Through our strong partnerships with Cerritos College and West Coast University, we serve as a clinical training site for their Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting programs. Each year, more than 130 future Registered Dental Hygienists and Registered Dental Assistants work closely with our clinical teams to gain technologically-advanced skills and hands-on experience with unique challenges in pediatric dentistry.

We launched our newest collaboration with California State University, Long Beach’s Health Administration Department in 2022. With a shared goal of improving care delivery inside the Medi-Cal environment, we serve as an off-campus, academic learning site for second-year Master’s students who are completing their internships on applied health equity research.

Our Professional Association Community

Our team is passionate about what we do, so many have held leadership roles with prominent industry groups, including the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD), California Dental Association (CDA), California Dental Hygienist’s Association (CDHA), Dental Board of California, Harbor Dental Society and Oral Health Long Beach. This includes serving on committees and as subject matter experts, advocating for our patients and families, and keeping up on the latest developments within our industry.

Our Advocacy in the Community

Our team members have advocated for critical improvements in pediatric dental care and the Medi-Cal/Denti-Cal system for years. Here are some highlights of that work:

• California kids have some of the worst teeth in the nation. Here’s why, LA Times, 2023
• CDA calls for increased commitment to children’s oral health to overcome pandemic disruptions, California Dental Association, 2023
• Medi-Cal Dental gains are measurable for dentists and patients, California Dental Association, 2022
• Children’s Dental Health Clinic meets gap in dental care for underserved youth, Long Beach Post, 2022
• Caries Identification, Management and Prevention in a Unique Model Program: A Report, Journal of the California Dental Association, 2019
• In California, saving teeth and money, one mouth at a time, CALMatters, 2018
• California’s dental safety net fails most clients, report says, NPR, 2016
• For poor kids, fewer dentists, but a pilot program offers hope, KPCC, 2014