Pediatric Dental Residency Program
Children's Wisconsin
8915 W. Connell Ct
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226
Phone: (414) 266-1788
Fax: (414) 266-5677
Program Contact: Sandra Olsen, MS, Program Coordinator, solsen2@childrenswi.org
Web: www.childrenswi.org
Program Length and Number of Positions
This is a 24-month program commencing on July 1 of each year. Mandatory orientation begins mid-June.
Each year the program will accept five applicants through the PASS/Match Application services. Five residents will be compensated with salary and full benefits as hospital employees.
Program Type
Hospital-based certificate program
Application
Applicants must have the following to be considered for admission:
- D.D.S. or D.M.D. degree obtained at a CODA accredited U.S. dental school
- National Boards Part I and Part II or INBDE
Applicants must:
- Submit an application through the Postdoctoral Application Support Service (PASS). Application instructions can be found at the PASS website at https://portal.passweb.org/.
- Register with the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Service (MATCH). Information about the MATCH can be found http://www.natmatch.com/dentres/.
- Upon invitation, a personal interview is required. At that time, a high-resolution photo will be requested. No photos are needed before the invitation to interview. Interviews are held in November and December.
The application deadline for PASS is October 1st of the year preceding matriculation.
All correspondence regarding program information and application should be directed to:
Carli DiGioia, D.M.D.
Director, Pediatric Dentistry Residency Program
Children’s Wisconsin
MS 310
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226
(414) 266-1788
Administrator email: solsen2@childrenswi.org
Description
The residency program in Pediatric Dentistry is hospital-based with didactic courses provided through the faculty of Children’s Wisconsin, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Marquette University. The program prides itself on a unique commitment to continuity of care. Each resident follows a specific patient pool during their two years of training.
Patient Profile
Children’s Dental Center serves the needs of nearly 14,500 unique patients, including more than 34,000 patient visits/year and is one of the busiest specialty clinics at Children’s Wisconsin. Every patient gives residents an opportunity to learn pediatric dentistry in a hands-on environment.
The Children’s Dental Center-Main Campus cares for a diverse patient population. Approximately 60% of patients are healthy children that come from varied socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The remaining 40% of patients present with health issues and have either a physical/cognitive challenge or complex medical condition.
The resident patient load is significant, but with each encounter, the residents learn about children, families, and ultimately, develop an expertise in delivering dental services to a broad scope of children. The Children’s Dental Center receives direct referrals from the Midwest Children’s Cancer Center, the Herma Heart Center, the Blood Center of Wisconsin, the Child Protection Center, the Emergency Department/Trauma Center, and numerous other departments and providers within the hospital.
The program has 3 additional practice sites. The Children’s Dental Center-Forest Home serves the area with the greatest population density of children in the state, located on the south side of Milwaukee. The Children’s Wisconsin Dental Center at Next Door serves the north side of Milwaukee. Most of these children and families come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The Dental Center at Midtown serves the northwest side of Milwaukee. Here, too, the majority of the children and families come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
The program emphasizes community involvement and endeavors to promote the resident’s understanding of poverty and the barriers families encounter in their daily lives.
Community Service: Residents actively volunteer with a variety of community service organizations, such as Special Olympics and Hunger Task Force. Residents also provide educational seminars to area dentists and medical staffs on topics in pediatric dentistry.
Curriculum
Courses and Seminars
The program offers a wide variety of courses and seminars including:
- Craniofacial Growth & Development
- Board Preparation Review
- Pulp Therapy in Pediatric Dentistry
- Pediatric Dental Trauma
- Pediatric Dental Infections
- Pediatric Medicine
- Preventive Concepts in Pediatric Dentistry
- Practice Management
- Transition of the Human Dentition
- Cephalometrics
- Oral Pathology
- Orthodontic Diagnosis & Treatment Planning
- Literature Review
- Public Health & Advocacy
- Concepts in Pediatric Dentistry (Behavior Guidance, Complex Special Needs, Case Reviews).
Hospital lectures include Grand Rounds, Pediatric Trauma Rounds, Craniofacial Anomaly Rounds, attended with medical resident colleagues.
Research
Residents, paired with a faculty mentor, complete an original research project. Projects are presented to the Dental Center staff at a Resident Research Day.
Poster Presentation
Residents are expected to present a poster at a major meeting during residency.
American Board of Pediatric Dentistry (ABPD) Certification
Residents must complete the ABPD Qualifying Exam prior to completion of the program. Mock oral boards are given by experienced faculty members to help the residents prepare for the Oral Clinical Exam.
Teaching
Residents teach pre-doctoral students at Marquette University’s School of Dentistry. They also lecture medical resident colleagues on oral health and pediatric dentistry.
Hospital Training
Hospital experience is extensive. Operating room cases, inpatient consultations, management of oral/facial infections and traumatic injuries and consultations with medical departments are a part of the resident’s daily life.
Rotations include:
- Primary care
- Anesthesiology
- Community health care
- Specialty medicine
- Craniofacial surgery
- Otolaryngology
- Child advocacy
- Speech/audiology
- Feeding/nutrition
- Child development
- Special needs
Residents participate on interdisciplinary teams, such as craniofacial/cleft palate and the leukemia/lymphoma team.
Emergency On-Call
Residents provide 24-hour, 7-days-a-week on-call emergency care, Call is rotated daily by a paired 1st and 2nd-year resident, Residents are on-call approximately one week/month.
Program Stipend and Tuition
Resident Stipends
First Year: $61,300
Second Year: $62,900
Chief Resident: $65,200
Upon approval of the program director and at the end of 1st year, weekend moonlighting during the 2nd year may be an option at various dental practices in the community.
Hospital Employee Benefits: malpractice insurance, short-term disability insurance, life insurance, health insurance. In the first year, residents receive 10 days paid vacation. In the second year, paid vacation time increases to 12 days. In addition, Children’s offers 6-8 paid holidays per year, and 8 paid sick days (total).
Residents are also given 8 education days beyond their regular vacation days to attend educational conferences and meetings. Major meetings that residents may attend include the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) Annual Session during the second year of training, the AAPD Sedation Course, and the AAPD Comprehensive Review of Pediatric Dentistry Course or the AAPD Qualifying Exam Prep Course. Residents also attend the WDA Legislative Day to supplement their advocacy training. Attendance at the required courses is subsidized at approximately 50% pending budget allowance. Additional meetings and courses may be attended upon approval of the Program Director.
Lectures and seminars presented at Children’s Wisconsin are tuition-free or eligible for full tuition reimbursement.
Facilities
Children’s Wisconsin is the region’s leader in pediatric care, located on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Campus. We are dedicated solely to the treatment of sick and injured children, offering primary, secondary, and tertiary services.
Capacity: ~300 medical/surgical beds.
Expertise: 5,000 employees and 1,000 medical/dental staff members.
Impact: 26,000 annual admissions and 680,000+ outpatient visits.
Dental Center Locations
Our residents practice at four modern outpatient clinics, all featuring digital radiography and electronic dental records.
* Milwaukee Campus Dental Center
A 14,000-square-foot, 19-chair clinic connected directly to the hospital via skywalk.
* Forest Home Dental Center
An 8-chair clinic serving the south side of Milwaukee.
* Midtown Dental Center
An 8-chair clinic serving Milwaukee’s northwest side.
* Next Door Dental Center
A 5-chair community clinic serving the surrounding northside area.
Surgical and Advanced Care
For dental cases requiring general anesthesia or specialized intervention:
18 Hospital Operating Rooms: Including three dedicated Special Procedures-Day Surgery suites.
Specialized Equipment: Mobile operating carts, supply units, and mobile X-ray machines are available for all OR cases.
Admission Requirements
Applicants must have the following items completed and/or submitted for consideration:
- Graduate from a CODA accredited U.S. dental school
- Completed PASS (Postdoctoral Application Support Service) application
- Register with the National Matching Service
- Personal interview upon invitation. Upon interview invitation, a high-resolution photo (.jpeg file) must be sent directly to the Residency Coordinator, Sandra Olsen, via email to solsen2@childrenswi.org.
Program Strengths
- Patient volume: Large, diverse patient population with a significant portion of children with special needs. Residents have a very active patient schedule exposing them to a wide range of pediatric dental procedures and diagnostically challenging cases.
- Continuity of Care: The entire dental department is strongly committed to ensuring that children are seen by the same provider for the duration of resident training. Residents are scheduled with the same patients consistently and can build relationships with patients and families while closely following their treatment outcomes.
- Staff: Attending faculty and supporting staff with long-term dedication to resident education. All faculty see their own patients every week in clinic alongside residents, which allows for daily mentoring and guidance. Residents are always supported by a dental assistant except certain elective orthodontic visits.
- Behavior guidance: Extensive training and experience in the understanding and guidance of child behavior, utilizing behavior guidance techniques, including non-pharmacological methods, sedation, and general anesthesia. Residents complete more than 50 cases of sedation using midazolam (oral and intranasal),
- Orthodontics: Residents successfully complete 6+ cases of full brackets with orthopedic appliances, in addition to various fixed and removable appliance cases. Weekly didactic training and strong clinical supervision provided by a board-certified orthodontist.
- Trauma/Emergency care:. As a Level I trauma center, the emergency room provides a large and diverse group of patients requiring treatment of dental-facial trauma.
- Didactics: Comprehensive seminar/lecture curriculum, including advocacy training and hospital lectures such as Grand Rounds and Craniofacial Conference with medical residents and fellows.
- Facilities: The facilities at the main Children’s Hospital campus have been recently updated, The new state-of-the-art clinic includes dedicated resident workspace, 19 chairs, dedicated orthodontic rooms, etc. All are thoughtfully designed to care for our diverse patient base.
- High quality residents from diverse backgrounds.
Externship Opportunity
Children's Wisconsin (CW) Pediatric Dental Residency Program offers a well-rounded externship experience for interested applicants. Time spent at CW may include experiences shadowing in the dental clinic including our special needs population, operating room, minimal and moderate sedation cases, craniofacial team, orthodontic procedures, lectures, and on-call services with the current CW residents. The externship is limited to rising fourth-year dental students or practicing dentists seriously interested in applying for pediatric dental residency at CW. Minimum dental school GPA is 3.4 for externship candidates (students at pass/fail dental schools are welcome to submit a CV for consideration).
If you are ready to request an externship, please submit a CV that notes a current GPA, or final dental school GPA for graduated dentists not currently in advanced training to Sandra Olsen at solsen2@childrenswi.org on or after January 1. Once qualifications are confirmed and an externship is offered, applicants may request an externship date from the list of dates still available. About twenty externship experiences (three-day or five-day experiences) are offered from March-June, August and September. They are reserved by qualified candidates on a first-come first-served basis.
Program Faculty
Full-Time
Lori R. Barbeau, D.D.S., Medical Director
Carli DIGioia, D.M.D.**, Program Director
Sara Al-Bitar, DDS
Danielle Barstad, D.D.S.**
Wesley Chiasson, D.D.S.**
Colleen Greene, D.M.D., M.P.H.**
Jonathan Hanna, D.D.S.**
Pollyana Marques DeMoura, DDS, PhD, Craniofacial Orthodontist
Ahmed Mohamed, D.D.S.**
Michelle Stegman, DMD, MPH
Part-Time
Michael Melugin, D.D.S., M.S., Orthodontics (ABO board certified) & Oral Surgery (ABOMS board certified)
Philip Hawkins, D.D.S., ABOMS Oral Surgeon and Maxillofacial Surgeon **
Munizeh Khan, D.D.S.**
Jennifer Bergstrom, DDS, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
Randal Stelzner, D.D.S. General Dentist
Adjunct Faculty
Elizabeth Eggert, D.D.S.**
Amy Getz-Niedziela, D.D.S.**
Pamela Hanson, D.D.S., M.S. (ABO board certified)
Cliff Hartmann, D.D.S.**
Brian Hodgson, D.D.S.**
Macaire Hulderman, D.D.S., M.S.**
Nicole Simonetti, D.D.S.**
Chad Zambon, D.D.S.
**ABPD Board-Certified
School Profile
| Program Type: | Hospital-Based Certificate |
|---|---|
| Program Director: | Full-Time |
| Program Faculty: | 10 Full-Time 5 Part-Time 8 Adjunct 16 Board Certified |
| Program Length: | 24 Total Months July 1 (Mid-June Orientation) Start Date |
| Program Accreditation: | Approved |
| State Licensure: | Not Required |
| Number of Entering Positions: | 5 |
| Tuition In-State: | None |
| Tuition Out-Of-State: | None |
| Salary/Stipend: | 61,300 First Year 62,900 Second Year 65,200 Chief Resident |
| Application: | October 1 Deadline |
| Participant in National Matching Service: |
Yes |
| Participant in PASS: | Yes |
| This program will consider applicants who graduated, or plan to graduate, from a non-CODA accredited dental school | No |
| Applicants are eligible to apply if they are: | US Citizen |
| Clinic Experience: | Orthodontics Conscious Sedation Hospital Rotations General Anesthesia Emergency Call Operating Room Oral Surgery Infant Oral Health Medically Compromised Mentally Disabled Craniofacial Disorders Physically Disabled Community Clinics Outreach Public Health Minimal and Moderate Sedations Special Health Care Needs Behavior Guidance |
| Didactic Experience: | Seminars Literature Review Courses Case Conferences Lectures |
| Research Requirement: | Research Paper Data Collection Project |
| Teaching Experience: | Clinic Half-Days Lecture/Presentations |
| Facilities: | 40 Chair/Operatories 7 Clinic Receptionist 16 Dental Assistants 5 Dental Hygienists |