New Multidisciplinary Advanced Care Clinics and Ambulatory Surgery Center

Treating Patients with Special Healthcare Needs and State-of-the-Art Surgery

By Kirsten Mickelwait

The dental school is addressing this challenge head-on with plans to open a new facility on its San Francisco campus that will house the Multidisciplinary Advanced Care Clinics (MDAC) and an Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC). The project is rooted in the school’s long history of caring for patients with complex healthcare needs and shaped by the leadership and vision of its faculty who, for decades, have made this work a priority. In addition, offering a hospital-level surgery center within the school is a significant innovation for dental schools nationwide.

Designed specifically to serve individuals of all ages with special healthcare needs, the facility will occupy 13,000 square feet and will feature four operating rooms, eight operatories, five mixed-use medical/dental treatment rooms and a waiting room specially designed to accommodate patients with sensory processing disorders and other conditions.

The clinics and surgery center, which are slated to open in the fall of 2026, are expected to triple patient visits in the Special Care Clinic and Hospital Dentistry program to more than 8,000 visits per year. Academic programs currently located in the first-floor space—including Pacific’s Audiology and Music Therapy programs—will be moved to the sixth floor to make room for the new clinical facility. Dennis Song, DDS, MD, associate professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, will serve as medical director to support the development, construction and accreditation phases of the project.

A Project Worth Investing In 

According to Associate Dean for Advancement Eric Dumbleton, the Board of Regents approved $22 million for the project, and the dental school recently secured a $5 million Specialty Dental Clinic grant from the California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CHFFA) along with a $1 million gift from Dr. Al and Dotty Warkentine ’65. In addition, the university has launched a fundraising campaign to further support the effort.

“I’m inspired by this project and proud to be a part of it because of what it represents for our most vulnerable and underserved patient populations,” Dumbleton says. “I look forward to engaging the Dugoni School family as we work together to generate support.”

Photos by Chris Woodrow

“This state-of-the-art facility will cement our hard-earned international reputation for pioneering the education of future healthcare providers in the treatment of patients with complex health issues,” agrees Dr. David Lam, associate dean for medical integration, professor and chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. “This underscores our leadership and innovation in this space and gives us an edge over competitors for recruitment of predoctoral and postdoctoral students, as well as recruitment and retention of top faculty and staff.”

A Patient-Centered Design

Reflecting the dental school’s patient-centered perspective, the new clinics will be specifically designed to serve those with moderate to severe medical, developmental and psychosocial conditions, enabling patients to see a variety of healthcare professionals in one place, says Chávez, who serves as the project’s administrator and is principal investigator for the CHFFA grant. The Ambulatory Surgery Center will accommodate patients of all ages who require a hospital level of care.

“By having this space to train our predoctoral and postdoctoral dental students to care for individuals with the most complex medical and dental needs, we’re not only attending to the needs of our patients but laying the foundation for patients with special healthcare needs to receive excellent care from our graduates, wherever they might practice in the future,” Chávez says.

According to Dr. Paul Subar, professor and chair of the Department of Diagnostic Sciences and director of the Special Care Clinic and Hospital Dentistry program, the new facilities will provide students with invaluable hands-on experience in managing medically complex patients in a collaborative, team-based environment. “Exposure to multidisciplinary care broadens our students’ clinical skills, strengthens their understanding of comprehensive treatment planning and prepares them to deliver equitable, patient-centered care in diverse practice settings.” The expanded clinical program will also support internships in oral and maxillofacial surgery as well as hospital dentistry.

For patients, it will expand access to care for those needing pediatric dentistry, adult special care and hospital dentistry. The MDAC and ASC facilities will drastically shorten the wait time for consultations, care and follow-up, decreasing the chances that a patient will need to visit a hospital emergency room to manage dental disease. Just for an initial consultation, the school’s Special Care Clinic currently has a six-month waitlist for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities; wait times for actual treatment could be another six months or longer.

In cases requiring general anesthesia to effectively and safely obtain dental care, the Special Care Clinic currently runs a Hospital Dentistry program at California Pacific Medical Center. “There are many more patients seeking treatment in the outpatient Special Care Clinic and Hospital Dentistry program than can reasonably be accommodated in the current clinical space,” Subar says. “This will positively affect the thousands of patients we treat at the dental school every year.”

Drs. David Lam and Rinku Saini

Dr. Rinku Saini, associate professor and chair of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry, agrees. “The expected impact on pediatric dental education and patient care is truly transformational,” he says. “For the first time in our history, the Dugoni School will have dedicated multidisciplinary operating rooms, making it possible to expand our predoctoral program and to initiate a pediatric dentistry residency program. This growth will significantly expand our capacity to care for children and adults with special healthcare needs and complex medical conditions, many of whom require coordinated multidisciplinary care, specialized sensory environments or treatment under general anesthesia.”

The dental school’s current capacity limits treament to only about 20 such children each year. With the new facility and residency programs in oral and maxillofacial surgery, special care and pediatric dentistry, the school expects to serve nearly 200 children in the first year and more than 400 children by the second year.

“Our location and the Ambulatory Surgery Center design will allow us to partner with other healthcare providers—such as otolaryngology specialists from Stanford Health—to better coordinate care, enabling patients to receive other needed healthcare services in addition to excellent patient-centered dental care,” says Lam.

“With access to our own operating rooms, we can readily schedule patients at our San Francisco campus rather than in partner hospital operating rooms,” Lam adds. “This will enhance access, caseloads and rotations for dental students by providing a valuable in-house rotation site, offering a more streamlined and accessible training experience that sets a new standard for predoctoral and postdoctoral programs to train the next generation of providers.”

In addition, alumni and other Bay Area practitioners will be able to refer their patients to the Ambulatory Surgery Center.

A Model for Other Institutions

The need for such specialized care is only growing. According to a recent California Dental Association report, only 14 locations in the state are available to handle dental patients with disabilities, and most multidisciplinary clinics and surgery centers of this kind only exist in hospitals and medical centers. “This model not only improves oral health outcomes but also enhances overall health and quality of life for special needs populations,” says Subar.

“To my knowledge, we will be the one of the first dental schools in North America to house these types of innovative, state-of-the-art Multidisciplinary Advanced Care Clinics and 23-hour-stay Ambulatory Surgery Center right on our own campus,” says Lam. “These facilities will serve as a critical foundational component for the establishment of residencies in oral and maxillofacial surgery, pediatric dentistry and hospital dentistry. Residency programs require advanced facilities to meet the healthcare needs of patients with complex medical conditions and the MDAC/ASC will provide a centralized location for these services.”

“From the outset, our goal has been to design a modern facility that could serve as a model for other dental schools and institutions nationwide,” says Saini. “To achieve this, we integrated contemporary technology with an innovative layout, ensuring that each element was intentionally designed to support patients with special healthcare needs and to accommodate the unique sensitivities of neurodiverse individuals.”

Everyone involved with this ambitious project is brimming with excitement for how it will support and enhance the Dugoni School of Dentistry’s patient-centered mission. “It brings together everything that defines our school: a focus on clinical excellence, a history of caring for children and adults with special needs, the leadership of our faculty and our commitment to innovation and community service,” says Saini. “It translates all of this into a facility that will change lives immediately while serving as a model for others.”

“The new Multidisciplinary Advanced Care Clinics and Ambulatory Surgery Center will allow us to take patient care and dental education to the next level,” agrees Chávez. “These new spaces will pave the way for us to expand access to care for those with developmental or acquired disabilities and complex medical conditions and to provide our predoctoral students with important opportunities for learning.”

Kirsten Mickelwait is a San Francisco-based author, copywriter, content provider and professional storyteller.