A dental residency program here teaches dentists career field specialties and how to serve in a deployed location.

The advanced education in general dentistry resident program is the only dentistry program in the Air Force that accepts dentists who have already served in the military for a few years.

Col. (Dr.) Sal Flores is the commander of the 2nd Dental Squadron advanced education in general dentistry residency flight. The resident program is usually offered to mid-term dentists, he said, but the career field is weighted heavily with senior and junior officers so the program has residents with a wide range of experience.

The students come into the residency trained as general dentists. The course broadens their dental knowledge by training them in the various dental specialties.

“Orthodontics, endodontics, prosthodontics and oral surgery dealing with facial bones are examples of some of the specialties we teach the residents,” Doctor Flores said.

A common misconception of dentistry is that it only involves teeth.

“If it’s between the lips and the throat, it belongs to us,” Doctor Flores said. “We do more than just teeth.”

Capt. (Dr.) Amy Aston, a resident in the program, thinks the program is a great way to learn the different dental specialties.

“It is a pretty comfortable learning environment,” Doctor Aston said. “We are mentored by wonderful specialists who are great in their fields and they guide us to perfect our processes.”

Learning the process of removing wisdom teeth is what Doctor Aston finds most useful in the program.

Besides learning the specialties, a major component of the residency program is training to be a deployed dentist. Graduates from the program will be the dentists who deploy from their bases in the rotation cycle.

Learning the triage concept -- seeing patients in the order of how urgently they need care -- is an important part of the program’s curriculum.

Tuesday mornings the dental squadron specialists devote four hours to training residents on the latest developments in their fields.

One of the challenges of performing dentistry in a deployed location is that, while functional, the equipment used there is made with mobility and efficiency in mind. An example of this is the chair used in deployed areas, which Doctor Flores explained is similar to a lawn chair. While the chair has three different positions, it is nowhere near as adaptable as a chair used at most stateside bases.

Doctor Flores said he would like to outfit a room in the dental squadron with deployable dental equipment, so that he can simulate a deployed experience.

Being a servicemember is not something a dentist takes lightly, Doctor Flores said.

“We are not dentists. We are military officers who just happen to be dentists,” he said.