Community Impact
31,970 procedures completed by the DDS Class of 2024.
1,863 students have participated in the ACTS program (graduates from Classes of 1986-2024).
Advanced Clinical Training and Service (ACTS) Program
Students in their final year of dental school are immersed in the Advanced Clinical Training and Service (ACTS) program, providing dental services in underserved communities. Under the supervision of practicing dentists, students provide dental care to children and adults whose access to services is constrained by financial, geographical, physical or medical factors.
This service-learning model allows students to have extended rotations at more than 30 community-based health clinics across Colorado. A network of more than 70 experienced dental preceptors help students treat five to six patients each day. The number of days spent outside the dental school’s walls—almost half of the academic year—is among the highest in the nation among U.S. dental schools.
Through the ACTS program, students experience life-changing education, patients receive life-enhancing dental care, and there is a significant impact in our surrounding communities to improve access to care.
Life-Changing Education
Current students and alumni say that the ACTS program is one of their favorite experiences of the DDS curriculum. The reason behind that statement is because students will:
- See more patients each day during the ACTS program than in the school-based clinical environment.
- Work with dental assistants at most of their ACTS clinical training sites.
- Boost their confidence and increase their efficiency while providing high-quality care.
- Develop critical thinking skills, which help them when treating medically complex patients.
- Gain a better understanding of healthcare disparities and some of the significant barriers that patients in underserved populations experience seeking health care.
After the ACTS experience, students say while they were previously committed to participating in private practice after graduation, the ACTS program changed their thinking, and they want to give back in different ways. Nearly one-third of the dental preceptors in these underserved urban and rural community sites are CU alumni and graduates of the ACTS program.