State-of-the-Art Facilities

In order to support the innovative educational program being offered at the School of Dental Medicine (SDM), PNWU and its community partners have committed to an ambitious capital plan to provide the school space on the main campus as well as in the communities where students will be providing care. With financial support from Delta Dental of Washington, the Washington State Dental Association, the Washington State Legislature, and the university, the SDM has created state of the art educational and patient care spaces. These will provide students with a rich learning environment and their patients with welcoming and supportive clinics to receive necessary care.

On PNWU’s main campus the School of Dental Medicine will be occupying two of the newest buildings on campus. Delta Dental Equity Hall (DDEH) was completed in August 2024, and will contain the Dental Simulation Lab, Virtual Reality Lab, and support spaces for the dental program. The remaining part of Delta Dental Equity Hall has been designed with the rest of campus in mind; it will have a gaming room, a wellness room, lounge and study spaces, and food service.

Dental Space

Within the dental education space in Delta Dental Equity Hall the simulation lab contains forty-eight ADEC Dental Simulators, a virtual reality lab with six SimToCare VR trainers, a wet lab to allow students to pour up impressions and models and do model work and a digital lab which will contain the latest in 3D printing equipment, digital scanning, and CAD-CAM.

In July 2024 PNWU initiated construction of the final building in its development of the campus – the Dental and Occupational Therapy (DOT) building. This building will serve as the home of the School of Dental Medicine and the School of Occupational Therapy and allow the consolidation of student services, such as Student Affairs, Financial Aid, and the Registrar, plus IT Services. This building will be completed in the summer of 2025.

Community Clinics

To support the SDM’s innovative clinical education program the school has partnered with three Federally Qualified Health Centers to establish state of the art community clinics in three underserved locations within the state of Washington – Kennewick, Tacoma, and Yakima. Each clinic is designed to support an integrated, interprofessional, delivery of patient care through the co-location with primary care medical services. This approach to integrated care is expected to increase access and improve health outcomes.

In order to maintain consistency in the educational program, each clinic has been designed to provide identical patient care resources. Each clinic will contain twenty-two dental chairs, wet lab and digital lab spaces, advanced x-ray equipment, and education space to support the didactic and simulation provided in years two through four of the curriculum.