Official Opening of the National University Centre For Oral Health, Singapore
05 July
On 5 July, the National University Centre for Oral Health, Singapore (NUCOHS) was officially opened by Minister for Health, Mr Gan Kim Yong.
The 11-storey building will serve as the new National Dental Specialty Centre, synergising clinical services, education and research facilities under one roof. The new facilities within the Centre allows NUS Dentistry to synergise and optimise resources to bring about better services, academic and research.
Students now enjoy a more personalised learning curricula through the innovative use of educational technology to complement conventional methods of training and education. Furthermore, the new improved and enlarged facilities will enable the Faculty to conduct impactful multi-disciplinary research in oral healthcare and population health such as translational research in oral-systemic links, regenerative biology and tissue engineering. The multi-disciplinary research includes the ongoing work between researchers from the NUCOHS, NUH, NUS Yong Loo Lin School Medicine and NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health to better understand the relationship between diabetes and periodontal (gum) disease in the population.
“Apart from such innovations in the delivery of dental education, the Faculty is planning to broaden the clinical exposure of its students beyond the clinics in NUCOHS. The students will have the opportunity to be posted to clinical settings in the community to learn more about the hands-on practice of primary care dentistry,” said Professor Patrick Finbarr Allen, Director, NUCOHS, and Dean, NUS Dentistry.
To meet Singapore’s increasing oral healthcare needs, NUCOHS has the capacity to provide basic and specialised dental health services to nearly 500 patients per day. The 60% increase in capacity will allow provision of better and more accessible care. In addition, the Centre also serves as a multidisciplinary specialist care centre for geriatric patients as well as those with special needs and complex conditions.