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Dedicated to providing broad educational opportunities in the biomedical sciences, the Health Center offers degree programs in medicine (M.D.), dental medicine (D.M.D.), and biomedical science (Ph.D.); master's degree programs in public health and dental science; postdoctoral fellowships; residency
programs providing specialty training for newly graduated physicians and dentists; and continuing education programs for practicing health care professionals. Combined degree programs, such as the M.D./Ph.D., D.M.D./Ph.D., Dental Clinical Specialty/Ph.D. and M.D./M.P.H. are also offered.
The UConn Health Center is the only academic health center in the nation where a medical school was founded concurrently with a dental school. As the schools took shape during the 1960s, their planners took advantage of their simultaneous evolution to forge strong links between them. Most notably, medical and dental students share an essentially common curriculum during the first two
years of their four-year degree programs. During this period they study the basic medical sciences together. This experience provides UConn's dental students with an especially strong foundation in the biomedical sciences that undergird the dental profession. Reflecting its close ties to medicine, the dental school awards its graduates the D.M.D.
– doctor of dental medicine.
Each year in Farmington, about 320 students work toward
their medical doctor's degree and 160 toward their doctor of
medical dentistry degree. Admission to each school is highly
competitive, but both schools offer preferential
consideration to qualified Connecticut residents in their
admissions policies. In the years since the Health Center
graduated its first students in 1972, 1,329 men and women
have received their D.M.D. degree; 2,819 their M.D. degree.
Through a variety of residency programs, the School of Medicine provides postgraduate training for more than 550 newly graduated M.D.s each year. These physicians come from all over the country to acquire advanced skills in fields such as the surgical specialties, internal medicine, and primary care. Some
of the residency training occurs on the Health Center's main campus, but much of it takes place in community hospitals in Greater Hartford – thus extending the Health Center's influence far beyond Farmington.
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