Dentists and Doctors for Tomorrow

DDFT ACADEMIC PREPARATION

The Dentists and Doctors for Tomorrow program is a 2.5 year associates degree granting program located at the College of Micronesia-FSM’s national campus in Palikir, Pohnpei. High-performing high school graduates, recent graduates, or those working in the health sector are invited to apply for admission once per year. The program begins in July of each year with an intensive basic science summer bootcamp where they are introduced to medical math, health sciences, and the basics of biology, anatomy, and physiology taught using problem-based learning. This is then followed by four semesters of study in a wide-variety of classes that provide a solid foundation to attend dental, medical, and allied health schools, as well as other courses which teach reading and writing, the history of Micronesia, public health and more. At the culmination of their studies, students are granted an associates degree and are then prepared to apply to dental, medical, and allied health programs across the region, but in particular with our partner universities in Fiji, including Fiji National University and the University of Fiji where many of our successful graduates are now studying.

Want to learn more? See our downloadable brochure below.

Ready to apply, visit our Applying page to start your application.

DDFT problem-based learning

You will be taking courses from a range of disciplines. The majority of courses you will take will be science courses, such as biology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, psychology, and more. These will help you prepare for dental, medical, or allied health school later down the road. The science courses, and some of the others, such as reading and writing, will be taught using problem-based learning (PBL). PBL is an exciting way for you to learn, and it is the way that dental and medical school is taught at our partner universities in Fiji. That is one of the reasons PBL is so important to learn, so that you will be ready to succeed once you get to Fiji. The other reason for PBL, is because it is a fun, exciting, and proven way to learn. With PBL, instead of memorizing and repeating boring facts about the human body, you will learn using patient scenarios. Working as a team, you will be given a patient’s case. You will then work to solve the case as a group. By solving the case, not only do you have fun dealing with medical and dental cases just as you would in the real world, but you will also learn the anatomy, physiology, biology, biochemistry and more as you go along. We are unique, as we are the first major adopter of PBL education in the Northern Pacific.

observe in clinics and hospitals

You will have the chance to observe dentists, doctors, nurses, laboratory personnel, pharmacists, and more right from the start of the DDFT program. This is an exciting opportunity to see the things you are learning in your PBL cases applied in real life. One day you might be learning about the anatomy of the mouth by talking about a patient who needs to have a cancerous spot removed by the oral surgeon from years of chewing betel nuts, and the next day you might be observing a visiting oral surgeon from Taiwan do that operation. Combining PBL learning in the classroom with observations in dental clinics, public health clinics, medical clinics, and the hospital means that learning comes to life with the DDFT program. This also means that you will be exceptionally well-prepared for dental, medical, and allied health school in Fiji because you will already have some clinical exposure.

become a dental assistant

By now you can see that using PBL learning while also observing in the clinics and hospital will give you the necessary knowledge and skills you need to become the dentists and doctors of tomorrow in Micronesia. But we want you to have even more skills, including skills that will allow you to get a job right after graduation if you are not ready to go to Fiji for further schooling. That is why we have partnered with Penn Foster College in Arizona to offer you a career certificate in dental assisting. Dental assistants act as assistants to dental hygienists, dental therapists, and dentists. They do a range of procedures, such as taking patient histories, organizing and cleaning dental equipment, taking x-rays of teeth, and helping with procedures such as cleaning teeth, removing teeth, root canals, and more. The dental assistant is a critical member of the team. Graduates of the DDFT program and the dental assistant certificate can compete for local employment as a dental assistant, or they can choose to go on to Fiji National University to become a dental hygienist/therapist or dentist. You can even work for a period of time and then return to school in Fiji to achieve these higher certifications. The dental assistant is another level of achievement we provide to help you become the healthcare providers of tomorrow for Micronesia.

mentorship

One of the strengths of the DDFT program is the mentorship we provide to you as you progress towards becoming a dentist, doctor, or allied health provider. A mentor is someone who has experience in a given field. They are willing to use this experience to help guide you in your career and life. A mentor is someone who can be trusted to help you make good decisions so that you can be successful in your chosen career. They can help you make these choices because they have been there before and they succeeded. They know what it takes to be successful, and they will use that knowledge to help you. Our experienced mentors live by the motto that your success is our success. Our mentors are drawn from the faculty of the DDFT program, local dentists and doctors, the University of Hawaii AHEC, and the faculty members from our partners at I-Shou University and E-Da Hospital in Taiwan. Mentorship is an important part of the DDFT program.

LEADERSHIP TRAINING

If access to PBL learning, observations in hospitals and clinics, and mentors was not enough, we also provide leadership training. We know that you will become excellent healthcare providers. But we also know that you will be the healthcare leaders of tomorrow. Secretaries and directors of health in the FSM are generally doctors or dentists who are chosen to lead the healthcare efforts of the country because they know what it takes to keep people healthy. Because of this, we want you to learn to be leaders. During your PBL learning, you will work as a team. Each team will have a team leader who assigns roles and responsibilities and makes sure that the team is progressing towards solving the case. This case is then presented to the DDFT faculty at the end of the week. The team leader is responsible for the success of their team, and the lessons they learn are very valuable as they navigate this role. Each member of the DDFT class will have the chance to be a team leader and presenter. Faculty will provide feedback on these presentations on how to become more effective. We also provide other opportunities to develop leadership skills. For example, past groups of DDFT students have presented to the president and board of the College of Micronesia-FSM, and even to the Congress of the FSM. Members of congress spoke highly about how confident and articulate the DDFT students were. Leadership is a key part of the DDFT program.

WRAP-AROUND SUPPORT SERVICES

The DDFT program wants you to succeed! We want you to become the dentists, doctors, allied healthcare providers and leaders of health care in Micronesia. To do that we will give you the best support we can. In addition to PBL learning, the chance to observe in hospitals and clinics, mentoring, and leadership training, we also provide you with wrap-around support services. What do we mean by wrap-around support services? If you were having a bad day and a good friend wrapped a warm blanket around you, would that make you feel better? Of course, because you would be surrounded by the sense that you were loved and cared about. That is part of what we wish to provide at DDFT: the feeling that you are care about, that we want you to succeed, and that we will provide the skills you need to do so. Our wrap-around support services include study skills classes to help you with reading, writing, Power Point presentation skills, public speaking skills, how to make a study schedule, how to prepare for exams, health eating and lifestyle choices, and more. We want you to have the skills you need to be successful in the classroom. As part of the DDFT program’s wrap-around support commitment to your success, each student will receive a laptop computer. Successful graduates of the program are allowed to keep their laptop.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

We are committed to your success. We will provide you the academic and other resources you need to excel in the DDFT program. One thing we don’t want you to worry about is how to pay for the DDFT program. The DDFT program makes use of Pell Grants from the US government to fund your training. This means that you can graduate from DDFT debt free. We also provide other educational resources to you free, such as the laptop that is part of the wrap-around support services, housing in the dorms, access to the Penn Foster dental assistant training, high-quality international faculty and staff with decades of experience, and more. After you graduate, we will continue to assist you with financial support for your studies in dental, medical, or allied health school in Fiji by working with you to secure government and other means of support so that you can become the dentists and doctors of tomorrow without debt.

SUPPORT in the next step of your journey

Once you graduate from the DDFT program we want you to go on to attend dental, medical, or allied health school in Fiji at our partner universities Fiji National University and the University of Fiji. You will graduate from DDFT in May, 2.5 years after you started. School in Fiji does not start until the next January. That means you have from May to January to apply to school in Fiji. But don’t worry, you won’t be doing it alone. We will mentor you in the application process, including working with you to secure financial support for your next level of studies. We will also help you gain more experience during this time by possibly taking more classes, including public health classes, or even nursing courses. Past graduates have raved about the nursing classes, saying that the skills they learned were very helpful in Fiji. If you graduated from the Penn Foster dental assistant program as well as the DDFT program, you can use this time to work as a dental assistant in a local clinic. We are proud of our graduates, and will work to continue to support them as they continue their journey.