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Dr. Michael Regan will complete his postdoctoral Advanced Education in General Dentistry residency in July at The Wright Center for Community �ʼһ���, the sole affiliate in Pennsylvania for NYU Langone �ʼһ���’s Dental Medicine Postdoctoral Residency Program.

Dr. Michael Regan was on a one-year plan when he selected The Wright Center for Community �ʼһ��� for his postdoctoral Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) residency through its partnership with NYU Langone �ʼһ���’s Dental Medicine Postdoctoral Residency Program.

His goal was to obtain a required New York State license after completing the yearlong AEGD program in June to become a primary oral health care provider just over the Pennsylvania border in Broome County, New York, where his parents live.

But after working closely with The Wright Center’s dental staff as part of the program’s advanced hands-on training, he cannot imagine delivering oral health services elsewhere.

“I’m not leaving when I finish my residency,” says Regan, 30, a Hershey, Pennsylvania, native who received his doctoral degree in dental medicine from Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine-Arizona. “I’m going to be leading a team of dental practitioners at the Wilkes-Barre Practice.”

The Wright Center rolled out weekly dental services in its downtown Wilkes-Barre Practice in July 2023 and will begin providing daily dental care on Monday, Aug. 5, when Regan starts his new job. The facility at 169 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Wilkes-Barre, will offer dental services from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

“The dental team is great here,” says Regan, an adventurer at heart who worked as a professional dive leader during a 2017 internship in Roatán, Islas de la Bahía, Honduras, and at Taku Smokeries Fish Processing facility in Juneau, Alaska in 2018. He also was a Midwestern University Dean’s Research Fellow from 2019-21, researching how adding silver to bioactive glass, which is a bone grafting material used in dentistry, kills bacteria and helps patients heal faster.

Regan chose The Wright Center from nearly 80 AEGD program training sites also affiliated with the Brookyln, New York-based NYU Langone. The world’s largest postdoctoral dental residency program of its kind, the NYU Langone program trains about 400 residents annually at partner sites, such as hospitals, private dental practices, and community health centers, in nearly 30 states. The Wright Center, the AEGD program’s sole Pennsylvania affiliate, has hosted two dental residents each academic year since becoming a program partner in 2021.

“I wanted to work at a public health center close to my hometown, and The Wright Center is the only training site in Pennsylvania for the program,” Regan says of the NYU Langone program. “My hope was to become a more well-rounded provider and practice comprehensive dentistry. One of the biggest benefits of The Wright Center’s program has been developing a skill set that you wouldn’t get elsewhere.”

It is Regan’s passion to be the best dentist he can be that makes him stand out, says McCarthy. “He didn’t have to do this residency,” she says. “The residency is not a requirement to practice dentistry in Pennsylvania or most other states. But he wanted to do it to learn as much as he could to be a better dentist.”

As part of the program’s clinical curriculum requirement that meets the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) standards, 80% of the residency – a minimum of 40 hours a week for 52 weeks – is spent providing comprehensive general dentistry treatment and services to Wright Center patients.

Topics include oral health care for pediatric, geriatric, �ʼһ���ly compromised, and special needs patients and the latest information on dental procedures and practice management.

The Accreditation Council for �ʼһ��� Medical Education (ACGME) also accredits all residency and fellowship programs at The Wright Center for �ʼһ��� Medical Education. The ACGME has its own quality standards for �ʼһ��� education. The Wright Center’s AEGD program complies with both CODA and ACGME requirements.

Much of what is learned through the AEGD program, such as advanced oral surgical and endodontic techniques, is not taught in dental school.

“The aim of the AEGD program is to give new graduates more experience with procedures that are more involved or a greater number of procedures than you get in graduate school,” says McCarthy. “Since we started offering the program, the residents have greatly exceeded the number of procedures and CODA requirements.”

Regan and the dental team see patients from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday at The Wright Center for Community �ʼһ��� Scranton Practice.

“It’s about eight to 20 patients a day,” he says. “We do a ton of surgeries – 10 times a day, every day of the work week.”

Individual circumstances have resulted in many patients not taking proper care of their teeth, causing them pain and infections, he says.

“The best thing about dentistry is being able to take people out of pain,” Regan says. “A lot of dental practices don’t take all the state insurance (plans) like we do.”

To ensure high-quality oral care is available to everyone, The Wright Center, a Federally Qualified �ʼһ��� Center Look-Alike and safety-net provider, also offers a sliding-fee discount program to those who qualify based on federal poverty guidelines that take family size and income into account. No patient is turned away because of an inability to pay.

The Wright Center’s hands-on training has also inspired Regan to think outside the box to try to simplify and shorten procedures. For example, he is researching grants to purchase digital implant technology that uses 3D computer models of the jawbone for a more precise placement and quicker procedure.

“There’s such a great need for dentists in the region,” he says. “A lot of people have had a bad experience with their dental provider, or they can’t afford dental care. That’s not the case here. The Wright Center provides quality dentistry at a great rate.”