The Faculty Dental Clinic offers care by general dentists and skilled specialists.
Cynthia Jetter is the director of the Temple University Faculty Dental Clinic.
Photo by Betsy Manning
Residents of Spring Garden and Center City have a new option when seeking dental care.
The Temple University Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry has opened a new dental clinic in Philadelphia’s Spring Garden neighborhood.
Amid Ismail, dean of the Kornberg School, said the new clinic gives dental faculty an opportunity to serve Temple’s faculty, staff, students and other community members.
“The overall mission of the school is clinical excellence, the creation of new knowledge for clinical practice and serving the community,” he said.
“To have the clinical excellence, we need to have faculty who are proficient in their specialties, and in order to do that we need them to practice in order to continue advancing their skills.”
The Faculty Dental Clinic located at 545 N. Broad St. offers general and orthodontic care in an area that lacked dentists.
“This section of Philadelphia really does not have an overabundance of dental offices, so there definitely is a need to have a dental center in this area,” said Clinic Director Cynthia Jetter.
The 5,485-square-foot facility houses 12 treatment rooms outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment.
“There is new technology available for patient care which improves patient outcomes,” Jetter said.
This technology includes cone beam computed technology (CBCT) imaging, which is a specialized 3D imaging technology used in dentistry and oral surgery.
The clinic welcomes referrals from dentists in Philadelphia who need access to this type of technology for their patients.
“We would like to partner with them and be able to have them refer their patients to us, so that we could provide that imaging service for them,” Jetter explained. “We want to be a resource in the dental community.”
The clinic's treatment rooms are outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment.
Photo by Betsy Manning
The Kornberg School has invested more than $8 million in the clinic’s site renovations and a 15-year lease agreement.
The clinic replaces the faculty practice formerly located within the Kornberg School in North Philadelphia. The school’s general dentistry clinics, which are known for providing treatment by Kornberg dental students who are supervised by licensed faculty, will remain located at the school.
The clinic’s former space at Kornberg will be used by dental school students. This comes as the school is experiencing an uptick in national and international applicants.
“Temple is the preferred site for dental education because of our reputation,” Ismail said. “People are coming to the dental school because of what we do, the services that we provide, the environment and the technology.”
The Faculty Dental Clinic opening marks the Kornberg School’s latest move to expand more services for the community. The dental school is gearing up to establish Temple’s first rural dental education center and clinic in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania and Kornberg partnered with the School District of Philadelphia in 2023 to open a pediatric dental clinic at William D. Kelley Elementary School in North Philadelphia.