New Clinics Under Construction in Glendale

If you drive past 59th Avenue and Utopia Drive in Glendale, you will see the large crane and the structural steel going up on our latest initiatives--the Midwestern University Eye Institute and the Midwestern University Dental Medicine Clinic. Both are scheduled to open to the public in the spring of 2010.

Even though we can only now see the physical buildings going up, these clinics are the result of several years spent planning and designing them. The University established a Dental Committee and an Optometry Committee to oversee the development of our two newest colleges and their clinical operations. Both of these professions rely on on-campus clinics to provide the needed training for our students. They also give the University another opportunity to reach out to our community to provide outstanding patient care services.

The dental clinic will have more than 220 chairs and patient care bays, where faculty members and students will provide a wide range of dental services for patients. The optometry clinic--the Eye Institute--will have more than 50 chairs and will provide specialized services, such as low vision screening and prosthetic eyes. Because these clinics are operated by MWU, patients can expect state-of-the-art treatment and brand new equipment.

Our inaugural class of the College of Dental Medicine has now completed their first year of didactics and has been very impressive in terms of their academics and their service projects. The first class of the new Arizona College of Optometry will matriculate at the end of August, and they bring impressive credentials and the excitement of being the inaugural class. The dental students will start their clinical rotations in the summer of 2010, while the optometry faculty will begin seeing patients in the Eye Institute in the summer of 2010.

We are excited to be able to offer these new clinics to our local community in Glendale. The current Midwestern University Clinic, which opened in May 2008, has been very successful and is in full operation. Our faculty practices in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Family Medicine, Optometry, Podiatric Medicine, Psychology Assessment & Therapy, and Pharmacy Services have welcomed patients and are continuing to expand their services. All of these on-campus clinics allow us to provide excellent clinical training for our students, outstanding practice sites for our faculty, and quality health care for our community.

Opening clinics, I have discovered, takes a lot of work from a lot of people on campus. I am continually impressed by everyone's focus on how to develop these clinics to serve the needs of our students and their patients in the best way. I think you will be impressed with what we have created, and we are excited to open them next spring.