Secondary Collaborators
Eric Sung, Professor of Clinical Dentistry and Momentum Endowed Chair in Special Patient Care
Theresa Brown, DNP, ACNP-BC, AACC, FAANP, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Amy Simons, Chief Operating Officer, MOMENTUM
Kelly Vitzthum, DDS, MPH, Assistant Clinical Professor
Elizabeth Thomas, PhD, ANP-BC, COHN-S, FAAOHN, Adjunct Associate Professor
MoDeRN: Interprofessional Disability Clinical Competencies for Doctoral Students in
Nursing and Dentistry and Dental Residents
The Schools of Nursing (SON) and Dentistry (SOD) plan to extend a long-term collaboration with their community partner, Momentum, a disability service provider, to institute interprofessional education for clinical doctorate students and residents in nursing and dentistry. We named our collaboration MoDeRN in reference to the triad of Momentum, Dentistry, and Nursing (RN).
The Special Patient Care Clinic will expand 10-fold with a $4.2 million grant allocated by the State of California in March 2025. Build-out of the clinic, anticipated by July 2026, coincides with the Tier 3 Catalyst Award to scaffold a corresponding educational innovation. A graduate interprofessional education (IPE) curriculum will map disability competencies to interprofessional clinical experiences in the Special Care Dental Clinic. People with disabilities receiving services through Momentum will participate in video and AI simulation resource development. Accreditation for nursing and dental graduate programs explicitly address IPE, yet neither SON nor SOD programs currently feature sustainable IPE experiences. Outcomes of the MoDeRN project include an IPE curriculum aligned with Tier 3 Catalyst themes and the UCLA Strategic Plan. Educational benefits for students will be achieved through enhanced classroom learning experiences, production of community-engaged disability teaching resources, and competency evaluation of interprofessional and disability outcomes. Plans for sustainability include expanding the experience to adjacent cohorts of students and securing additional funding for nursing instructional personnel.