Fall 2010

The UBC Faculty of Dentistry has completed an academic affiliation agreement with the Prince Abdulrahman Advanced Dental Institute (PAADI) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

PAADI is a division within the Saudi Armed Forces Medical Service Directorate and has been in existence for more than 10 years. PAADI’s initial goals were to improve the clinical skills of Saudi Arabian dentists to the standards of North American dentistry.

The program has been extremely successful in achieving those objectives and now has added goals to expand the dental specialty training and dental research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

PAADI has chosen the UBC Faculty of Dentistry as the partner to help achieve the expanded goals. The agreement establishes collaborations between UBC and PAADI in several areas, including the Advanced Education in General Dentistry program at PAADI, clinical specialty graduate programs and research graduate education at both UBC and PAADI, collaborative research projects between PAADI and UBC faculty members, and exchanges of educational technology.

Several UBC Dentistry faculty members have already travelled to Riyadh to provide courses in their area of expertise, and two Saudi Arabian dentists have enrolled at UBC to complete a PhD in Craniofacial Science with a diploma in Periodontics. A rich exchange of students and faculty members over the coming years is anticipated.