comprehensive care for their patients in a multi-specialty group. The program of Post Graduate Diploma in Family Dental Medicine is designed for dental graduates who wish to become primary dental care providers and want to advance their clinical skills and knowledge, with the primary objective of enhancing the quality of their patient care. The program aims to educate the trainees in all aspects of dentistry at a level which would give them the competency to be able to confidently provide ethical comprehensive oral health care to their patients. Family Dental Medicine is the primary care dental specialty concerned with provision of comprehensive oral health care to the individual and the family regardless of sex, age or type of problem. It is a specialty that incorporates biological, clinical and behavioral sciences covering aspects of general dentistry. Dentists with qualification in Family Dental Medicine can themselves provide care for the majority of conditions encountered in the outpatient setting and integrate all necessary health care services. They possess unique attitudes, skills, and knowledge, which qualify them to provide continuing and comprehensive dental care, oral health maintenance along with preventive, promotional and rehabilitative services to each member of the family. These dentists, because of their background and interactions with the family, are best qualified to serve as each patient's advocate in all dental health-related matters, including the appropriate use of consultants, health services, and community resources. Family Dental Medicine sets the standard in establishing a program that promotes a holistic approach to patient care, based on the sound principles of Inter-Professional Collaborative Care (IPCC) and social accountability. Many diseases affecting the various systems of the human body are relevant to oral health and vice-a-versa and this influences oral healthcare delivery. By providing an overview of the clinical signs and symptoms, pathophysiology, differential diagnosis, management, and prognosis, with an aim is to provide an understanding of the implications of a disease and its consequences on both dental management, and the impact on the patient. A further advantage to this approach is to encourage specialists in family dentistry to work seamlessly with their general medical practitioner colleagues.
The DFDM Program

The program is an educational platform that combines an advanced multidisciplinary clinical experience with a strong educational component. It emphasizes the application and integration of inter-professional approaches and basic sciences, as part of a problem-solving and evidence-based multidisciplinary approach to care.
Educational Objective
The goal of the program is to train dentists to deliver high-quality, comprehensive primary dental care relevant to the health needs of individuals and families in Pakistan. The primary objective is the production of holistically minded caring, skilled, knowledgeable, and clinically competent Family Dentists who are educationally well rounded in advanced dental skills and scientific principles, and who would be able to serve the dental health care needs of all ages and both sexes of the urban and rural populations of Pakistan providing curative, preventive, promotive and rehabilitative dental care.