WesternU has received a $150,000 gift from The Ahmanson Foundation to help equip the WesternU CARES Clinic, which will open in January 2010.
The Foundation, initially funded by financier Howard F Ahmanson and his wife, Dorothy, helps fund organizations interested in arts and humanities, health and medicine, education and human services in Los Angeles County.
The gift will help supply the six-chair CARES (Central Admissions, Radiology and Emergency Service) clinic that will provide low-cost dental care and oral health care screenings, diagnostics, and urgent care services by faculty and students. The clinic will be open most weekdays throughout the year, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The community dental clinic will be an integral part of the College of Dental Medicine, which welcomes its inaugural class of 72 students in August.
The CDM is one of four new colleges that WesternU is launching during the 2009-10 academic year. The College of Podiatric Medicine and the College of Optometry also will open this fall; the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences is scheduled to open in January 2010.
The new clinic will be housed in the three-story, 70,000-square-foot Patient Care Center (PCC), one of several new buildings the University is completing.
In addition to the PCC, the construction project includes a 180,000-square-foot Health Education Center (HEC), a 600-space parking structure, a Veterinary Pathology Center and a new home for the Center for Disability and Health Policy.
