Luisa Echeto, D.D.S., M.S., FACP, a clinical associate professor in the UF Department of Restorative Dental Sciences Division of Prosthodontics, was appointed the director of patient assignment and screening, which is a newly-created position in the college.
The new position includes oversight of overall operations of a new predoctoral screening clinic where people interested in becoming patients in the DMD clinics are assessed and assigned to students. Echeto will work with predoctoral clinical directors from each discipline to assign patients to student dentists, ensuring optimum patient care and a well-rounded clinical experience for students that satisfies the expectations of all departments and educational requirements outlined by the Commission on Dental Accreditation. The new system removes a large burden from students, team leaders and patient coordinators, allowing them to devote more time to patient care.
Another focus of the new clinic, and Echeto’s role, is implementing an efficient referral program to resident specialty clinics or faculty practice.
Echeto will work closely with the college’s Office of Clinical Administration and Quality to ensure alignment with standards of care and all quality initiatives and is also working with clinical administration to plan and launch a new clinical area that will serve as the DMD screening clinic, expected to open in May 2019.
Echeto will continue teaching prosthodontics for predoctoral and resident courses, and remain as the clinical director for the predoctoral prosthodontics program.
Echeto earned her doctorate of dental surgery at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1997 and master’s in prosthodontics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. In 2017 she became a Diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics and a Fellow of the American College of Prosthodontists. She joined the faculty of the UF College of Dentistry in 2003. She served as division director of prosthodontics from September 2012 to November 2018, when her appointment as director of patient assignment and screening began.