Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center- Pediatric Dentistry Residency

Cincinnati Children's Hospital is a busy, tertiary care teaching hospital that emphasizes quality patient care, education and research. It services the tri-state region of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

The pediatric dental residency program was first accredited in 1966 by the ADA Council on Dental Education. The program delivers 38,000 clinic visits, 1,400 operating room cases and after-hours emergency care each year. The patient base includes well and special needs patients. The educational philosophy is centered on case-based learning and is designed to train clinicians for private practice. Residents independently care for their own patients in a group practice environment that encourages teamwork. The clinical program is supported by a well-rounded didactic curriculum.

The first year focuses on providing comprehensive clinical care for the well child and includes extensive experience with traditional behavior management, conscious sedation and care in the operating room. First-year residents provide after-hours emergency care including oral facial trauma, laceration management and facial infections, and spend two weeks with Pediatric Medicine and Emergency Medicine

The second year is designed to increase responsibility and challenge. Each resident serves a rotation as chief resident in charge of all patient care provided in the operating room and in-house consults, spends five weeks delivering general anesthesia for the Department of Anesthesia, and provides clinical dental care emphasizing the medically, mentally and physically challenged patient. There is also a private practice rotation during the second year exposing the resident to practice management issues, as well as managing a multichair practice.

Specialty clinics in orthodontics, cleft lip and palate, esthetic dentistry, endodontics, periodontics and oral surgery are staffed by specialists in each discipline.

Get to know the class of 2012

Jennifer Fountain

Jen (AJ) is our Disney princess dentist. Half cartoon, half-human, she lulls her patients using mystical voice control (aka “valley girl talk”) and fills their cavities with sparkles and moonbeams. Parents often wonder if Jen is old enough to be a dentist, or even drive for that matter. Jen’s desk is covered in ivy, as she is a volleyball graduate of Harvard (like, who knew they had a volleyball team, right?) and a dental graduate of University of the Pacific. The thing that Jen loves most about Cincinnati is that they have a Whole Foods here so she can still get by without a single pot or a pan. Her favorite dental instrument is the credit card machine in the cafeteria.

Lisa Rudolph


Lisa (TJ) is our junior residency program director who specializes in ultra-detailed, novel-length, include-how-long-you-rinsed-the-tooth chart notes. A native of Cincinnati, Lisa has returned to her hometown with a husband and a vengeance—a campaign against decay. Lisa attended Boston College for a BA in Psychology, AT Still Univ. for an MPH, and The Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health for a DMD degree—as you can tell, she’s pretty darn smart. Uber spunky, Lisa has beautiful strawberry-blonde hair and dimples the size of Meteor Crater of Flagstaff, Arizona.  We don’t know which is louder, Lisa’s yellow snakeskin clogs or her boisterous laugh (you might hear her laughing as you approach the hospital from a few blocks away). Lisa’s favorite thing about Cincinnati (besides her family) is its friendly Midwestern culture and its scrumptious Graeter’s black raspberry chip ice cream. Lisa’s favorite dental instrument is the rubber dam.


Cara Corning

Cara (CC) is the amalgam queen.  She drinks her beverages at lunch from an amalgam well. She applies blush and foundation with an amalgam carrier. She spreads peanut butter and jelly on her sandwiches with an amalgam burnisher.  Cara completed her BS and DDS in Tennessee, and if she speaks just a few words you’ll be jammin’ to her southern twang. Cara enjoys water skiing, reading, traveling, and hiking, but she doesn’t like to work out. If you see a treatment plan with amalgams, it was most definitely planned by Cara. The thing that Cara loves most about Cincinnati is the riverfront Segway tour and its proximity to Tennessee. Her favorite dental instrument is the spoon excavator.

Kira McCoy

 Kira is the real McCoy. Former president of Alpha Lambda Delta and Alpha Chi Omega, we are hoping that Kira’s dental career can achieve the lofty heights that she has achieved as a professional sorority politician.  Add to those two stints as the chief sororititian, Kira was even awarded the supreme honor of Greek Woman of the Year in 2006. Her parents were almost as proud as when she graduated cum laude from Butler with a BA in Biology and from Indiana University with a degree in Dental Surgery. The thing that Kira loves most about Cincinnati is the swimming pool at her apartment complex and her favorite dental instrument is the air/water syringe.

Danen Sjostrom

Danen, BS, MS, DDS, PhD, is our double doctor perma-student. He is the only male letter in our first year fe-mail room.  Father of four, inspiration to many more, Danen was crowned Mr. Carbon County, which as you may well know, is one of Carbon county’s highest honors (it is their male version of the Miss Hawaiian Tropic contest). Danen graduated Bachelor of Science from University of Utah and then spent seven magical years at Ohio State adding multiple letters to his title and members to his family. The thing that Danen loves most about Cincinnati is the excellent cost of living (after all, it takes more than pennies to feed all those hungry mouths). Danen’s favorite dental instrument is a well designed, randomized, controlled, double-blinded, prospective clinical study (p<0.01).

Residents in Action