Naval Medical Leader and Professional Development Command inaugurated the new Orofacial Pain Clinic located in Bldg. 39 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland with a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on August 22, 2025.
This ceremony marked a new chapter for NMLPDC, in providing a state-of-the-art dental training facility for a new generation of residents and staff and an elevated environment of care for patients.
“The discipline of orofacial pain includes any pain condition mediated by the trigeminal nerve system to include neurovascular and musculoskeletal disorders; and headache, ear and neck pain,” said Capt. Istvan Hargitai, dentist of Orofacial Pain and Oral Medicine. “In 1987 Adm. Richard Shaffer, Dental Corp Chief, tasked Capt. Michael Parker, staff member at the Naval Postgraduate Dental School’s Comprehensive Department, to coordinate a temporomandibular disorders Navy consensus conference. This conference resulted in a 1991 Clinical Update paper by Parker on the topic and began training Navy Dental Officers in civilian sector Orofacial Pain programs.”
This led to the framework of the fellowship and residency training programs at NPDS which focuses on supraspinal control of physiology as a basis for pain diagnostics and management.
The Department of Defense’s first Orofacial Pain Center was established in 2001 at NPDS, Bethesda Maryland. Today the Orofacial Pain Clinic operates much as it did when it first opened, providing a place for residency training programs for the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.
“We are proud to have this new facility,” said Cmdr. Jared Beck, Dean, NPDS. “We hope to carry on the traditions of bringing world class care and continuing to be the premiere site for our residents to come and train.”
NMLPDC serves as the cornerstone of Navy Medicine’s professional training, leadership development, and education mission. NMLPDC maintains collaborative relationships with more than 300 military and civilian higher learning institutions while annually supporting 3,000 Federal uniformed services, civilian, and allied foreign military members.
| Date Taken: | 08.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.22.2025 08:45 |
| Story ID: | 548880 |
| Location: | BETHESDA, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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