Touro College of Dental Medicine (TCDM), the second-largest dental school in the country, hosted its annual gala, celebrating a decade of transforming lives through dental education, community service and compassionate care. The event brought together more than 450 partners, friends, faculty, alumni and current students to honor distinguished leaders in the oral health-care community and raise $1million in gifts and pledges in support of TouroCAREs: The Center for Access, Respect and Empathy, a new initiative designed to expand inclusive oral health care for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
TouroCARES will provide hands-on clinical training for TCDM students – equipping the next generation of dentists with the compassion and expertise to treat all patients – while expanding access to quality oral health care for IDD patients across the lower Hudson Valley.
The annual gala honored four outstanding individuals for their contributions to TCDM and the broader oral health-care community:
David Katz, DDS, vice dean and associate professor of dental medicine at TCDM, guest of honor.
Patricia Salkin, JD, Ph.D., senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of the graduate and professional divisions of Touro University, Legacy of Leadership Award.
Amandeep Arora, DDS, owner of Dazzling Smiles, Generation to Generation Award.
Richard E. Feinbloom, president and CEO, Designs for Vision, Corporate Sponsorship Award, on behalf of Designs for Vision.
“A decade ago, we saw a need to expand medical offerings and train the next generation of dentists in our communities,” said Dr. Alan Kadish, president of Touro University. “Over the past 10 years, TCDM has done exactly that – transforming lives through education, service and compassionate care. We are proud to mark this 10th anniversary milestone by launching TouroCAREs, a program that reflects our commitment to identifying gaps in health care and ensuring our communities have access to the specialized, high-quality oral care they deserve.”
New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins sent a video, which was shared with the attendees. In it, she announced a New York state grant of $2 million to support the opening of TouroCAREs. With this announcement, TouroCARES has now raised over $7 million and held a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the event to mark the beginning of the next phase of development.
“In 10 years, we’ve grown from infancy to maturity,” said Dr. Ronnie Myers, the dean of Touro College of Dental Medicine. “We’ve grown from 100 students to the second-largest school in the country. And we expanded our clinic in 2020 to include a pediatric clinic and then an orthodontic clinic. The people who were here in the beginning didn’t let things get in their way to make it the best it could be. They didn’t have any history to fall back on. So, they made history themselves.”
Touro College of Dental Medicine is located in Westchester County on the campus of New York Medical College. Celebrating its 10th year, TCDM incorporates the hallmarks of Touro University — a high-quality, 4-year dental program with a focus on public health and serving the local community — and graduates expertly trained, compassionate dentists equipped to practice in the 21st century. The first new dental school in New York state in over 50 years, TCDM has grown in its first decade through the addition of its pediatric practice, a cutting-edge orthodontic suite and a state-of-the-art digital dental studio, where students and faculty see over 1,000 patients a week. In 2025, TCDM opened a 70,000-square-foot dental clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where over 100 students spend their third and fourth years taking care of this underserved community.
TCDM is the first school of dentistry in the United States under Jewish auspices. For more information, visit dental.touro.edu.
