Ibrahim Sawaya, DDS

Dental Director, Family Health Centers of San Diego

Dr. Ibrahim Sawaya has served as FHCSD’s dental director for over 15 years, with an additional eight years serving as a staff dentist at the organization and six years performing dentistry in private practice prior to joining FHCSD. Currently, Dr. Sawaya is responsible for the administration of all dental and oral health services and facilities at FHCSD, which includes oversight of dental services and ensuring regulations compliance across multiple dental clinics throughout San Diego County, including FHCSD’s homeless services dental program. Through Dr. Sawaya’s leadership, FHCSD’s dental program consistently increases our capacity to meet the oral health needs of low-income and medically underserved patients.

Dr. Sawaya embraces LEAN strategies for continuous process improvement and effectively uses Kaizen principles and PDCA cycles across the dental team to continuously standardize operations and eliminate waste. This results in the administration of an extremely efficient program that consistently ranks in the nation’s lowest quartile for costs per patient.

Dr. Sawaya earned a B.A. in biochemistry/cell biology at the University of California, San Diego in 1987. He completed his Doctor of Dental Surgery from the School of Dentistry at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1992, then completed a general practice residency in 1993 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in La Jolla.

In addition to Dr. Sawaya’s administrative leadership responsibilities, he continues to provide direct patient care two days a week at FHCSD, focusing his talents on the treatment of San Diego’s underserved, uninsured and medically-compromised patients.

• School of Dentistry, University of California, Los Angeles, DDS, 1992
• University of California, San Diego, BA, 1987

Veterans Administration Medical Center, General Practice, 1993