Celebrating 100 Faculty Spotlight on Fundraising Years of Dentistry Highlights Students - Highlights 2 10 14 Awards 20 Research Faculty News Spotlight on Recognizing Matters and Notes Students - Your Gifts 8 12 18 Activities 22 NEWSLETTER I M C GILL UNIVERSITY I 2003-2004 I VOLUME 83, NO. 1 FACULTYDentistry OF 1904 2004 THIS YEAR WE ARE CELEBRATING 100YEARS OF DENTISTRY AT McGILL BY: ROB BULL e could have been partying in 1992, a century after the provincial dental association created the Dental College of the Province of Quebec with classes and clinical instruction in an old house on Philips Square. It was Canada's second dental school. The first was in Toronto. Stanley Frost writes in McGill University: For the Advancement of Learning that the Quebec Dental Association hoped the college Wwould be affiliated with the University. But the Faculty of Medicine was not keen on the idea. McGill suggested that the dentists could graduate with a diploma. At the time, veterinary science was a separate faculty at McGill and awarded doctorates. The dentists were not impressed. The Strathcona Anatomy and In 1896, the college became a department of the Montreal-based campus of Bishop's Dentistry Building. University's Faculty of Medicine. It was a decent program. It offered qualified students – those who passed entrance Dr. Peter Brown, last Dean of Dentistry at Bishops exams imposed by the association – instruction in English and French in classes of University and the first chairman of the McGill from six to ten people over three years. Women were allowed to study there. Dental University Dental Executive in the Faculty of Medicine. 19 2 and medical students took many courses in common before spinning off into professional training and internships. Each year, with the dental association's approval, small numbers of Bishop's graduates 20 were granted their DDS. Quebec's first woman dentist – Georgina McBain – graduated in 1903, just in time. That's when the Dean of the Faculty resigned and Bishop's medical school lost a major motivating force. Bishop’s started losing interest. Dr. A.W. Thornton first Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry. Dentistry comes to McGill in 1904 Sir William Osler, long gone became the dental school at the in its name. It was all part of undergoing significant from McGill but still a guru, Université de Montréal). the job. administrative changes. argued frequently and publicly “But as with so much else at At McGill, dental and medical In late 1919, a Faculty of that small medical schools could McGill,” writes Frost, “it was a students took the first two years Medicine subcommittee led by not survive in the 20th century. question of money. In the absence of their four-year program Dr. A. W. Thornton, chairman 1904So McGill offered to absorb of either a wealthy donor or together with the last two years of the Dental Executive, Bishop's Faculty of Medicine public funding, the dental spent learning how to become recommended “that the under certain conditions – no department had to be operated more specialized in their chosen resolution of the Dental French instruction and no as economically as possible.” fields. Things haven't changed Executive in favor of a separate women. The McGill dental department that much, as the Faculty Faculty of Dentistry be Bishop's agreed. And in 1904 chairman, Dr. Peter Brown, who returned to that model in 1996. approved, provided that such The Montreal General Hospital when McGill's Faculty of had been Dean of Dentistry at In 1908, clinical training moved action does not involve any as it appeared at the beginning Medicine acquired Bishop's Bishop's, had a part-time downtown to the Montreal change in the present teaching of the 20th century. medical professors and students, appointment. So did all the General Hospital, and in 1910, relations existing between the it acquired a Department of instructors. And an article of dental classes moved into the Department of Dentistry and Dentistry as part of the package. the 1904 agreement stipulated new Strathcona Anatomy and the Faculty of Medicine.” The That's why we're celebrating! that the dental teaching staff Dentistry Building. motion was ratified by McGill's (Bishop's French-speaking were to be collectively and By 1913, there were ten dental Board of Governors on January staff and students, by the way, individually responsible for the students in the Faculty of 26, 1920. went to Université Laval’s financial affairs of the department, Medicine which, by the end of Montreal campus, starting what including any debts contracted the First World War, was Dentistry Centennial Website funded by Servi-Dent Images of dentistry through the years. Send your class photos and other interesting pictures for inclusion to [email protected] Visit www.mcgilldent.ca to view photos, post messages and read historical anecdotes. 1904 1922 1923 1924 1925 1934 19 2004 The Faculty opens for business The Faculty of Dentistry opened later that year with Dr. Thornton as Dean. A History of the McGill Dental School. “She lived for her work and loved By 1922, there were 30 students in the new Faculty, including every minute of it.” Florence Johnston, McGill's first woman dental student. She graduated Rogers said Miss Ferguson was “a religious person who abhorred in 1926. The next, Dora Gordon, graduated in 1934. The third, Anita smoking and drinking” and had a keen interest in the students that Mendel, obtained her degree in 1939. It was decades before there were continued even after they graduated. more than one or two woman dental students per class. In 1934, the students created the McGill Dental Review, a quarterly paper Teaching staff expanded. By 1931, there were 21 dental instructors. with news of students and staff as well as scientific articles. It was the Only one, Dr. Gordon Leahy, the clinical director, was full-time. He was first such publication in Canada and was distributed to dentists and appointed in 1924 and served the Faculty for 32 years. Even Dr. A.L. dental schools across North America. Walsh, who was Dean from 1927 to 1948, had a part-time appointment. During the depression of the 1930s, class sizes were small – eight, nine The Faculty did not appoint another full-time teacher until 1947. or ten students at a time – but Dr. Leahy and the part-time instructors, There was, however, one other key permanent position. Miss Anne (31 of them by 1939 and all of them practicing professionals) created a Ferguson became executive secretary to the Faculty in 1928 and held school that turned out some of the best clinically trained practical the position until she retired in 1956. “She was a strong person who dentists on the continent. They laid the foundation for the Faculty's assumed tremendous responsibilities.” Dr. Mervyn A. Rogers writes in reputation today. The Faculty’s first full-time teacher Florence Johnston, DDS 1926 Dr. Gordon Leahy, DDS 1920, was the Faculty's first full-time teacher when he was hired as This class photo is one of the few clinical director in 1924 and its pictures of the Faculty's first woman only one until 1947. student that could be found. She “He stood six-feet-four and was seems to have been camera shy. a broad, big-boned man with a booming voice to go with his We know that she was born and grew towering figure,” Mervyn Rogers up in Montreal and was popular with writes in A History of the McGill her classmates who elected her class Dental School. “He laughed often, vice-president every year that she and when he did you could hear studied here. When she registered in him at the other end of the clinic.” 1922, she lived near the University on 3 Until the year before he retired what became Jeanne Mance Street. in 1956, the clinic was in a “temporary,” one-storey building at “Those who knew her say that she was the corner of La Gauchetière and St. a beautiful, if somewhat large person,” Dominique Streets near the old writes Mervyn Rogers in A History of Montreal General Hospital. the McGill Dental School. “She stood well FLORENCE Dr. Leahy played a large role in over six feet.” making the Faculty known for its 35 1936 1937 1938 1939 ability to turn out first-class Her arrival was significant. McGill clinical dentists. banned women from studying Hospitals, convalescent homes medicine or dentistry until at least the and nursing homes without end of the First World War and she dental services called on him came to the Faculty just two years regularly and he went to them after it became independent. willingly. He hated lecturing but Dr. Gordon Leahy was a good clinician and could She was 24 when she graduated and demonstrate procedures well. opened a general practice in the He treated students and patients Medical Arts Building at the corner of with great kindness. Rogers says, Guy and Sherbrooke Streets. Then she “He was a great friend to all who moved to Westmount where she knew him and he enjoyed the specialized in pediatric dentistry. respect of everyone.” Over 32 years, a lot of stories She eventually moved from dentistry were told about him. Rogers to real estate – where she did very well rememberes being in the Faculty – and from Montreal to Victoria – laboratory one afternoon when where she died in 1970, leaving Dr. Leahy dropped by for a visit. $100,000 to McGill University that was He put a complete lower denture, allocated to dental research. belonging to one of his patients on the bench beside him, pulled Her graduation portrait hangs in the out his pipe and lit it, and started Mervyn A.