MAGAZINE OF THE TuFTs uNIvErsITy dENTAl AluMNI AssOcIATION fall 2011 VOl. 15 NO. 2

Dental meDicine

Practicing dentistry behind bars

PlUS: a cONVerSatiON with deaN thOmaS n re-thiNkiNg PaiN medS

28889c01.indd 1 11/11/11 6:05 PM restorative work

Peter Arsenault, D94, an associate clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry, counts woodworking and furniture refinishing among his skills. This past summer, he volunteered to restore the conference table in the Becker Board Room on the seventh floor of One Kneeland Street. The board room, Arsenault notes, was dedicated the same year that he and his wife, Karin Andrenyi Arsenault, graduated from the dental school. The project, he adds, wasn’t all that different from what he does for a living: “It’s kind of like buffing out a composite restoration,” he says. “It’s like working on a big tooth.”

photo: alonso nichols

28889c02.indd 1 11/11/11 6:07 PM contents fall 2011 voluMe 15 no. 2 features 12 Pivotal Profession A conversation with Huw F. Thomas, the dental school’s 16th dean. By Helene Ragovin

cover story 16 Dentistry Behind Bars Practicing in a prison is a mix of the peculiar and the familiar, say alumni whose career paths have taken them inside the corrections system. By Helene Ragovin

22 Chew On This In tending to pets’ oral health needs, veterinarians take their cues from human dentistry. By Genevieve Rajewski

26 Life After Death His life was the only thing the Nazis did not 12 take from him, so John Saunders, D52, was determined to make it a life well-lived. By Julie Flaherty departments

2LeTTers 3 FrOm The DeAn 4 wOrD OF mOuTh 38 a scan of people, places & events 8 LAB nOTes a report on leading-edge science 32 On CAmPus dental school news 46 BeyOnD BOunDAries providing the Means for excellence 48 ALumni news staying connected

cover illustration by stephanie dalton cowan

28889p01.indd 1 11/11/11 6:09 PM letters

THE TIME OF MY LIFE dental medicine I retired this summer from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine with mixed feelings. volume 15, no. 2 fall 2011 I will not miss getting up at 5 a.m. executive editor Huw F. Thomas I will not miss those cold winter morn- Dean, School of Dental Medicine ings, plowing my driveway with my editor Helene Ragovin 40-year-old snow blower, and then driving editorial Director Karen Bailey through the snow to make the 6:11 a.m. alumni editor Vangel R. Zissi, D62, DG67 commuter train to Boston two days a week. Design Director Margot Grisar I will not miss driving into Boston at 6 2 national Senior Designer Betsy Hayes a.m. two days a week. awards Contributing Writers I will miss the students, who always kept Gail Bambrick, Julie Flaherty, Jacqueline me on my toes. Mitchell, Genevieve Rajewski Your school magazine, Tufts Dental I will miss the atmosphere of excitement Contributing editor Bob Sprague and the students’ faces filled with opti- Medicine, received two top honors editorial advisors Mark Gonthier, Executive Associate Dean mism, enthusiasm and, on occasion, stress. in the 2011 International College Maria Gove Tringale, Senior Director, Dental I will miss the many gives and takes with of Dentists Journalism awards Development and Alumni Relations the administration, staff and employees. Mary-Ellen Marks, Faculty Secretary Competition: the Platinum Pencil award Susan Ahearn, Associate Director, I do have mixed feelings. But the posi- Alumni Relations tive feelings I always will have from being a for outstanding Graphic Design for the part of students’ lives far exceeds any other Dental alumni association Spring 2010 issue (“Sleep Interrupted”) feelings. I have had the privilege of pass- President Peter A. Delli Colli, A69, D73 ing through the lives of more than 2,000 and the fall 2010 issue (“Dental vice President John Millette, D91 students. force”), and the Golden Pen award for assistant Secretary/Treasurer Joseph P. Giordano, D79, DG84 I am privileged to have been a part of an article on a subject of interest to the Treasurer Nicholas T. Papapetros, D91 the Tufts School of Dental Medicine team. profession, for Jacqueline mitchell’s Directors I will always treasure this time in my life as Cherie Bishop, D94; Rustam K. DeVitre, most enjoyable and rewarding. cover story, “Snooze Control” (Spring DG76, DI77, D12P; Joanne Falzone-Cherubini, frank a. odlum D80; Peiman Mahdavi, D91, DG94; Raina A. 2010), about the dental school’s Trilokekar, DG88, DI91; Derek A. Wolkowicz, associate professor of D97, DG00 pioneering sleep medicine program. general dentistry ex-officio The awards were presented at Mostafa H. El-Sherif, DI95; Tofigh Raayai, DG77, DI80; John P. Ficarelli, D73, D10P, PROUD OF MY CLASSMATE the annual meeting of the american DG12P; Nicholas T. Papapetros, D91 I just read the article in Tufts Dental association of Dental editors on Dental m Club Medicine magazine about my classmate, Warren D. Woods, D78, D14P, chair Gerard Caron (“The General Dentist,” october 9 in las vegas. Mary C. DeMello, D86, vice chair Spring 2011). I am so proud to see how well Historian Charles B. Millstein, D62, A10P he has done. I remember him well, and it is Chapter Presidents Steven Dugoni, D79, A08P, A12P, California no surprise that he would excel in the path Robert Berg, D03, New York talk to us he took. Our country, as well as our dental William N. Pantazes, D90, DG08, Florida John A. Vrotsos, DG82, Greece school, are fortunate to have him as one of Tufts Dental Medicine welcomes our own. I love to hear about Tufts gradu- letters, concerns and suggestions Tufts Dental Medicine is published twice ates making their mark in the world. from all its readers. address your annually by Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, the Tufts University Dental Alumni correspondence, which may be paul b. heller, d78, Association and the Tufts University Office lido beach, new york edited for space, to Helene Ragovin, of Publications. The magazine is a publication editor, Tufts Dental Medicine, member of the American Association of Dental Editors. Tufts university office of Publications, Send correspondence to: 80 George St., medford, ma 02155. Editor, Tufts Dental Medicine You can also fax us at 617.627.3549 Tufts University Office of Publications 80 George St., Medford, MA 02155 or email [email protected].

Tufts Prints Green Printed on 25% post-consumer waste 2 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 recycled paper. Please recycle.

28889p02-03.indd 2 11/11/11 6:10 PM from the dean

It’s Good to Be Here

Greetings! And welcome exemplify continues. Dr. Aidee Nieto Herman to the latest edition of was recently recognized by the Hispanic Dental Tufts Dental Medicine. My Association with the Women’s Leadership Award first three months at this for Education. Eunice Lee, D12, won first place in outstanding institution the clinical research/public health category of the have been most exciting American Dental Association/DENTSPLY Student and enjoyable. I have met Clinician Program at this year’s ADA annual meet- with some wonderful fac- ing. It is the second time a Tufts dental student has ulty, students, staff and won this award in the past three years. Three of our alumni, and they have students (out of eight nationally) experienced life warmly welcomed me into the Tufts family. as ADA interns in Chicago this past summer; two I have ‘survived’ an earthquake, hurricane, my others have been selected for National Institutes of first winter storm and an ‘escape’ from the 20th Health (NIH) Clinical Research Training Program floor of my condo building at 2:30 in the morning Fellowships in the new NIH Medical Research for what turned out to be a false fire alarm. It’s good Scholars Program and have elected to take a year to be in Boston…. off from their dental studies (see story, page 9). And This is a time of significant change at Tufts all our D14 students successfully passed Part I of the University. Our new president, Dr. Anthony National Board exam with an average score that is Monaco, began his tenure in August, and a national significantly above the national average! search is under way for a new university provost. The stories, profiles and news items contained in I was pleased to appoint Mark Gonthier as our this issue represent the broad spectrum of our faculty, school’s new executive associate dean. Mark has students and alumni and their wonderful contribu- served our school with distinction for the past 25 tions to the dental school and to Tufts University. I years, most recently as associate dean for admis- have enjoyed reading them and getting to know more sions and student affairs. His expertise and experi- about our community. I trust you will, too. ence will be invaluable as we embark on the next I look forward to meeting more members of the chapter of our journey. Tufts Dental family in the coming months. I want The proud legacy that the faculty and students to hear what’s on your mind. Please drop me a line of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine at [email protected].

huw f. thomas, b.d.s., m.s., ph.d. dean and professor of pediatric dentistry

PHOTO: AlONSO NICHOlS fall 2011 tufts dental medicine 3

28889p02-03.indd 3 11/11/11 6:10 PM word of moutha scan of people, places & events

A previous study by Nathaniel Katz, an adjunct assistant professor of anesthe- siology at Tufts School of Medicine and director of the Tufts Health Care Institute Program on Opioid Risk Management, found that up to a quarter of those pills— roughly 2,150 doses each day—never get used by the intended recipient, a phenom- enon known as drug diversion. In March of last year, Mehta and Katz convened a panel of experts from aca- demia, law enforcement and governmental agencies to explore the role of dentists in preventing opioid abuse and drug diver- sion. Among the team’s findings was that dentists write about 12 percent of all opioid prescriptions—a number that surprised Mehta and his colleagues. “Initially, people didn’t think dentists prescribed these opi- oids, but 12 percent is an extremely high level. It’s becoming more evident that there is abuse potential,” says Mehta. In the July 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association, Mehta, Katz Prescription for Trouble and their colleagues present their findings and provide a number of common-sense steps that dentists can take to curb opioid How you can prevent your patients from abusing painkillers diversion and misuse. by Jacqueline Mitchell “The first thing a dentist needs to do is understand the patient,” Mehta advises. “Many dentists don’t understand the rami- he man on the phone told a compelling story. a former pilot fications, both short- and long-term, of in the Israeli air force, he’d been injured in a plane crash that left these opioids.” him in constant pain. He hoped that the dentist could prescribe The consequences are myriad. A patient just enough painkillers to get him through the weekend. struggling with addiction to drugs or alco- T“What he didn’t remember is that he’d already called me,” says Noshir Mehta, hol could experience a life-threatening drug DG73, DI77, professor and chair of general dentistry, who suspected the man— interaction, while a recovering addict might injured in a plane crash or not—was addicted to pain pills and likely seeking relapse if prescribed opioids. Nor is the dan- prescriptions from multiple sources. “It’s not unusual for us to get calls like this ger limited to the patient in the dental chair. over the weekend,” says Mehta, who is also director of Tufts’ Craniofacial Pain, A spouse or child at home may be wrestling Headache and Sleep Center. with addiction. That’s why Mehta and his Prescription painkiller abuse has skyrocketed in recent years. More than 10 colleagues suggest that questions about sub- million Americans took opioid painkillers such as Percocet and oxycodone for stance abuse become a routine part of taking nonmedical reasons in 2002, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and medical histories. “Those questions can be Health. It’s no surprise then that opioid overdose-related visits to the emergency very difficult for the average dentist to ask, room visits more than doubled between 2004 and 2008. but in this day and age, that is part of what One reason for the rise in painkiller abuse has been the huge increase in we have to deal with,” he says. prescriptions written for legitimate medical reasons. In 2002, health-care pro- But even asking your patients these tough viders wrote 29 million oxycodone prescriptions, up 50 percent since 1999. questions may not be enough. Mehta and his

4 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 illustration: blair kelly

28889p04-07.indd 4 11/11/11 6:12 PM coauthors encourage specialists to check in with the referring dentist before prescribing chairs for charity heavy-duty drugs. Likewise, general dentists would be well-served to confer with their With dental faculty, alumni and students providing much-needed patients’ physicians or even have the physi- care around the world, there’s no denying Tufts’ global impact. Now, cians write the prescriptions. even the chairs are getting into the act. “If I am giving out a prescription to a After the completion of the dental school expansion in 2009, patient, I want to make sure I have spoken facilities manager Robert Aronson had five dozen used, but other- to the primary-care physician,” says Mehta, wise perfectly good, dental chairs on his hands. “It would have been adding that coordinated care between den- a waste of a good piece of equipment to throw it away—even if it tists and physicians is good practice—even didn’t cost us anything,” says Aronson, who estimates the chairs are when the medications in question aren’t 15 to 20 years old, about middle-aged for a dental chair. “The first addictive—and can prevent accidental drug thing we like to do is to be philanthropic. There are a lot of clinics interactions. “We train our students here around the world, and even in this country, that are in need.” to call the doctor, especially when there are One of those clinics is the X-ray suite at Northeast Metropolitan multiple medications involved.” Regional High School, a vocational high school in Wakefield, Mass., If there’s still doubt, dentists can also use that has a dental assistant program. Some of the chairs, which prescription-monitoring programs, elec- Aronson estimates cost about $12,000 each, found new homes tronic databases available in 35 states, to much farther away. Alumni and faculty have taken chairs to Haiti, verify patients’ prescription drug history. the Dominican Republic and Zambia. (You can find information about what’s No matter where they wind up, Tufts’ old chairs can weather available in which state at www.pmpalliance. heavy usage. “We get the tank version of what a private practice org/content/state-pmp-web-sites). would get,” says Aronson. —jacqueline mitchell The most obvious way dentists can minimize the risks of potentially addictive painkillers is by writing fewer prescriptions. Dentists in the Tufts clinics rarely prescribe opioids for routine dental procedures. Over- the-counter analgesics such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen work for most people and won’t mask pain from infections or other post-op complications, Mehta notes. Of course, some patients, including those undergoing painful surgical procedures, will require stronger analgesics. For these patients, Mehta and his research colleagues suggest that simply reducing the number of pills prescribed would keep many doses out of the hands of recreational users. “Many medications are misused because they hang out in the bathroom cabinet,” says Mehta, who notes that more than 65 percent of teens who have tried prescription pain- killers report getting them for free or buying or stealing them from friends or family.

Tufts President Anthony P. Monaco visits with Samuel Siegel, D33, of Chevy Chase, Md., Jacqueline Mitchell, a senior health sciences during an alumni reception on September 27 in Washington, D.C. The Tufts University writer in Tufts’ Office of Publications, can Alumni Association is hosting a series of events throughout the year to welcome Tufts’ 13th be reached at [email protected]. president. To find a reception in your area, turn to page 49.

photo: alonso nichols fall 2011 tufts dental medicine 5

28889p04-07.indd 5 11/11/11 6:12 PM word of mouth

Veterans who have read his book are War Correspondent sometimes surprised at the details he includes. How can you describe it so well, they ask? Behind his poems is a great deal Michael Lepore, DG83, gives voice to Vietnam’s ‘Forgotten Heroes’ of research—historical facts, dates and bat- by Julie Flaherty tles combined with personal reflections he found in journals that some vets kept as part of their therapy after the war. The journals corpsman in blood-soaked the combat zone, they were not treated as were key, because as he has found from his fatigues pleads for his mother. heroes,” Lepore says. “They were more like longtime work in veterans affairs, World A survivor is overcome with the scapegoat of everything going on in the War II vets share plenty of war stories, but guilt as he stands before a war country. They were never really respected Vietnam vets are reluctant to talk. memorial. A homeless veteran shuffles coming home.” “I tried to put into words what their feel- toward his night abode under an overpass, Lepore met many bright, eager Marine ings were, what they had a difficult time say- “eyes fixed to the ground, avoiding/stares recruits on their way to Vietnam when he ing,” he says. from those he swore/to protect.” served for two years as a lieutenant in the Lepore, who is retired from his ortho- Through vignettes that are at times sad, U.S. Navy Dental Corps at Camp Lejeune, dontics practice, came to poetry almost beautiful, horrific and powerful, Forgotten N.C. After the war, he saw friends and rela- by accident six years ago, when he wrote a Heroes: Poems for and about Veterans of tives who were permanently changed, not eulogy for his cousin’s funeral. An elderly the Vietnam War (Grayson Books, 2010) just by their combat service in the jungle, but woman approached him afterward in appre- by Michael Lepore, DG83, pays tribute to by the cold reception they received at home. ciation and told him she was also a poet. the men who fought in a war unlike any “I found that a lot of the veterans have When he protested that he wasn’t, she before it. issues, and the government did not know replied, “You are a poet, whether you know “When the veterans came back from how to handle it at that time,” he says. it or not.” Not long after, another cousin, who was also a writing teacher, began to tutor him. Soon he was working with a local writing Relieved of duty group, where the members would critique each others’ work. Back and forth Closes his eyes to chase away demons, “At first, like anyone else, I wrote about before the metal gate, she paces, smile guarded, he fears another trick, the birds and the river and things like that, bites her nails, squints another disappointment, must keep and it was fine,” he said. Then, searching for against the night lights his thoughts prisoner, not risk words a topic for the month’s workshop, he wrote for a view. that would return him to the cage. about Vietnam. The poetry group was Essence of Chanel brings him back wowed and told him to write more. He exits the plane, from the jungle. “I said, ‘I don’t know how many of these wears the same uniform I can write.’ They said, ‘Keep going; you’ll as when they last kissed She is there; auburn hair bleached know when it is over.’ ” eight years ago. Shifts weight to a straw yellow, eyelids adorned So he delved into Vietnam, creating to the new cane, steadies with shades of blue. Thick lashes flutter, poems about a wife receiving news of her his loose-fitting cap. unrestricted by the confines of glasses. husband’s death, a mother trying to recon- The weight of eight years concealed nect with her now-distant son and a prisoner Safety of home beneath his feet, beneath the clothes of a younger woman. of war returning home to the girl he left his ears thirst to hear the voice behind eight years before. of the name he engraved on the cell wall. Within his grasp, like a mirage, Unbeknownst to him, the leader of the Hands yearn to touch that which soothed she is beyond his reach. He feels again writing group ran a small publishing com- wounds, calmed senseless nightmares. the isolation of jungle cell walls, pany that specializes in poetry. Last May, stares into a face he thought he knew, to his delighted surprise, she asked whether hears her first words, she could publish a book of his work, I thought you were dead. and Forgotten Heroes was born. Proceeds from the book go to the Marines Helping Marines, Wounded Marine program, which supports injured Marines and Navy corps- men returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

28889p04-07.indd 3 11/15/11 4:39 PM KY A smattering of dentistry tidbits 99.6% to inform, amuse the percentage of the population and amaze receiving fluoridated water in kentucky, the state that ranks first in the nation for fluoridation rates, according to the most list recent figures from the centers for Disease control and prevention. the state with the d lowest ranking is utah, with the number of objects in the collection 2.2 percent. 166 Number 40,000 of the Dr. samuel D. harris national of “likes” for the Museum of Dentistry in baltimore, an affiliate of the Facebook page of smithsonian institution. visit www.dentalmuseum.org. “Bay Area Buster,” a pug belonging to a Palo Alto, Calif., dentist. Buster sits on the laps of anxious patients to help calm them during treatment.

Among the many treasures in the dental museum: Toothpaste containers featuring Queen Victoria; the longtime monarch was an advocate of oral health.

Number of years that 8 dentists have been taking part in the Halloween Candy – Buy-back Program, 3 8 Years old The number in which dentists 500 of pounds offer children prizes recommended ages for of salvaged steel the New York or cash for turning the “barbie i can be a sculptor Steven Rolf Kroeger in unopened trick- Dentist” play set, which used to create “Global Gobbler.” or-treat goodies. comes with a dentist doll, The work, which stands four Operation Gratitude chair, stool and X-ray stand. feet high, was on display for Dr. barbie wears a miniskirt five months in Great Barrington, then sends the sweets and high heels; unfortunately, Mass., as part of a public art to troops serving she does not wear gloves, project. overseas. a mask or goggles.

photos: ellyn salkin (sculpture); kelvin Ma (barbie); fall 2011 tufts dental medicine 7 courtesy of the national MuseuM of Dentistry (MuseuM anD toothpaste)

28889p04-07.indd 7 11/11/11 6:12 PM leading-edge science

antibody began to fray, with sore spot the upper layers of skin pull- ing away from the base layers, Perplexing, painful lesions are likely an autoimmune disease mimicking the way CUS ulcers by Jacqueline Mitchell form. More damning, the tissue samples treated with a higher concentration of antibodies a difficult-to-diagnose circumstantial evidence that Solomon and her colleagues, fared far worse than the models disorder that causes painful CUS was an autoimmune Jonathan Garlick, direc- treated with the lower concen- mouth sores is, in fact, an auto- disorder. And like its better- tor of the dental school’s tration. “Whole sections were immune disease, according to known counterparts, rheu- Center for Integrated Tissue losing their connections, weak- an oral pathologist at Tufts. matoid arthritis and lupus, Engineering, and former ening the tissue,” says Solomon. With just 39 cases of chronic CUS also is primarily found postdoctoral researcher Mark So what’s going on? These ulcerative stomatitis (CUS) in middle-aged women. More Carlson, demonstrated that CUS antibodies bind with a documented in the English- telling, CUS patients test the antibodies do indeed key cellular protein that acts language medical literature, a positive for specific antibod- cause the ulcers. The team as a genetic switch. Under dentist could be forgiven for ies. Identifying those through treated three-dimensional normal conditions, this switch not recognizing it in a patient, a tissue biopsy is the current, if tissue models with various regulates the expression of says Lynn Solomon, an associ- unwieldy, method of diagnos- concentrations of the anti- integrins, cellular structures ate professor of oral and maxil- ing the disease. Until now, bodies derived from the blood that Solomon calls “the little lofacial pathology at the School the antibodies represented a of CUS patients. Grown from molecular hooks” that hold of Dental Medicine. Her most chicken-and-egg problem: No human skin cells, the tissue cells and tissues together. But recent study, published in the one knew whether they caused models are stratified into sev- in the Tufts study, the tissue April 4 issue of the journal Oral the oral ulcerations that char- eral layers that are anchored models treated with the CUS Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral acterize CUS or whether they to a base membrane, just as antibodies produced fewer inte- Pathology, Oral Radiology and were simply the body’s immune they are in our own skin. grins than the untreated con- Endodontology, classifies CUS response to the disorder. Sure enough, the tissue trol samples. That suggests that as an autoimmune disorder In her recent study, models treated with the the CUS antibodies interfere caused by the body attacking its own healthy tissues. CUS is easily confused with lichen planus, a more common ulcerative disorder that can be triggered by allergies or other conditions, including hepatitis C. A definitive diagnosis of CUS is made with an elaborate biopsy technique called direct immunofluorescence. Because it can take up to 10 days to get the diagnosis, most dentists start patients on topical or oral steroids, the standard treat- ment for lichen planus. But those medications don’t work on CUS, which is treated with a photomicrograph of an indirect immunofluorescence, an antimalarial drug used for using blood serum from a patient with chronic ulcerative stomatitis (cuS). antibodies from the serum have bound to other autoimmune disorders. tissue, resulting in the speckled pattern. Researchers already had

8 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 photos: lynn solomon (above); sip/photo researchers inc.(opposite page)

28889p08-11.indd 8 11/11/11 6:13 PM with the genetic switch, which a light micrograph of in turn decreases integrin pro- squamous cell carcinoma. duction. As a result, the tissue helen fassil, a05, d13, loses its structural integrity. is investigating the oral form of the disease, which Solomon suspects there is unusually prevalent in are many more cases of CUS african american men. than the handful already documented. “Some argue that people with lichen planus squamous cell carcinoma also have [these] antibodies,” is unusually prevalent in she says. African American men. She To know for sure, Solomon wants to find out why. is trying to develop a more “This would bring to- efficient way to diagnose CUS. gether my interests in public In a 2010 study with colleagues health and cancer research,” from Tufts and SUNY Buffalo, says Fassil, who also holds she demonstrated that a widely a master’s degree in public available test known as ELISA health. “Dentistry is a sec- (enzyme-linked immunosor- tor of public health where bent assay) could reliably iden- the importance of clinical tify CUS. That’s an advantage, trailblazers research in improving access because the ELISA test is done and quality of care deserves on a blood sample, while the Students pursue basic research through elite particular attention.” current standard, immuno- Nih training program by Gail Bambrick Fassil chose to work in the fluorescence, requires a biopsy, NIH lab investigating a pre- which some dentists may be cursor to oral cancer, known reluctant to perform. reSearch iS no longer biological underpinnings of as chronic graft-versus-host Now Solomon will attempt second chair to the clinical oral disease—the kind of ba- disease, which often occurs to determine whether a CUS care that is the foundation of sic science that could, one day, after stem-cell transplants. diagnosis can be confirmed dentistry. Consider the three produce treatments to address In the mouth it manifests as by analyzing saliva instead of Tufts dental students who some longstanding national mucosal and salivary chang- blood. “Blood isn’t a dentist’s this year joined their medical health problems. And they are es, including small growths, medium,” she says, “but saliva school peers in prestigious also pioneers: Fassil and Tsai redness and ulcerations, is.” And a quicker diagnosis research training programs are among just eight dental which can become squamous means patients could get the at the National Institutes of students out of the 320 stu- cell carcinoma if untreated. correct medication for CUS Health. dents, most in medical school, A native of Ethiopia, right away, rather than waiting Two students, Helen Fassil, who have been selected since Fassil’s goal is to return there for the treatment for lichen A05, D13, and Jeffrey Tsai, the NIH initiated the CRTP one day to “do something in planus to fail first. D13, are taking a leave from program in 1997. This year oral health or public health. That’s good news for CUS dental school to participate they are the only two den- Seeing the scarcity of oral sufferers. “It can be miserable in the Clinical Research tal students out of 30 CRTP health care internationally re- to live with a sore mouth,” says Training Program (CRTP) on participants. ally brings awareness of how Solomon. the NIH campus in Bethesda, For Fassil, this year at NIH privileged we are,” she says. Md. Alayna Corden, D14, is an intensely personal one. Tsai said it was a tough de- Jacqueline Mitchell, a senior conducted research through She’s interested in oral squa- cision to take a year off from health sciences writer in the NIH Summer Internship mous cell carcinoma, the dis- dental school. “You have a Tufts’ Office of Publications, Program. ease that her father, a nuclear group of patients at the Tufts can be reached at jacqueline. They are cellular explor- pharmacist, was researching clinic who you are treating, [email protected]. ers, examining some of the before he died from it. Oral who you have established

fall 2011 tufts dental medicine 9

28889p08-11.indd 9 11/11/11 6:13 PM lab notes

relationships with, and now to begin clinical studies you have to transfer them to on the use of corrective jaw teens others for their care,” he says. surgery to alleviate sleep “But I could not pass up this apnea. measure up opportunity.” “The NIH campus is a At the dental school, Tsai very enriching environment,” Survey records attitudes on oral health has done research on treat- says Lahey. “You are con- by Jacqueline Mitchell ment protocols and access stantly exposed to the work to care for the developmen- of world-renowned scientists. tally disabled. “I realized It is home to the National No loNGer children, not less attractive to others?” that through epidemiological Library of Medicine, the yet adults, teenagers are in are designed to measure the research, you can affect the largest medical library in the a class by themselves. That’s impact teens’ smiles can have lives of millions of people, world.” why a public health dentist at on their social and emotional because this is how we frame It’s also where Alayna Tufts has developed a teen- development. policies or enact guidelines Corden spent this past sum- specific questionnaire to A cross-sectional study of that can benefit patients,” mer researching the genetics measure adolescents’ attitudes 363 adolescents demonstrated he says. of Sjögren’s syndrome, an about their oral health and its the strength of the question- Now he’s part of the NIH autoimmune disease that link to quality of life. naire as a research tool. The lab investigating a drug for damages the tear and salivary Seeking to eliminate oral participants were screened to treating fibrous dysplasia, glands. Sjögren’s causes health disparities in the United determine their oral health which causes bone loss and extremely dry mouth, and States, Wanda Wright and her status and then asked to com- is seen in patients with those with the condition have colleagues first needed a way plete the survey. Wright found McCune-Albright syndrome, difficulty eating, swallowing to quantify those inequities in the teenagers’ actual dental a genetic disease that results and speaking. It can lead to dental care. Research already health matched up nicely in severe bone malforma- gingivitis, tooth decay and exists on how oral health with the scores generated tion, most commonly in the mouth infections. This is her problems affect young kids at by the questionnaire, which craniofacial area. The drug, second research experience school and adults’ social and also differentiated between Denosumab, is commonly at the NIH; as an under- professional lives. teens with a lot of decay and prescribed for osteoporosis, graduate at Northwestern “But adolescents are in a those with relatively little. because it disrupts a protein University, she participated unique stage of growth and Wright presented her research signal that causes bone to in another research program. development, and there were at the annual meeting of the weaken. Among the 27 research no tools capturing the things International Association for Tsai and Fassil chose their institutes and centers that unique to what teenagers go Dental Research last spring. lab assignments after an NIH comprise the NIH campus through,” says Wright, an The questionnaire can be mentor helped them explore is the National Institute of assistant professor of pub- used to establish oral health their options. Earlier, they Dental and Craniofacial lic health and community baselines in certain commu- had gotten the inside scoop Research, where Bruce Baum, service. nities, as well as to determine from Ed Lahey, D99, who was D71, a dental school overseer, Using a pediatric oral whether public health inter- just the second dental stu- is chief of the gene transfer health-related quality-of-life ventions are actually work- dent, and the first from Tufts, section. questionnaire (POQL-T) as a ing, says Wright. Likewise, to participate in the program, “I have been active in the launching point, Wright, then dentists can use the survey to in 1998. clinical training program at Boston University, devised screen new adolescent patients Lahey returns to the since it started, in 1997,” and tested the first such tool and measure their progress dental school every year to says Baum, who was Lahey’s for teens, ages 13 to 18. over time. encourage more students to mentor. “It is rare for dental Her 16-question survey Wright developed a similar consider the NIH research schools to support this asks respondents to think tool for measuring quality experience. yearlong program, and Tufts about how often their oral of life among orthodontics “This was a life-changing has been the unquestionable health affects their well-being patients. It’s one more step event for me,” says Lahey, an leader.” and to what extent that both- toward understanding the oral surgeon who earned his ers them. Questions such as, inscrutable American teen. medical degree from Harvard Gail Bambrick, a senior “Did you not want to laugh or “When we started five years after graduating from Tufts. writer in Tufts’ Office of smile around others because ago, there were no instru- His research year at the NIH Publications, can be reached of your teeth or mouth?” and ments,” she says. “There was provided the impetus for him at [email protected]. “Did you worry that you were a real need there.”

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28889p08-11.indd 10 11/11/11 6:13 PM a scanning electron micrograph other. The nutrition data might (SeM) of a decaying tooth; give us more answers to that.” a cavity can be seen in the Meanwhile, Ferrick tried foreground. two tufts dental students say both dentists to tease apart the relationship and physicians can provide between early childhood decay education to parents to help and socioeconomic factors, lower rates of childhood caries. including race, family income, insurance type and family size. These last two factors turn out cavity-free, studying what to have the biggest impact on happened to their body mass children’s oral health. More index (BMI) over 12 months. than half of children with Previous studies had provided extensive decay came from contradictory data. Some large families, defined as six to researchers found an asso- 10 members, while the major- ciation between decay and ity of cavity-free children came malnutrition, probably because from families with fewer than toothaches or missing teeth four members. interfere with eating nutritious Children with cavities were foods, while other scientists also more likely to be unin- linked the presence of cavities sured than their decay-free with obesity, both conditions counterparts. But perhaps likely the result of high-fat, counter intuitively, family closing the gap high-sugar diets. income didn’t stand out as a Bhat’s data bolstered the major risk factor for childhood Students examine data behind childhood caries latter hypothesis. The cavity- tooth decay. “It was a little by Jacqueline Mitchell free kids’ BMI remained surprising that family income pretty stable while the BMI of was not as significant a predic- kids with cavities crept up. At tor. We can surmise we got that tooth decay is entirely Medical Center in Washington, the end of a year, Bhat found outcome because the study preventable, yet more than 40 D.C., and Columbus Children’s significant differences between population was generally low percent of children have at least Hospital and Cincinnati the two groups. What’s more, income,” Ferrick says. one cavity, according to the Children’s Medical Center, the more extensive the tooth To prevent childhood tooth Centers for Disease Control both in Ohio, Bhat investi- decay, the greater the increase decay in this population, and Prevention, with poorer gated the reciprocal relation- in BMI. Children with seven or Ferrick would like to see oral and minority kids shouldering ship between body mass and more cavities experienced the heath education piggy-backed a disproportionate burden. For tooth decay, while Ferrick greatest change in BMI. onto existing programs, the last two years, Ramya Bhat focused on the socio-economic Despite the strength of including the well-child health and Carolyn Ferrick, both D12, factors that may influence her data, Bhat doesn’t dismiss care often available to unin- have been examining some children’s oral health. Both the tooth decay-malnutrition sured families. of the socioeconomic causes presented their findings at the hypothesis altogether. “Children at this age are at the root of these persistent International Association for “It’s interesting to see kids more likely to be seen by a disparities. Dental Research conference last could go in two completely physician than a dentist,” says Using extensive health spring. different directions,” says Bhat. Ferrick. “Physicians need to and demographic data from In her study, Bhat fol- “There is no clear predictor be informed about basic oral hundreds of children treated lowed two groups of children, that shows us why some kids care, so they can spread that at the Children’s National 454 with cavities and 429 go down one road versus the knowledge to mothers.” Bhat’s data led her also to conclude that education is the key. “I think dentists providing chilDren With more tooth DecaY nutrition advice to parents of gaineD more Weight, With high-sugar their pediatric patients would help, too. There’s such a big anD high-Fat Diets a liKelY culprit. overlap on all these topics.”

photos: bsip/photo researchers inc. fall 2011 tufts dental medicine 11

28889p08-11.indd 11 11/11/11 6:13 PM Gatekeepers of Health In a wide-ranging conversation, Dean Huw Thomas talks about the growing importance of dentistry to our national welfare by helene ragovin

t’s a damp, drizzly day in boston. fog floats atop the sky- scrapers, and the view from the 15th floor of One Kneeland Street barely extends beyond Chinatown. It’s the kind of day that—if you grew up in Wales, at least—brings back the feel of home and the desire for a proper cup of tea. Huw F. Thomas, the 16th dean of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, was into his second month on the job. Since arriv- ing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) over the summer, Thomas had experienced the tremors of an East Coast Iearthquake, the fury of Hurricane Irene and a fire alarm at his high- rise apartment building that sent him racing down 20 flights of stairs at 2:30 in the morning. And on this particular afternoon, the Red Sox were coming off their sixth loss in eight days. But Thomas’ enthusiasm for leading the dental school remained undiminished. “I think this is a very warm, friendly and inviting place,” he said. “I’m continually impressed by the people here at all levels, whether it’s staff, stu- dents, faculty or administration. I definitely get a sense of the Tufts family.” A pediatric dentist, Thomas is also an accomplished researcher, with more than 150 articles, chapters and abstracts to his credit. His recent work examines the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and PHOTOGRAPH by KELVIN MA early childhood caries. Among his top priorities for the dental school, he says, are further integrating clinical practice and research, expanding the rubric of community ser- vice activities and developing a curriculum that embraces interprofes- sional education. Thomas grew up in Wales and received his dental degree from Guy’s Hospital, University of London. He earned a certificate in pediatric dentistry from the Eastman Dental Center in Rochester, N.Y., a master’s in dental research from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in bio- medical sciences from the University of Connecticut Health Center.

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28889p12-15.indd 12 11/11/11 6:17 PM Dean Huw F. Thomas

28889p12-15.indd 13 11/11/11 6:17 PM He narrowly missed an earlier opportunity to come to Tufts in to visit the Eastman Dental Center in Rochester. I just knew I wanted 1974, when as a dental student in the U.K., he was offered a trav- to go there and pursue more education. I graduated from dental eling scholarship to the United States, where he had the chance to school [in the U.K.] in June 1975, and moved to Rochester in August. spend six weeks either at Tufts or the State University of New York at After I completed my pediatrics training, one of my professors per- Buffalo. He chose Buffalo on the recommendation of a friend who suaded me to enroll in the master’s program. I think it was then that had been there the previous year. He served on the faculty at the I got bitten by the research bug. University of Connecticut Health Center and later headed the pedi- My experiences coming over here on that traveling scholarship atric dentistry department at the University of Texas Health Science for those six weeks—even though it was January in Buffalo!—were Center at San Antonio. In 2004, he was appointed dean of the dental amazingly positive, and it’s the reason I’m here today. One of the school at UAB, where he was also a professor of pediatric dentistry. things I’m very supportive of, and want to develop more of here at His CV unfolds in a more personal way along the shelf beneath Tufts, are student-exchange programs. I’m delighted to see some the expansive windows in his office: an old microscope he “inher- established already. I think it’s a great opportunity for us. ited” during his doctoral work in Connecticut; a sculpture of an armadillo, given to him by his daughters as a reminder of their Why did you choose pediatrics? Texas days; another sculpture, titled “Agony,” of a dentist extracting I had two reasons. I have a sister who is almost nine years younger a tooth in a most forceful fashion, purchased at a fair in Rochester. than I am, so I grew up with this young kid around all the time and “It fits the sort of mindset of what dentistry used to be,” he says. have always had an affinity for little kids. I think that was part of it, There are many photos of his daughters, Caty, an assistant district but it wasn’t a conscious part. The conscious part is that while I was attorney, and Megan, a nurse. “We’re great friends, the three of us,” a dental student doing a rotation in pediatric dentistry in London, Thomas says, beaming. It was during their time in Connecticut that we had a very unruly patient. He was shouting, screaming. And one the father and his daughters discovered the Red Sox, and Fenway of the faculty members on the clinic floor went up to this kid, and Park was among his first destinations when he moved to Boston this within two minutes had him eating out of hand. I thought that was past summer. And, since he did grow up in the U.K., he was also just so fascinating to see how that happened. I remember talking to looking forward to watching the 6 Nations rugby championship this faculty member afterward, and I found out he had undergone broadcast live on TV (“You couldn’t get that in Alabama!”). pediatric training in the U.S. I think that was the real flashpoint. His other pursuits outside dentistry include hiking and read- It’s a wonderful specialty—the whole spectrum of care that you ing fiction (he’s currently into Scandinavian detective novels). And can provide to children, and really have an influence on their lives, every few years, he re-reads his favorite, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. especially if you help them become disease-free and establish pat- “It’s such a wonderful allegory for life,” he says. He’s also quite fond terns that they’ll have for life. of the riddle that Bilbo Baggins poses in the book: Talk a little about your research. Thirty white horses on a red hill, My thesis work was essentially in developmental biology, looking at First they champ, the development of the tooth root and the attachment mechanism to Then they stamp, the surrounding bone. But I also got involved with a lot of national Then they stand still. groups that were looking at health disparities, infant oral health and preventive programs for children. The answer, of course, is teeth. In working with children who have a very severe and rampant form of dental caries, called early childhood caries, I was struck by We sat down with the new dean earlier this fall to talk about his the pattern of the expression of the disease on the tooth surface. It path to Tufts and his aspirations for the School of Dental Medicine. occurred in a very specific location. And so we went back into the lab to find out what was going on. Tufts Dental Medicine: What led you to dentistry, The caries lesion appears in the part of the tooth that forms and dental research, in particular? immediately after birth. We thought that maybe there was some sort Huw Thomas: My father was the principal of a school for develop- of nutritional influence on that postnatal enamel that might affect mentally delayed children. He was a tremendous, positive influence the quality of the enamel, and therefore, make it more susceptible to on me, and still is. When I was at those formative years trying to caries. It had been known for a long time that vitamin D and vitamin decide what to do with my life, he arranged for several of his friends A have an impact on developing teeth. There was also data that was from Rotary to entertain me for a day. So I went to spend time with coming out that showed that many children—especially impover- a dentist, time with a physician and a few other people. Seeing what ished children, in whom this disease is prevalent—are vitamin D the dentist was doing and how he was doing it, I thought, ‘That deficient. sounds like a good thing to do.’ We hypothesized that vitamin D deficiency is a potential mecha- What was interesting was that once I started in dentistry, I never nism to explain a poorer quality of enamel in the tooth, which may really envisioned myself in private practice. I really enjoyed dental make it more susceptible to caries attack. And we discovered that school, and I did have an ‘aha’ moment when I had the opportunity was true.

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28889p12-15.indd 14 11/11/11 6:17 PM Eventually, you moved into administration, as a health-care system. There is no reason why certain tests that would department chair at the University of Texas and at UAB. be markers of systemic disease couldn’t be conducted in the den- What did you accomplish in those positions? tist’s office. Diabetes and heart disease are two of the most expen- I had the opportunity to chair the department of pediatrics at San sive diseases that we spend money on in this country. And typically Antonio, and the good thing about that was it was a large depart- you don’t do anything about them until it’s too late. ment, with a large number of faculty positions. I was able to recruit There is a prototype now for a diagnostic tool where you can research people to the department, as well as clinicians. And we take a saliva sample, analyze it with an instrument no bigger than had a general theme of craniofacial molecular biology, and all of a cell phone and identify risks for a variety of systemic conditions. the people we hired were part of that research. It was, in fact, a There’s no reason why a dentist couldn’t do that kind of test. I’m clinical department, but it reinforced for me that you can integrate not suggesting that dentists should be the only gatekeepers, but research within a clinical department and make it very successful. certainly they can be a gatekeeper. I took the job [as dean at UAB] because I felt I had accomplished what I set out to in San Antonio. We had successfully integrated What are some of your goals for Tufts Dental School? research into clinical programs and successfully changed a lot of In order to have optimal clinical programs, you have to have very the curriculum within the department, and, I believe, improved it. strong research programs. At some level, we need to be able to focus So here was a chance to do that on a school level. our research efforts to bring them in line with our clinical pro- grams. The two are intimately linked. It’s not clinical or research; it’s clinical and research. The other thing that we did in Birmingham “Pediatrics is a wonderful specialty – that’s happening here is curriculum reform, the whole spectrum of care from both didactic and clinical aspects. I think some of the curricular reform that has that you can provide to children, taken place at Tufts is really outstanding. Some very careful thought is being put into how to especially if you help them develop the optimal curriculum for our stu- become disease-free.” dents. That’s an ongoing process, as it should be. We also have to look at the impact of sci- —Huw F. Thomas ence and technology on our profession. There’s something new almost every day, and we’ve got I think we got a lot accomplished at Birmingham, despite signifi- to be able to give our students the best opportunities to evaluate cant economic challenges in the last three years. That’s been a major and use those technologies for the benefit of our patients. challenge for all dental schools, but much more so at a state school. It The area that Tufts has always been known for is community was our state funding that was hit; we had about a 30 percent reduc- service, and we have some phenomenal outreach programs in the tion in state funding over three years. city and across the state. I think there are some tremendous oppor- tunities for us to expand on that so we not only provide service How do you see the role of dentistry in the broader to the community, but also educate our students in a community health-care system? health environment. Hopefully, by doing so, we can make our stu- The mouth is connected to the rest of the body, and as such—and dents more likely to provide care to underserved populations after I’ll paraphrase the Surgeon General’s report—you can’t have good graduation. general health unless you have good oral health. The two are intri- The improvements in the oral health of Americans have been cately linked, and I think the dental profession needs to be very significant over the last few decades. But there are certain segments cognizant of that. Some of the ideas that are coming out now in of the population that don’t have good oral health: the poor, chil- interprofessional education—educating dental, medical, nursing, dren, the elderly, those with developmental disabilities. I think that public health, nutrition, optometry students, all in the same envi- educational institutions have a responsibility to serve those popu- ronment—present some tremendous opportunities for us. And I lations and educate their students in the delivery of those services. think that community-based health-care approaches are an ideal My short-term goal is to identify where we can form additional way to do that, marrying those two areas together. Where better to alliances so that more of these community-based programs can be provide that opportunity for students than in a community setting? developed. I think dentists should become leaders of the health-care team. Personally, I’m looking forward to a fulfilling time at Tufts. I’m More adults in America visit a dentist than they do a physician. excited about the opportunity to work with a lot of excellent people, Seventy percent of middle-class Americans have regular dental and, together, meet the challenges of our profession. tdM appointments, but just 30 percent of that population have regular medical appointments. And if that is the case, I can certainly envi- Helene Ragovin, the editor of this magazine, can be reached at helene. sion a situation where the dentist could be a gatekeeper into the [email protected].

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28889p12-15.indd 15 11/11/11 6:17 PM d e n t i s behi

28889p16-21.indd 16 11/14/11 8:51 AM t r y ndbars

Their patients wear jumpsuits, and they can’t hand out floss, but prison practitioners say it’s still business as usual by helene ragovin photographs by kelvin ma

the corridor leading to the health services wing of the new hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord is cool, almost chilly—intentionally so, to help calm any jitters as inmates head to a medical procedure or a visit to the dentist. Once inside the dental clinic, though, the scene is fairly unremarkable: a small waiting area, four open-bay operatories, dentists and assistants hovering over patients as soft rock plays in the background, punctuated every so often by the whine of the drill. But the young man awaiting his turn is wearing an orange jumpsuit. Supplies— whether syringes, Lidocaine capsules or just gauze—are under lock and key. During the exam, equipment is kept behind the patient, out of his reach, rather than on a bracket table. Before a patient can leave, there’s a careful accounting of all the instru- ments. And no one gets a floss sample because as important as it is to oral health, floss is contraband in a prison cell. These small details are among the things that set prison dentistry apart from other kinds of practice. It may seem like a confounding mix of the familiar and the peculiar. But those who do it say it becomes a dental job like any other: your patients need your help; you’re there to improve their oral health, and, more often than not, to put a stop to their pain. The ever-present mindfulness about secu- rity becomes unremarkable, and the protocols of providing treatment behind bars become part of the work routine.

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28889p16-21.indd 17 11/14/11 8:51 AM Your Patients are Criminals Working in a prison isn’t for everybody. Doubtless, there are those who would chafe under the rigid structure that governs so much of the day. Dentists who have worked in state corrections systems also point to other issues, ranging from cutbacks in state fund- ing, to frustrating bureaucracy, to shifting priorities from the contractors who manage the dental facilities. (Most states outsource dental and medical services.) A staff dentist may not receive benefits and may have to pay out-of-pocket for insurance and licensing, although some prison systems offer fairly thorough benefit packages. And then, there’s the not inconsiderable issue of knowing that the person in your chair has been found guilty of a crime—per- haps something unthinkably violent. “When I treated them, I tried to never, never find out what they did for a crime,” says Roland H. Bryan, D91P, a dentist who had worked at the New Hampshire prison and is a former assistant clinical professor at Tufts School of Dental Medicine. Bryan is not alone in those thoughts. Albert, for example, is an Orthodox Jew whose lifestyle outside the office keeps her fairly insulated from popular culture. “I don’t pay attention to the media, which, for me, is an advantage,” she says. Prison den- tists repeat similar observations about their inmate-patients: “I’m not judgmental.” “They’re human beings, too.” “Sometimes you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Most times, Bryan says, it’s best to just focus on the task at hand. He recalled treat- ing an inmate who had been convicted of a Victor Stetsyuk, D12, treats a patient during his externship at the New Hampshire State Prison notorious murder. “I didn’t look at him. I for Men in Concord. Tufts Dental School offers student externships at two prison sites. just looked at his tooth. I had to sort of dis- associate myself,” he says. “I know that look when you first walk involved after closing a practice. The prison dentists note that the state in and hear that door slam. I was like that, And there’s the element of caring for and federal corrections systems have a legal too, at first,” says Edward Dransite, D85, an underserved population, one for which obligation to provide health care for inmates, chief dental officer for the New Hampshire oral health care has been particularly lack- based on the constitutional prohibition Department of Corrections. “Then it just ing. “It’s self-serving to have a job, yes, but against “cruel and unusual” punishment, becomes second nature, like everything else.” I knew I was really providing a very valu- and, often, on specific court orders. Dentists choose this work for any number able service, and that was important to me Another way to look at it is this: “Every of reasons: freedom from the business chores personally,” says Susan Albert, D78, who has human being deserves basic health care,” and financial risk of running a private prac- worked intermittently at several maximum- says William Del Gizzo, D85, chief of dental tice; opportunities for part-time employment and medium-security Massachusetts pris- services for the Rhode Island Department and family-friendly hours; the chance to gain ons over the past 13 years, including Cedar of Corrections. “[The inmates] have had experience as a young professional or stay Junction, Bay State and Norfolk. their issues on the outside; they’re doing

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28889p16-21.indd 3 11/15/11 4:51 PM opportunities,” says Dransite. At the den- tal school’s in-house clinics in downtown Boston, “most students have not seen patients requiring such extensive restoration of mul- tiple decayed teeth,” he notes. Victor Stetsyuk, D12, completed an externship at the New Hampshire prison in August. “The first thing that I’m learning is speed,” he said, two weeks into the experi- ence. “You have to work fast and more confi- dently. That’s a big difference from the [den- tal school] clinic. There we book patients for three-hour appointments, and you have to be your own assistant, and you have to con- stantly find a professor to check your work.”

Good First Job In private practice, getting a patient in and out of the chair in a timely fashion makes good business sense. “When you go into private practice, you usually start as an their time here … but we don’t punish for them. Even the littlest thing, like teach- associate, where the main thrust is produc- people by withholding health care. ing them how to brush their teeth, is a big tion, production, production,” Dransite “We’re a great triage for the public health thing,” he notes. “They’ll sit in the chair, says. “There is quite a bit of stress, and most system,” he adds. Once they’re released, sometimes for hours, with a student extern, fresh graduates are not paid a salary, but a inmates with long-festering, untreated oral and then they’ll immediately get up and percentage of collections, or of production, health problems would likely end up as unin- thank the student.” if you’re lucky.” sured patients in local emergency rooms or Some Tufts graduates have found their That’s one reason, Dransite says, that draw on public assistance programs, such as way into prison dentistry through the prison work is a good first job for a dental Medicaid, for dental work. “Either you can school’s externship program, which offers school graduate. pay when they’re locked up, or pay when five-week training experiences at the prison Prison staff dentists are paid an hourly they’re on the street,” Del Gizzo says. “We’re systems in both New Hampshire and Rhode rate, roughly $60 to $72, based on experi- a big part of the public health system, but Island. The prisons have been externship sites ence. In the New Hampshire corrections sys- nobody recognizes that.” for at least two decades, with the number of tem, benefits include malpractice insurance, retirement plan, subsidized health insurance, paid holi- “Every human being deserves days, earned paid days off and continuing education benefits. basic health care. we don’t “Ultimately, you may not be punish people by withholding making as much as you could in the private sector, but you don’t health care.” —William Del Gizzo, d85 have the pressure of having to sell dentistry,” Dransite says. The prison dentists say that most inmates students varying over the years. Recently, as That’s was the attraction for Chan, who are incredibly grateful patients. many as 15 to 20 Tufts students have trained did his externship in Rhode Island and was “Inmates are the most appreciative,” says in prisons each year. asked to stay after graduation. “Even though Kunio Chan, D04, who worked in the Rhode The student feedback has been mostly it doesn’t pay as much as private practice, it Island prison from 2004 until this year. positive, says Cynthia Yered, D90, who was fixed pay and fixed hours,” he said. The “You’ve helped them get rid of pain and given directs the externship program. Working job also offered a degree of flexibility that them the kind of examination they never had with a prison population presents dental working in private practice wouldn’t have. on the outside. Sometimes you’re the only students with challenges they may not have And, “it was a chance to get my feet dentist they’ve had in their lives.” encountered before, she says. wet,” gaining additional experience with Says Del Gizzo, “They’re very polite “The Tufts dental students have a great extractions and fillings and learning new and very happy with whatever we can do resource at the prison regarding restorative things, he says.

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28889p16-21.indd 4 11/15/11 4:51 PM Despite the considerable differences in workplace environment, “the actual den- tistry itself is not really different than on the outside,” says Dransite, who was an assistant clinical professor of restorative dentistry at Tufts for 10 years and is now an assistant clinical professor in the depart- ment of public health and community ser- vice. “You have a chair-side assistant; you use the same materials; you do things the same way you were taught in dental school. The difference is that here, we keep any kind of treatment plan down to the bare necessities rather than trying to rehabili- tate the whole mouth.”

a diFFerent PhilosoPhY The rules governing what kinds of dental treatment inmates receive vary by state and are also different in the federal prison system. Some states use the guidelines set forth by publicly funded health plans, such disease are significant issues. mouth as a result of cocaine abuse. as Medicaid or MassHealth. “Dental care is listed as an essential “They’ll tell you all about [their drug For instance, Dransite says, “on the out- health service by the National Commission abuse] once they’ve cleaned themselves side, if someone came in with meth mouth”— on Correctional Health Care; nonetheless, up and they’re not addicted anymore,” the rampant caries that develop among users the oral health of prisoners is generally Dransite says. “They’ll take a different per- of methamphetamine—“we would do a lot poor,” according to an editorial published spective: now they want their teeth taken of root canals. We might try to do posts and in the October 2005 issue of the American care of, even though they’ve neglected them crowns and restorative dentistry. Here, we’ll Journal of Public Health. A 2003 survey of over the years.” restore the teeth we can with fillings, and the inmates in Maine found that smoking- In the 25 years that he’s been a prison ones we can’t, we’ll extract, and the patient related ailments and dental pain were the dentist, Del Gizzo says he’s noticed a gradual will receive a removable prosthetic. most commonly reported health problems, improvement in Rhode Island inmates’ oral “That takes a certain change in phi- after mental illness and substance abuse. health, which he attributes to increased fluo- losophy from dental school, where we were Of course, substance abuse and other ridation, better oral health education and wider access to dental insur- ance. “When I first started “You may be an inmate, but working here, a lot more of the inmates were edentulous. There when you cross that threshold, are fewer and fewer who need you are my patient.” dentures than there were 25 years ago,” he says. —Susan Albert, d78 Prison dentists are also well aware that some inmates taught to save every tooth,” he notes. “Here environmental factors, such as poverty and fake a toothache to acquire painkillers—a you can’t. Everything has to be triaged, and poor nutrition, are intricately tied to oral phenomenon not limited to the prison you have to figure out the best treatment health. Over the past decade, prison den- population (see related story, page 4). from there. Our clientele come in with tists have seen increasingly more incidences “We have patients who come in self- great dental needs. Most have neglected of meth mouth. Also prevalent is periodon- diagnosed, reporting, ‘I have a dry socket’— their dental health, for whatever reason.” tal damage caused by cocaine use, including they’ve got all the terminology down,” says While detailed data on the oral health the practice of rubbing the drug along the Dransite. “Some of them are repeaters on of U.S. prison inmates is scarce, evidence gum line, which causes ulcerations of the that, but eventually we get to know who indicates that it mirrors that of lower gums and underlying bone. Chan remem- they are. And some of them have a tech- socioeconomic groups in the general pop- bers one patient who had necrosis of his nique called ‘cheeking’—they’re not getting ulation: extensive caries and periodontal nasal cavity that extended to the roof of his the pills for themselves. They’re pretending

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28889p16-21.indd 5 11/15/11 4:51 PM Edward Dransite, D85, chief dental officer for the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, inmates do not cause any trouble. Don’t be in his office at the prison dental clinic. “The actual dentistry itself is not really different than scared of them because they want to see on the outside,” he says. Opposite page: Dental instruments, which are counted after every you to get rid of their pain.” patient, are kept well out of reach of the inmates. “I never felt threatened at all,” says Chan. In fact, most inmates have learned to swallow [them], and they’ll sell or trade “I always called them ‘mister,’ never by how to work the prison system, and know them later. So, we’re not very big on giving their first names,” she says. “There was a that being cooperative is the best way to out pain meds—even Motrin can be used as mutual respect.” get what they want. “They say the squeaky a bargaining tool.” But there is also the acknowledgment wheel gets the grease, but not in a prison,” Albert said that the strict controls on that the dentist ultimately has authority Albert says. “I have to say, murderers make prescription painkillers often discouraged over the inmate. “They know that if they the best patients,” she adds matter-of- inmates with real dental problems from misbehave, they may not be able to come to factly. “They are resigned to their fate, and seeking care. “They knew they were going dental for a while,” says Dransite. “If they they become very passive.” to be turned down for drugs and were want their teeth taken care of, they best be And even tough guys have their weak- afraid that they were going to be in pain on their best behavior.” nesses. Albert remembers a corrections afterward,” she says. Physical harm is seldom a threat under officer bringing in one patient who had a In this world ruled by boundaries, the the highly controlled conditions inside a reputation as a rough character—and he was relationship between doctor and patient is prison. Yered, the externship director, says absolutely huge. But the petite Albert wasn’t more uneven than on the outside. Albert students, particularly women, are some- the one who was sweating: “Turns out, he was says she would set the tone by saying ‘You times hesitant to take the prison assign- scared of the dentist.” tdM may be an inmate [in the rest of the prison], ment precisely because they’re uneasy but when you cross that threshold, you are about their safety. Yet as one student Helene Ragovin, the editor of this magazine, my patient. reported on an externship evaluation: “The can be reached at [email protected].

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28889p16-21.indd 6 11/15/11 4:51 PM chew on

If you want a healthy pet, don’t brush off regular dental care

today hasn’t gone as bill rosenblad, v95, Even so, a recent American Animal had planned. An emergency has cropped up: Hospital Association study found that two- a 16-year-old cat with heart, lung, kidney thirds of dog and cat owners do not take care and adrenal gland disease is being prepped of their pets’ teeth. for a tooth extraction, and Rosenblad, an Veterinarians take their cues from oral surgeon, needs to see her safely through human dentistry when it comes to deter- the procedure and recovery. mining how pets’ oral health affects every- And while it may seem ill-advised to thing else in their bodies. In humans, anesthetize an animal with multiple chronic researchers have documented the link health conditions for a procedure that may, between dental disease and conditions that on the surface, appear minor, veterinary affect the brain, heart, liver, kidney, lung, dentists would disagree. Most vets wouldn’t skin and joints. hesitate to put critically ill or infirm pets Dental health also can play a part in con- under anesthesia to treat dental disease. trolling diabetes in pets, notes Jean Joo, who That’s because in animals—just like in peo- performs advanced periodontal treatment, ple—good oral health is conducive to over- oral surgery and restorative work at the all health and quality of life. Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine “If you made a list of the things that and at Tufts VETS in Walpole, Mass. are right with this cat, it would be much “Chronic inflammation and stress, both shorter than the list of what’s wrong,” says of which are consequences of dental disease, Rosenblad, the head of dentistry and oral are two of the biggest factors in causing the medicine and surgery at Angell Animal insulin resistance” that leads to diabetes, Medical Center in Boston. “But she has an says Joo. “In quite a few cases, we’ve seen upper canine tooth that is in such bad shape pets with fetid mouths and hard-to-control By Genevieve Rajewski that it’s soon going to stop her from eating. diabetes. Often, once we clean up these pets’ illustration by And this cat cannot afford to lose any more mouths, their insulin needs go down within aaron meshon weight, given her extensive medical issues.” just a few weeks.”

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28889p22-25.indd 22 11/11/11 7:19 PM 28889p22-25.indd 23 11/11/11 7:19 PM Dental disease likely plays a part in Rosenblad. “I’ve seen it happen in small dogs “It’s mouth closed, with circular motions animal health issues that are still not well that are a year-and-a-half old.” along the outside of the upper teeth. My cats understood, says Andrea Moolenbeek, V98, Brachycephalic, or short-headed, breeds get only eight seconds of brushing a day,” chief of staff at the Natick Animal Clinic in of dogs—pugs, Boston terriers, boxers and which is plenty, he says. Natick, Mass. Oral health problems “may be bulldogs—have even more tooth crowding To get started, choose a soft-bristled, why cats have so much unexplained kidney than other small breeds. Their teeth “tend appropriately sized toothbrush (the finger disease,” she says. “Kidneys are the filters of to be stacked on top of each other, rotated caps also sold at pet stores won’t get under the the bloodstream, and if a cat’s mouth is con- at least 90 degrees,” explains Joo. These gum line). A veterinary toothpaste flavored stantly shedding bacteria, that has to hurt abnormal tooth positions cause an abnor- with poultry, salmon, malt or peanut butter that system.” mal gum line and, consequently, a greater can help make cleaning more palatable for risk for periodontal disease. your pet. While most pet toothpastes have equal opportunity Large dogs tend to fracture teeth while some anti-plaque ingredients, they do not bacteria chewing on things that are too hard. Because contain the fluoride or foaming agents found Eighty percent of dogs and 70 percent of of the pain, these dogs often switch to chew- in human toothpastes. Veterinarians caution cats show signs of oral disease by age three, ing on the opposite side of their mouths— that you should never use human toothpaste according to the American Veterinary Dental and break the same tooth on the other side. on your pet because it can cause heavy-metal Society. However, problems can start at a Most cats experience the same dental toxicity (from the fluoride) and gastrointesti- much younger age. “I have taken puppy or problems that small dogs do. However, cats nal upset. You also shouldn’t use baking soda, kitten teeth out of animals that are six or that eat only canned food are at an even which is high in salt and can harm pets with seven months of age, and there is already tar- higher risk for oral disease because they’re heart or kidney disease. tar buildup,” notes Rosenblad, who teaches not chomping on the dry food that reduces Begin by offering your dog or cat a taste veterinary dentistry at Tufts and is president plaque buildup. of the veterinary toothpaste. The next time, of the Veterinary Alumni Association. And despite the best preventive dental after your pet tastes the toothpaste, run your Just as in humans, tartar begins life in care, some cats experience what is known finger along the gum line of the upper teeth. the mouth as plaque, a film of bacteria that as tooth resorption, an extremely painful The following day, repeat the process with the can be scrubbed away by brushing (and, to condition in which lesions erode the tooth toothbrush. some extent, chewing). But in less than 36 enamel and eventually attack the dentin To make brushing even easier, associate hours, plaque can harden into tartar, which and the pulp canal containing the tooth’s those eight seconds with a treat. For dogs, in turn leads to gum disease. As tartar accumulates unchecked, infection attacks areas around “I have taken puppy or kitten teeth out of a tooth root, destroying the animals that are six or seven months of age, surrounding tissues and the and there is already tartar buildup.” —Bill Rosenblad, v95 bony socket that holds the tooth in place. Although cats and dogs have evolved to blood vessels and nerves. The only treat- keep a toothbrush next to their leash or the be experts at masking discomfort (in the ment is to extract the tooth. Why resorptive treat jar, and then brush before a walk or wild, any sign of weakness can lead to lower lesions appear in some cats and not others snack. With cats, brush their teeth dur- standing in the pack hierarchy or to being remains a mystery. ing lap time or before play time or a treat. seen as prey, not predator), the progression Pets can actually enjoy their daily cleaning. of oral disease is pretty painful. basic tooth care Rosenblad cites one older Abyssinian cat Small dogs tend to do less of the recre- Fortunately, you can take some simple steps that sits on her owner’s chest if she doesn’t ational chewing that fights plaque buildup. to prevent dental disease in your pet—and get her nightly brushing. And because their teeth are proportionately it’s actually pretty easy, compared with wran- Food and some chew treats can also aid larger, given the smaller size of their heads, gling with your toddler over tooth brushing in plaque removal, but be sure you learn they have more tooth crowding above the or even keeping up with your own flossing. which ones actually help, which do nothing gum line, creating more pockets for tartar “You don’t have to brush for two or three and which do harm. The Veterinary Oral and bacteria to marinate. This causes peri- minutes at a time, because you don’t need to Health Council website (www.vohc.org) lists odontal disease, which, unlike its precur- worry about cavities,” explains Rosenblad. foods and products that have been inde- sor, gingivitis, is irreversible and eventually Dogs, he notes, get cavities much less fre- pendently evaluated and shown to stem the erodes the jaw bones that support the teeth. quently than humans. Cats are even luckier: growth of plaque. A word of caution: Joo Small dogs also have less bone to lose. they don’t get them at all. says you can’t rely on dental claims found “They can go from tooth loss to jaw “You’re just looking for plaque removal,” on the labels of treats and other products fractures at a remarkably young age,” notes Rosenblad says of the daily brushing regimen. because they aren’t regulated.

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28889p22-25.indd 24 11/11/11 7:19 PM Generally, though, dry food is better than on an awake animal. Pets are not going to “Their teeth aren’t designed to grind dried canned because the act of chewing produces hold a bitewing [for X-rays].” kibble; they’re meant to shear and tear off saliva—nature’s own system for cleansing Effectiveness aside, you also want your flesh. So cats and dogs don’t need to go on the mouth of harmful bacteria—and hard pet asleep during a dental procedure for soft food just because they lose a few, or even food particles help clean the teeth. safety’s sake. The instruments used to clean many teeth.” There is a short list of items you should the teeth are sharp and can cause major tis- And although your veterinarian can han- never give your pet to chew on: animal bones sue damage or even break a tooth should an dle most of your pet’s routine dental care, of any kind, some nylabones (if you can’t flex animal move suddenly. Pet dentistry is also including extractions, more complicated the Nylabone or stick your fingernail into a fairly wet operation, and pets aren’t very cases may require a specialist. it, it’s too hard) and hooves. “Those three good at rinsing and spitting. Take the canine P4 tooth, a large, upper types of chew treats give me more business In addition to the cleaning, polishing and chewing tooth located toward the back of in fractured teeth than I care to say,” says X-rays, it is not uncommon to have pets’ teeth the mouth. Rosenblad. “There’s a misconception that extracted as part of routine dental care. Many “It’s a tooth that everyone seems to hate they are going to remove tartar, when they owners worry about how their pets will man- to extract, and not everybody has the equip- are actually going to remove teeth.” age to eat with missing teeth. The good news ment to do it,” says Joo, who compares the Appropriate chew treats include bully is your pet likely can afford to lose all its teeth canine procedure to removing impacted sticks, biscuit-type treats and dental if necessary (although that’s no excuse for wisdom teeth in humans. Because the P4 sticks. When choosing a treat for your dog, avoiding dental care). has three roots that angle outward, “it’s Rosenblad recommends picking one that “If you watch them eat, most dogs and really well-designed to stay in the mouth,” appears almost cartoonishly too large—to cats don’t really chew their food,” says Joo. Joo says. “But unfortunately, it’s one of the make sure your dog gets the plaque-removing most common teeth that dogs break.” benefit of actually chewing the treat instead Joo also receives a good number of refer- of wolfing it down whole. SignS of rals to remove upper and lower canine teeth, Dental DiSeaSe which have deep, curved roots that can frac- RegulaR CheCkups ture the bones in the nasal cavity or jaw if Just as human dentists recommend regular In dogs extracted incorrectly. cleanings no matter how much we brush n Bad breath Moolenbeek, who has referred about 20 and floss between visits, brushing your pet’s n Bleeding along the gum line cases to Joo, says she sends patients to Tufts teeth at home may not completely eliminate after brushing if they have health issues that would be com- the need for a professional cleaning. n Chewing on one side of the mouth plicated by anesthesia, or if there’s a tumor or “Dental disease is progressive, so treating n Taking kibble from the bowl cyst in the oral cavity that’s going to require it right away keeps it to just a cleaning, which and eating it elsewhere fairly extensive surgery. “I also refer patients is a less-expensive, shorter procedure that’s n Leaving a mess of broken for endodontics, as we don’t do any root needed less frequently,” says Rosenblad. crumbs after eating canals, crowns or restorative work,” she says. A dental exam should be part of your n s wallowing food whole A happy, healthy pet is the best reason for pet’s regular physical checkup. Your vet may regular dental care. “Ninety-nine percent of be able to spot fractured teeth, evidence of In CaTs the time, when I do a dental procedure on a resorptive lesions in cats, gum recession and n Bad breath dog or cat, the owners tell me that their pet some level of gum disease or tartar buildup. n Bleeding along the gum line feels better, eats better and is more playful,” Based on that, your vet may recommend after brushing says Moolenbeek. your pet be scheduled for a professional n a sudden aversion to hot or “Everybody wins,” adds Rosenblad. “A cleaning or dental procedure, usually a one- cold foods pet’s immune system is no longer having to day outpatient affair. n Leaving a mess when they eat work as hard. Their pain system isn’t work- Although owners are justifiably cautious n s wallowing food whole ing hard. And given that a dog or cat’s sense about the use of anesthesia, dental proce- n Vomiting whole pieces of kibble of smell is many, many more times potent dures cannot be properly performed when than ours, if their breath smelled to us, what n Hiding an animal is awake. must it have smelled like to them?” he adds. n Poor grooming “Anesthesia is a necessity because not “Getting rid of that bad breath must feel like all dental disease is on the tooth surface,” n a cting less playful quitting smoking after a thousand years to a says Rosenblad. “The disease that’s going cat or dog.” tDm to cause tooth loss and systemic disease is what’s going on below the gum line or Genevieve Rajewski is the editor of Tufts within the teeth themselves—particularly Veterinary Medicine, from which this article with cats. You also cannot take radiographs is reprinted.

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28889p22-25.indd 4 11/15/11 5:05 PM 28889p26-31.indd 26 11/11/11 7:51 PM The Nazis ripped away everything that was dear to him. But John Saunders, D52, was determined to write his own ending to his story

after LifeLifeLifeDeath

by Julie flaherty photographs by kathleen dooher

ohn saunders, d52, ran a successful prosthodontics practice in downtown Boston for 35 years. His patients were, by his own estimate, the top of society. He treated a newspaper magnate, an international religious leader and a duke. He cared for bank presidents, fund managers and hundreds of lawyers and judges, so many that he once had JJthree jurists in his office at once. “Excuse me,” he remembers joking with a state Supreme Court justice as he headed to his next patient. “I have to go to lower court now.” He loved to talk with his patients, who sometimes would tease him for the amount of phi- losophizing he did. As much as they chatted (every visit was booked for at least 45 minutes to accommodate this), his patients rarely asked him about his past, such as why his name didn’t exactly match his thick Polish accent. “They probably thought I was German,” he says with a shrug. That was fine with him. “I wanted them to accept me as John Saunders, the dentist. I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me.” The tattoo on his left forearm might have raised questions, but he wore long sleeves to hide it. “The guy who did it on my arm was very aesthetic,” he says, remembering two tiny nails embed- ded in a stick and dipped in ink. “139024. The numbers were small and neat.”

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28889p26-31.indd 27 11/11/11 7:51 PM When his 6-year-old daughter started police who were rounding up and killing But there were no safe places to go. asking about the mark, he didn’t know groups of Jews. He would later write about While making his way to East Prussia, he what to say, so he told her it was his car hiding in the attic of a cemetery chapel was picked off another train by a police number. She said she wanted one, too. That with his older brother while the murders detail, and a stocky Gestapo officer handed was when he had it removed, leaving just a went on just outside: Ignacy the alibi that would become his thin, white scar. identity through the remainder of the It would be a long time before he would What we saw was a large mass grave— war. “I know what you were doing in East allow himself to look back, to tell the story actually, an open pit. At that point, it con- Prussia,” he said triumphantly. “You are a of how he survived the concentration tained close to one thousand naked bod- Catholic Pole smuggling smoked pork and camps. And now his story has an ending, ies of women, men and a few children. butter to Warsaw.” for he did more than survive. He thrived, Most of the children had already been Ignacy knew that being labeled a Polish as a student, a dentist, an Air Force cap- exterminated in the Ghetto during the Catholic would still mean internment as a tain, a husband, a father and a teacher. He prior ten months. Some of the dead had political prisoner, but maybe he wouldn’t has made his life—the only thing the Nazis been lying in the grave since the previ- be shot in the head right then and there as a did not take from him—a good one. Living ous day. Their bodies were frozen; it was Jew. Without missing a beat, Ignacy feigned well was the best revenge. very cold at the end of February 1943. amazement the Gestapo had so cleverly fig- The bodies were piled up one on top of ured out his “secret.” Childhood interrupted another. The Jews were told either to Soon he was brought for interrogation John Saunders was born Ignacy Silberherz jump and were then shot, or to stay at the to Warsaw, at the Gestapo headquarters, a in Poland in 1925. He was part of the edge of the pit and were shot then; either notorious building where people were rou- flourishing Jewish population in the city way, they fell down into the pit. Some tinely killed or beaten to the brink of death. of Stanislawow, now part of Ukraine. His standing at the edge of the pit fainted “I knew that this was the end,” Saunders father had been an officer in the Austrian and fell in on their own. The Gestapo says. “They would find out who I was and and Polish armies. His mother was proud would attempt to shoot them. Some were feed me to the dogs.” Despite his terror, he of her upper-class background. He inher- probably alive and only grazed by a bul- stuck by his new Catholic identity, even ited his blond hair and blue eyes from her. let. Others fell on top of them and often laughing when the Gestapo officers coolly One can’t help but wonder if those eyes suffocated those who were still alive asked if he was a deserter from the German helped him survive. Not just their Aryan beneath them. army or a spy for the British (“I am flat- color, which, at age 86, is still a clear grey- tered, but I am too young and not bright blue, but the way in which he uses them. His mother (“She was a very crafty, very enough,” he replied). He spat on the floor When he talks to you, smiling or sober- strong woman, very smart,” he says) man- when they suggested he was a Jew. faced, he looks you straight in the eye. It’s aged to smuggle him out of Stanislawow They measured his face, feet, hands, hard to look away. and put him on a train to Warsaw with eyes and ears with calipers. “It was the German mumbo-jumbo science of how to recognize a Jew,” Saunders says, a protocol of Hitler’s creation. Then they told him to Ignacy knew that being labeled see the doctor on the other side of the room and drop his pants. He was frozen with fear a Polish Catholic would still mean as the doctor examined his genitals, know- ing there was no way to miss that he was internment as a political prisoner, but circumcised. “Richtig (right),” the declared, maybe he wouldn’t be shot in the head and told him to get dressed. Saunders still does not know why the right then and there as a Jew. doctor lied for him. He would recall this as one of the many miracles he experienced during his captivity. “Because I cannot explain it any other way,” he says, “but as a miracle.” Ignacy was 14 when Germany attacked forged papers. He was alone, but he said Labeled a Roman Catholic political pris- Poland and World War II began; he was 16 he knew he would see his family again, oner, he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, when the Nazis sealed the Jewish ghetto and knew he had to stay alive. “My mother the first of the concentration camps he in Stanislawow. For two years his family loved us so much,” he says. “I believed she would labor in with the other Catholics, was able to stay alive, sometimes sleeping would die from a broken heart if I did not Poles, Gypsies, Russians and Jews who were in sewer pipes to avoid the German secret come back to her.” not immediately killed. Day and night, the

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28889p26-31.indd 28 11/11/11 7:51 PM Above: Saunders’ parents in their wedding photograph, 1923. Right: Saunders (standing), age 4, with his Above: Buczacz City Hall in Poland, where Saunders was kept brother. Below: As a captain in in the basement jail in 1943. Right: In Kracow, Poland, August the U.S. Air Force, 1955. 1945, three months after his liberation. Below: Annalie and John Saunders in their wedding portrait, September 1959.

crematorium chimneys belched smoke and the smell of burned bodies. Saunders would write:

We were sent to toil in the open fields. It did not matter if the weather was rainy Left: Graduation from Tufts University School of Dental or extremely cold and snowy. It also did Medicine, June 8, 1952. not matter if we made it back dead or alive. We were constantly watched and hit by our Kapos [inmates who guarded other pris- guard who was supposed to beat him was oners] and their helpers for not going fast late for dinner and couldn’t be bothered. enough or some other infraction, accord- To Ignacy, these were all divine interven- ing to the whims of our supervisors. tions: “You begin to be a believer when you see all these things happening.” Through it Somehow, amid the hunger, flies, lice and breaks. There was the prison guard who all, he says, the thought of his family was illness, he stayed alive. He was quick to take would give him more food than the daily what kept him going. small opportunities, such as when he was bowl of watery soup and slice of bread on After two years, when thousands all assigned to sew numbers on prison clothing which many of the other prisoners slowly around him had died from execution, and surreptitiously stitched an extra jacket starved. “Perhaps I reminded him of a fam- starvation, exhaustion or disease, the 11th inside the one he had been issued to protect ily member; I don’t know,” Saunders says. Or Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army himself from the freezing cold. He had an the guard who could have had him hanged discovered the camps at Mauthausen-Gusen instinct for when to lie low and when to vol- for making a pocket knife out of an old file, and liberated them. It was May 5, 1945. unteer for a duty that might be easier than but instead gave him a loaf of bread and Ignacy was not quite 20 years old. another job in the camp. asked him to make another knife for him. Eventually, but not uneventfully, he Even as he was moved to progressively He even escaped once from Auschwitz and made it back to Poland to search for his worse camps, including Mauthausen, the was recaptured, an offense that should have family. In Krakow he went to a place where “Camp of No Return,” he had many lucky meant hanging or a fatal beating, but the Jews were congregating. An older man he

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28889p26-31.indd 4 11/15/11 5:08 PM did not recognize approached him and said About 140,000 Jewish Holocaust survi- as a bus boy at a Boylston Street restaurant. he knew his family. The man told him his vors came to America after the war. Years “The owner used to go to the Combined mother, father and brother were dead. They later, the social scientist William Helmreich Jewish Philanthropies and ask for Holocaust had been slaughtered along with thousands interviewed hundreds of them for his book, survivors,” Saunders says. “Then he took of other Jews the week after Ignacy had left Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and total abuse. He cheated them.” for Warsaw. the Successful Lives they Made in America. It got easier. Saunders started receiving “Don’t look back,” the man said. “You can He found that many of the most success- scholarships and got a job working with only look forward now.” ful ones—and many of them were—shared Richard Manly, the school’s director of Ignacy’s throat closed. He could not certain traits that helped them remake research. Two of his professors paid him $6 speak. He ran. When he returned later to their lives. Among them: courage, tenacity, a week for German lessons so they would be look for the man, he was gone. assertiveness, flexibility, optimism, intelli- able to read German scientific papers. “Like an angel, he had come to tell me gence and an ability to distance themselves To improve his English, he would go see there is nothing there, just keep going,” from what they had gone through. Ignacy old double features at the movie theater at Saunders says. That is exactly what he did. Silberherz had all those things, in spades. Tremont and Washington streets. It cost When he reached New York, he took a only 20 cents if he got there before 5 p.m., you had to turn it off new name, John Saunders, after one of the so he would often sneak out of class a few Although he had missed his last two years GIs who had liberated the camp. He was minutes early, under the pretext of going to of high school, there was no doubt in assigned to a social worker, who said he the restroom. Despite this minor truancy, Ignacy’s mind that he needed an education. would get him a job in a lab. But Saunders he did well and graduated with the Class “My mother used to say to me as a child, said he wanted to go to dental school to get of 1952. ‘Our class doesn’t work with our hands; we his American degree so he could practice in “My mother would have been so proud of hire people,’ ” he says. “ ‘But if you have to the United States. me at my graduation,” he says. He suffered wash floors to pay for college, it’s fine.’ ” “American kids who have money and the absence of his family keenly that day. He The year after his liberation, he enrolled speak English don’t get into dental school. later wrote: “I felt very lonely and like crying, at the University of Erlangen in Bavaria, You think you are going?” the social worker even though I smiled in the pictures that my graduating in less than three years with a asked him. “Either you take the job in the friends took.” doctoral degree in dentistry. lab or you can clean streets.” Saunders soon found a job working for How could he focus on his studies, I Saunders applied to several schools and a dentist in Concord, Mass. But he had not ask him now, with everything he had been before long had his letter of acceptance seen the last of war. The battle in Korea was still going on, and he received a draft notice. Non-citizens like him typically were not given commissions, but the new dentist “I’m not really looking for sympathy... pushed for one—his father, after all, had been a military officer, as had his father I won.” —John Saunders before him. His persistence swayed the military bureaucrats, and he became a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. After serv- ing in Okinawa for two years, he became a U.S. citizen in 1954, completing his military through? He answers quickly, as if putting from Tufts School of Dental Medicine. The service later that year at the rank of captain. up the mental wall he did then: “You didn’t social worker got a well-crafted letter of He headed back to private practice. think. You learned to turn it off. You had disdain from Saunders. to turn it off.” But getting into dental school was only the other things to d o The end of the war had not ended anti- start. He had to pay for tuition, books and Annalie Bean, a New Hampshire native, was Semitism. Ignacy, who toyed with the idea of housing, and he had only a small amount of working as the swimming director at the continuing his identity as a Catholic, came money, mostly scraped together from sell- Boston YWCA in 1959 when a friend set her across many people who wished the Nazis ing the coffee and cigarettes from his United up on a blind date. One of the first things she had “finished the job” of eradicating the Jews. Nations relief packages on the black market noticed about the 34-year-old dentist was his He decided to leave Europe, not because he and pawning a gold watch a Jewish GI had eyes, and his steady gaze. Three months later, was afraid, but because he thought he would given him. His first semester, he ate just once they were engaged. They married that year. eventually kill someone in anger. In 1950, a day, buying one loaf of bread that would last She liked that he was smart—not just edu- when the opportunity came to join the him two days. He took a job at a pickle com- cated, but smart. And she could see he worked 300,000 displaced Europeans who were mov- pany, but at 120 pounds, he was too weak to very hard and never tried to give her a line. ing to the United States, he took it. unload the trucks and had to quit. He worked Even now she says she has never known him

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28889p26-31.indd 30 11/11/11 7:51 PM Saunders’ family portrait, taken in 1923 in the parlor of their apartment in Stanislawow

to cheat anyone. “He’s tough, but not mean,” or suffered from post-traumatic stress. “I that was the only way it could happen. she says. After they got to know each other, didn’t allow it,” he says. The memoir has been a revelation for his Saunders told her how he had lost his family When he retired from practice in 1990, he family, and not always an easy one. He does in the war and had been in a concentration was far from finished. At age 70, he decided it not doubt that it has affected them on some camp. But he left out most of the details. was time for law school. His goal was to work level, and he regrets that. He doesn’t want “At that time, people didn’t discuss much for the International Court of Justice in The people to cry for him. He does want to bear about it,” Annalie says. “If you went to tem- Hague. After all, who would be more quali- witness, to counter all the misinformation ple, you heard nothing about the Holocaust. fied to deal with crimes against humanity? He about the Holocaust. Even some recent It’s like it didn’t hit American Jews, period.” took the LSAT and became a full-time stu- fictionalized accounts have taken liberties So he didn’t discuss it. Not with his wife, dent at the Massachusetts School of Law. He that frustrate him. “Prisoners getting visi- not with his two daughters. Besides, he had loved it, but his wife did not: Studying thou- tors?” he asks incredulously. “Tables and other things to do. His dental practice bus- sands of pages of briefs every night left little chairs at Auschwitz?” tled, and in 1965 he began a long teaching time for seeing friends or their four beautiful While he searches for a publisher for his career at Tufts, where he was an assistant grandchildren. Reluctantly, he gave it up. book, he has been invited to tell his story. At clinical professor of prosthetics. “I did perfect Soon he had another project. In the late temples, the audiences ask to hear about the work,” he says, without reservation. 1990s, he took a writing class at Brandeis. miracles. The military groups want to hear His perfectionism is apparent in his home, Did he intend to write about his past? about the liberation. I’m so sorry, they all say. a 4,000-square-foot brick house in Weston, “Subconsciously,” he says. The class spun “But I’m not really looking for sympa- Mass., that he designed and oversaw the off into a writing group that met at a local thy,” he repeats. “I’m delighted I’m alive.” construction of 41 years ago. “Today, not a library. Things he had never talked about, “I won,” he adds, and smiles. tdM single crack,” he says, pointing proudly to the memories he had all but blocked, horrors stucco ceiling. “This is how I build.” only hinted at in this story, came pouring Julie Flaherty, a senior health sciences writer If he is to be believed, his psyche is out. Hundreds of pages. At times, he says, it in Tufts’ Office of Publications, can be just as solid. He never sought counseling was like writing about someone else. Perhaps reached at [email protected].

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Speaking Up for Oral Health

Tips for navigating the system and being a successful advocate for dentistry by Helene Ragovin

hortly after john morgan took charge of the tufts dental to provide an additional $600,000 for the program for people with developmental disabilities in 2000, he was clinics. approached by an aggrieved group of patients’ families. The facilities Morgan shared his experiences at a and equipment at the program’s nine state-funded clinics were falling workshop sponsored by Tufts School of Sinto disrepair, they said. Dental Medicine and the American Dental Morgan decided to investigate how to get more money for the program. “I Education Association (ADEA), “Learning had no idea what I was getting into,” recalled Morgan, an associate professor of to Be An Advocate for Academic Dentistry public health and community service. What followed was an unexpected educa- and Oral Health.” The event, organized tion in the workings of the Massachusetts legislature and the government budget by the Tufts chapter of the American process—something they surely don’t teach in dental school. Association of Public Health Dentistry But in the end, learning to operate on Beacon Hill—as the Massachusetts State (AAPHD) this past June, was designed to House is known—brought relief to hundreds of patients when the state agreed raise awareness of the many ways public policy and legislation can affect the oral health profession (See related story, page 34.). “We need to become more com- fortable advocating for ourselves, our profession and our patients,” said Samantha Jordan, A06, D11, outgoing president of the Tufts AAPHD chapter. That focus on the patients is what helped drive the effort for more funding at the TDF clinics, Morgan said. “There were hurdles, but you have to have confidence. It was about staying focused, saying this is for the people with developmental disabili- ties; it isn’t about me,” he said. But with all the voices competing in the public sphere, how do dental professionals get themselves heard? Here’s some advice from the experts:

Get organized before a crisis arises. “If you’re organizing around a specific issue, it’s too late,” said David White, director of govern- ment affairs and grassroots advo- cacy for the Massachusetts Dental

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28889p32-42.indd 32 11/11/11 7:26 PM Association. “Being an advocate is not just about communicating to policymakers, but Politicking in Washington to colleagues as well. You need to establish a permanent grassroots infrastructure.” With the nation in a belt-tightening mood, it might seem like a bad time to ask Establish ongoing relationships with Congress for funding for anything. But that’s exactly how Zachary Levin, D14, legislators. “Don’t just go to legislators when you want something,” said Massachusetts spent his summer. As a student legislative intern for the American Dental Education State Rep. John Scibak, chair of the House Association (ADEA), Levin spent five weeks in Washington, meeting with lawmak- oral health caucus. “Develop a relationship; ers and attending congressional hearings, all with the goal of putting oral health keep us apprised of oral health issues.” Also important: get to know the members of the front and center on the national agenda. “Unfortunately, dentistry is still not consid- legislator’s staff. They are the gatekeepers who ered as essential to health as medicine is, which is absolutely false,” he says. set priorities for their bosses. “If you can con- Levin met North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan to lobby against proposed cuts vince them, you’ve made your case,” Scibak said. And don’t forget to say “thank you.” to federal subsidies of Stafford loans, which provide low-interest education aid for undergraduate and graduate students. He met with Massachusetts Senator Make it personal. Exhibit your professional John Kerry’s legislative aide to advocate for increasing appropriations for dental expertise, yes, but don’t forget the human angle. When Morgan and the families of the research, among other issues. Levin also had a chance to speak with U.S. developmentally disabled patients were lobby- Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. ing for state funding, their campaign included “A lot of the issues we were lobbying for came down to student debt and letters from patients and their families, and patients came to testify at the State House. meeting needs of the underserved,” says Levin, who adds that increasing “That was quite compelling,” Morgan said. diversity among dental students is also one of ADEA’s priorities. Those issues are interconnected, he says, adding “How can we meet the needs of the Educate. Make sure you can explain your position simply and briefly. “What is the underserved when we graduate with such high amounts of debt?” relevance of oral health, and how do you Levin first became interested in public policy as an undergraduate at Tulane explain it in five words or less and not con- University. “Going to school in New Orleans exposes you to the need to help people fuse people?” asked Morgan. on a larger scale and the role government can play in that,” he says. Form coalitions. Find partners who have a Levin himself might be too level-headed for politics. “Even if I feel strongly about stake in the issue. “If your coalition is broad something, I can see other peoples’ points when they disagree,” he says. But he and diverse, it will be more influential,” said Jack Bresch, ADEA associate executive direc- feels strongly that ADEA’s primary goals—increasing access to oral care, reducing tor and director of its Center for Public Policy student debt and attracting more minority students to dentistry—are issues that and Advocacy. dental students of all political stripes can, and should, get behind.

Work within the system. “Compromise Now back on campus, Levin remains active with ADEA and is looking to raise is what politics is all about,” said Bresch. the group’s profile among his peers. He serves as something like a consultant to “Politics is the art of the possible. Depending ADEA, suggesting that short “web-isodes”—attention-grabbing online videos— on the environment, it’s the art of getting what you can get when you can get it.” are more likely to get a response from busy dental students than a flurry of Said White, “Being an advocate is not brochures. “First we need to increase peoples’ awareness about what [ADEA] is just sending an email or a postcard. It’s a lobbying for and how those issues will directly affect us in the years to come,” says long-term investment in the future of the profession, and it’s a long-term investment Levin. “Dentists as a whole need to be more educated about their place in politics, in oral health.” and this definitely starts with dental students.” —jacqueline mitchell

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Gonthier Appointed cArinG for communities executive AssociAte deAn

the first email went out in october 2010: ark gonthier, the dental school’s associate dean of admissions Was anyone interested in joining an and student affairs since 2001, has a new role, executive associate dean. organization focused on public health? “Mark is very well known in the School of Dental Medicine com- in a matter of months, the group had Mmunity, the Tufts University community and in the dental education coalesced, and the dental school’s community, and I have every confidence that he will bring the same level of enthu- student chapter of the american siasm, insight and work ethic to serving as executive associate dean,” said Dean association of public health Dentistry Huw F. Thomas. (aaphD) was off and running. By June, “I’ve been fortunate during my 21 years at Tufts University School of Dental the group had cosponsored a well- Medicine to assist students to be the best that they can be, and, in so doing, to help attended conference on legislative strengthen the dental school,” Gonthier said. “I’m challenged to extend my efforts, advocacy that drew participants from working with Dean Thomas, to align our resources to support our faculty, staff and three Massachusetts dental schools. students in reaching even greater heights.” “honestly, we weren’t really sure In his new job, Gonthier serves as the school’s chief operating officer. The execu- how much interest in public health, if tive associate dean is also a senior-level ambassador for the university and school, any, there would be, and i was thrilled to working with a range of internal and external stakeholders, including alumni and discover how many dental students were donors. interested,” says samantha Jordan, a06, “I am fully confident that we are capable as a community of doing even more D11, the group’s founding president. than we’ve allowed ourselves to imagine,” Gonthier said. “I’m honored to serve “We found a lot of the different during these very exciting times in the school’s history.” organizations at tufts were already doing community service events, but there was no umbrella organization,” says lauren Mark Gonthier Murphy, D13, the chapter’s co-president. thirty-five students have been involved with the tufts chapter, which wants to launch tobacco-cessation and oral cancer screening programs in Boston’s chinatown. “i think it’s important to reach out to the community,” Murphy says. “there is a high rate of smoking in chinatown, which puts them at high risk for oral cancer.” last spring, the chapter hosted a mentorship dinner with tufts undergradu- ates on the Medford/somerville campus. “We’d like to create a stronger bond between the undergraduate campus and the dental school,” Murphy says. also in the works are seminars on humanitarian trips and postgraduate education. “i hope in the next year the group will do more community outreach and advocacy,” including working through the state house to restore dental benefits for adults in the Masshealth program, says Wanda Wright, an assistant professor of public health and community service, who is the group’s faculty adviser. Mark Gonthier

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28889p32-42.indd 3 11/15/11 5:19 PM Clockwise from top left: Tufts President Anthony P. Monaco welcomes the dental school’s Class of 2015; Daniel Chay, D15, Meghan Butler, D15, and James Butler; President Monaco, Dean Huw F. Thomas and President of the Dental Alumni Association Peter Delli Colli, A69, D73; Leila El-Youssef, D15, Karma Chakra and Karim Suwwan de Felipe.

All Together Now

New president, new dean welcome new class

t the school of dental medi- entering the school at a great moment,” challenges of guiding you into that pro- cine’s 10th annual Family said Monaco, invoking the vertical expan- fession,” he said. “It’s also the day when I Welcome Day on August 30, sion that added five floors to the school welcome my first class to this exceptional Aparents, siblings and spouses building at One Kneeland Street as well as dental school. You are a class I will always were on hand to help the Class of 2015 the appointment of the new school dean, have a special bond with.” ring in the new school year. Noting that Huw F. Thomas, whom Monaco said was Also on hand to welcome the new stu- this is “an exciting time of transition at “superbly qualified to build on the dental dents was Peter Delli Colli, A69, D73, the university,” Executive Associate Dean school’s recent accomplishments.” president of the Tufts Dental Alumni Mark Gonthier introduced Tufts President Remembering his own first day of Association. You may be a “room of smart Anthony P. Monaco to the class, assem- dental school, Thomas recalled both strangers” now, he said, but the experiences bled for the first time, in Boston’s historic the nervousness and excitement of new you will share over the next four years will Shubert Theatre. beginnings. “Today is the day you join the “make you close forever . . . .I welcome you “It is my great pleasure to welcome dental profession, the day when our fac- to the family of Tufts University.” you to the Tufts community. You are ulty and staff become revitalized with the —jacqueline mitchell

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Friends lift Ala Ali, DG10, DG11, to celebrate his completion of a postgraduate fellowship certificate in esthetic dentistry.

Moving On

Students in the class of 2011, and their dean, graduate together by Jacqueline Mitchell

ith lonnie h. norris, school is definitely a team effort,” he said. “I 57 received postgraduate certificates of DG80, presiding over his want you to promise not to lose that connec- achievement and fellowships. final commencement tion that allowed us to achieve so much.” The Provost’s Award for Outstanding Wceremony as dean of the Genko Stanilov, president of the class of Teaching and Service went to Athena Papas, School of Dental Medicine, 174 students international students, who come to Tufts professor of public health and commu- received their D.M.D. degrees during com- so they can practice in the United States, nity service, Kanchan Ganda, professor of mencement exercises on May 22 on Tufts’ recounted the story of Charles Blondin, the public health and community service, and Medford/Somerville campus. first man to walk a tightrope across Niagara Carol Kumamoto, professor of microbiol- “We graduate together. I am so pleased Falls, in 1859. Each year after that, Stanilov ogy, shared this year’s Dean’s Award for to be a member of the class of 2011,” said said, Blondin upped the ante, wearing a Excellence in Basic Science Teaching. Frank Norris, who served as dean for 16 years and blindfold one year, walking on stilts another, Shin, associate clinical professor of prosth- was a member of the faculty for 31. pushing a wheelbarrow the next. “We are on odontics and operative dentistry, received Class President Ross Usa Icyda, A04, said the verge of our own Niagara Falls,” said the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical the pressure-cooker environment of dental Stanilov. “We are confident in what our Teaching, and, for the 12th consecutive school “taught us that nothing can stop us.” education has given us, but we need to keep year, Charles H. Rankin, D79, DG86, D08P, Even the complaining students sometimes improving ourselves.” DG11P, professor of endodontics, received engage in served its purpose, he said, of In addition to the new D.M.D.s, 14 stu- the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Pre- bringing the class closer together. “Dental dents were awarded master’s degrees, and clinical Teaching.

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28889p32-42.indd 5 11/15/11 5:19 PM Left: Kathleen O’Loughlin, D81; Maria Papageorge, professor and chair of oral and maxillofacial surgery; Marcin Jarmoc, D07, DG11; and Dean Emeritus Lonnie H. Norris, DG80; above: Diana Tran, D11, and Elizabeth Turner, D11.

Far left: Barry Briss, D66, DG70, professor and chair of orthodontics, with Mansour Alaskar, DG11; above: Brittany Braga, D11; Nicole Cuoccio, D11; and Shephali Shah, “It’s an honor to be here on Dean Norris’ D11; at left: Emeritus Professor Arthur A. graduation. He has been a great friend and Weiner, D58. mentor,” said Rankin. “Celebrate today. You’ve worked hard for it,” he told the never do anything alone. I want to thank graduates, including his daughter, Kerith Tufts University and Jamshed personally, Rankin, D08, who received her postgradu- and all my faculty and staff . . . for all the ate certificate in endodontics. support, respect and opportunities.” Norris Three longtime faculty members were also thanked his wife, Donna, a child psychi- awarded emeritus status: Hilde H. Tillman, Lawrence S. Bacow awarded Norris the title atrist, for her encouragement and support. D49, a pioneer in geriatric dentistry; Arthur of dean emeritus. “Dean Norris transformed The ceremony ended with James B. A. Weiner, D58, an expert in understanding a great school into a truly preeminent one,” Hanley, D75, DG79, the dental school’s and managing dental anxiety; and Esther Jamshed Bharucha, the university’s provost assistant dean for clinical affairs, leading Mae Wilkins, D49, who literally wrote and senior vice president, told the dental the graduates as they recited the dental oath. the book on dental hygiene 52 years ago: school graduates. “I don’t think I am exag- At the university-wide commencement Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist, gerating when I say he is perhaps the greatest ceremony, keynote speaker Charles M. Vest, now in its 11th edition. dean in Tufts’ history.” the president emeritus of MIT, addressed At the all-university commencement Norris replied, “It’s wonderful to the graduates and bid farewell to Bacow, who ceremony earlier in the day, Tufts President have my leadership recognized, but you retired this past summer.

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lasting imPression

A visit that can set a dental career in motion by Jacqueline Mitchell

high-achieving undergrad- and it wouldn’t pour. My second was too enough black and Hispanic dentists. uate at Brown University, liquidy,” she laughs, recalling that it was Just 12 percent of students entering Khara Gresham figured law Gordon who finally helped her get her pro- dental school are minorities, while minor- A or medical school would portions just right. ities make up 25 percent of the general come next. That is, until she visited Tufts “Our main focus is increasing the num- population, according to the American School of Dental Medicine as part of the bers of underrepresented minorities in Dental Association. Impressions Program, a student-run dental school and the dental profession, “Students from underserved commu- outreach initiative that aims to put den- but [the Impressions Program] is open to nities may not even think of dentistry as tistry on the radar of promising minority anyone,” says Gordon, a former president a career,” says Wanda Wright, an assistant undergraduates. of the Tufts chapter of the Student National professor of public health and community Gresham and a handful of other under- Dental Association (SNDA), an organiza- service, who is the faculty adviser to the graduates spent a Saturday morning at One tion dedicated to promoting minority stu- Tufts SNDA chapter. “Our numbers are Kneeland Street, where she had the chance dents in dental school as well as eliminating not huge,” she says, “but it does make a to meet Tufts dental students and faculty, racial and ethnic disparities in oral health. difference.” as well as admissions officers, who were on hand to demystify the application process. In addition to practicing the notorious percep- tual abilities section of the dental admissions test (DAT), the under- graduates heard about some of the less obvious career paths den- tistry has to offer, including public health and research. The undergraduates also rotated through the preclinics, where they got to see students not much older than themselves working on lab projects. “They looked so profes- sional,” recalls Gresham, now a member of the class of 2014. “I thought, ‘I want to do that.’ The Impressions Program reinforced my interest in dentistry and in choosing Tufts as a school.” In the defining moment of the Impressions Program, the under- graduates get to try their hand at making a dental impression. “They get an impression of Tufts, and they take To that end, SNDA encourages all of its Khara Gresham, D14, took part their impressions home with them,” says chapters to host an Impressions Program in the Impressions Program as an undergraduate. “At the end Nicholas B. Gordon, D12, the organizer of each year. of the day, I knew I wanted to go the program. Though the incidences of dental decay to Tufts. I thought, ‘I need to “At the end of the day, I knew I wanted to are at an all-time low in the United States, be here,’ ” she says. go to Tufts. I thought, ‘I need to be here,’ ” African Americans and Hispanics suf- says Gresham, who discovered that mix- fer from twice as much untreated tooth ing the pink impression material is harder decay as non-Hispanic whites. One reason than it looks. “My first one was too hard, for the disparity may be that there are not

38 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 photo: kelvin Ma

28889p32-42.indd 38 11/11/11 7:26 PM American Equilibration Pierre Fauchard Academy Senior Awards Society Senior Award: Senior Student Award: Alexandra Catherine Polus Samantha Len Jordan, A06 American College of Dentists Members of the Class of 2011 received a total of 71 alumni, IMPLANTOLOGY Award: Ross Usa Icyda, A04 professional, organization, endowed or university-sponsored awards American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons ORAL AND MAXILLOFACIAL at the first Tufts School of Dental Medicine Graduation Luncheon Dental Implant Student Award: SURGERY on May 10 and the 18th annual Graduation Dinner on May 13. Justin Henry Deckard Alumni Clinical Excellence Award International Congress of in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery: Oral Implantologists ICOI/ Michael Harris Schiffman and BASIC SCIENCES Anna Virginia Czechowski Sullivan-Schein Dental Gregory S. Tentindo The Jack Frommer Award for American Academy of Predoctoral Achievement Award: American Association of Oral Excellence in the Morphological Oral and Maxillofacial Sarath N. Bachali and Maxillofacial Surgeons Sciences: Hannah Ryan Beatty Radiology Achievement Award: American Academy of Implant Dental Student Award: Elizabeth Rose Dy Dentistry Dental Student Award: Michael L. Rosenthal ENDODONTICS American Academy of Orofacial Afshin Sean Rahimi American Dental Society of Alumni Clinical Excellence Pain Outstanding Senior Award: Academy of Osseointegration Anesthesiology Horace Wells Award in Endodontics: Marcy Phaye Gabrilowitz Outstanding Dental Student in Senior Student Award: Steven Duong Nguyen American Academy of Implant Dentistry Award: Rebekah Nicole Lucier American Association Craniofacial Pain Award: Alireza Ashrafi Robert E. O’Neil, D51, Prize of Endodontists Student Brian William Maples in Oral Surgery: Achievement Award: LEADERSHIP Gentle Dental Senior Endowed Samson Murgesh Nadar Farah Assadipour American Association of Women Prize Fund for Exceptional Dentists Dr. Eleanor J. Bushee ORAL PATHOLOGY The Lester P. Goldsmith Chairside Manner: Senior Dental Student Award: Alumni Clinical Excellence Endowed Prize Fund in Andrew Joseph Zwers Endodontics: Cassandra R. Tavares Award in Oral Pathology: Dean’s Award for Distinguished Rebekah Nicole Lucier American Student Dental Jin Sung-Newsome Performance in Pharmacology: Association Award for American Academy of Oral ETHICS, PROFESSIONALISM Rebekah Nicole Lucier Excellence: Rebecca Jean Berry AND CITIZENSHIP and Maxillofacial Pathology Senior Student Award: Presidential Award for Theresa McFadden Woodworth Citizenship and Public Service: Samantha Len Jordan, A06 American Academy of Oral Medicine Certificate of Merit and Dr. Justin Lee Altshuler, D46, noteWorthy Award: Diana Jane Esshaki and Bernice Lee Altshuler Barry Briss, D66, DG70, professor and chair of orthodontics, Family Prize Fund for Community ORTHODONTICS was installed as president of the american Board of Service: Ross Usa Icyda, A04, American Association of and Hubert Jae-Kyun Park orthodontics in May. the aBo is responsible for establishing Orthodontists Award: Dr. Justin Lee Altshuler, D46, policy on board certification of specialists in orthodontics. John Joseph Keating IV and Bernice Lee Altshuler Family Briss had served for seven years as an aBo director, Everett Shapiro, DG49, Endowed Prize Fund for Ethics: representing the northeastern society of orthodontists Prize Fund in Orthodontics: Anthony Michael Paolucci Brian Thomas Cook Dr. S. Walter Askinas Endowed Eunice Lee, D12, was awarded first place for her research Prize Fund for Integrity and project, “effect of chlorhexidine on the Bond strength of a PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY Citizenship: Farah Assadipour self-etch and total-etch adhesive to Dentin,” in the clinical Alumni Clinical Excellence Association of Tufts Award in Pediatric Dentistry: research/public health category of the aDa/Dentsply student Alumnae Senior Award: Alexander Chien Ko Samantha Len Jordan, A06 clinician program at the american Dental association meeting American Academy of Pediatric Class of D2002 Endowed in las vegas in october. she was one of 28 presenters from Dentistry Certificate of Merit Prize Fund for Peer Support dental schools around the country. lee presented her first- Predoctoral Student Award: and Leadership: place poster from last spring’s Bates-andrews research Day. Eileen Marie Saunders Ross Usa Icyda, A04 Gerard Kugel, D85, MS93, professor and associate dean PERIODONTOLOGY GENERAL DENTISTRY for research, is her mentor. Alumni Clinical Excellence Award in Periodontology: Alumni Clinical Excellence eight students participated in the second annual postgraduate Award in General Dentistry: Daniel Kiel Coleman interdepartmental research Day on June 17. the winners Aundrea Vereen American Academy of were: First place (tie): David Daniels, DG11 (orthodontics), Alumni Clinical Excellence Periodontology Dental Student Award in Geriatric Dentistry: and Asma Alyahya, DG09, MS11 (master of science); Achievement Award: Rui Ma Andrea Kanner Ruby second place: Daniel Fanikos, D09, DG11 (pediatrics). Quintessence Award for Clinical Academy of General Dentistry Achievement in Periodontics: Senior Student Dental Award: Cathy Xiaoyue Zhao

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Northeastern Society of Special Care in Dentistry Award Periodontists Award: for Outstanding Performance at Alexander Chien Ko the Glavin Rotation Site: 2011 Postgraduates Dr. Richard Delson, D70, Shauna L. Basil In addition to those pursuing their D.M.D. degrees, Endowed Prize Fund for Special Care in Dentistry Award another 100 students are enrolled in the dental school’s Excellence in Periodontology for Outstanding Performance at and Prosthodontics: the Northwoods Rotation Site: postgraduate certificate and fellowship programs, Alexandra Catherine Polus Brock L. Olson which prepare them for specialty practice. The 2011 Robert, D51, and Eleanor Levin graduates were: RESEARCH Endowed Senior Prize Fund in Dr. Harold Berk Endowed Prize Periodontics: Giac H. Dang, A07 CRANIOMANDIBULAR ORAL AND Fund for Excellence in Research: DISORDERS AND MAXILLOFACIAL PERSONAL AND Eileen Marie Saunders OROFACIAL PAIN SURGERY PROFESSIONAL GROWTH Erling Johansen, D49, CERTIFICATE FELLOWSHIP Dr. Frederick A. Romberg, D29, Senior Student Research Astrid Hacquin Ghassan Darwish Endowed Prize Fund Recognizing Endowed Prize Fund: Outstanding Personal and Samantha Len Jordan, A06 CRANIOMANDIBULAR ORAL SURGERY Professional Growth during the DISORDERS AND AND PROSTHODONTICS Quintessence Award for OROFACIAL PAIN FELLOWSHIP Four Years of Dental Education: Research Achievement: FELLOWSHIP Steven Duong Nguyen Stavros Oikonomou, DG10 Rebekah Nicole Lucier Reem Alansari Dr. Frank Susi, DG67, Endowed American Association of Chao Lu ORTHODONTICS Prize Fund: Diana Jane Esshaki Oral Biologists Award: AND DENTOFACIAL Dean Lonnie H. Norris, DG80, Moira Kennedy Casey ENDODONTICS ORTHOPEDICS and Dr. Donna M. Norris Bella A. Batsevitsky, D09 David W. Daniels Senior Endowed Prize Fund for RESTORATIVE DENTISTRY Neil A. Campbell Madeleine Goodman Achievement, Professionalism Alumni Clinical Excellence Award Natalie D. Delivanis Christopher J. Hall and Strength of Character: in Restorative Dentistry: Matthew G. Timothy M. Johnson, D08 Jessica Gagnon Ristuccia Stacey Cathleen Malcomson Del Mastro, D09 Georgios Kanavakis, and Matthew William Valcourt Academy of Dental Materials Oscar Jesus Peguero Jr. DG08, DG09 International College of Dentists Annual Student Award: Kerith E. Rankin, D08 David A. Pechersky Student Leadership Award: Allison S. Piper Emily Weldon Tyler Peter T. Phan, D07 Ross Usa Icyda, A04 Academy of Operative Delta Sigma Delta Dental Dentistry Award: ESTHETIC DENTISTRY PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY Senior Award for Academic Albert Augustus Coombs III FELLOWSHIP Payam Amirsayafi Achievement: Tara Lindholm American Academy of Esthetic Ala Ali, DG10 Narayani K. Baliga, DI07 Alpha Omega Graduating Dentistry Student Award of Merit: GENERAL PRACTICE Daniel Peter Fanikos, D09 Senior Student Award: John Frederick Bart Addison RESIDENCY Regina Gelman-Bercovich Michael Harris Schiffman Rudolph Hanau Award for Ester S. Kim Idar S. Hsin Excellence in Prosthodontics: Joey Pedram PUBLIC HEALTH DENTISTRY Min S. Kim, D10 Daniel Kiel Coleman Pooja Rattan Academy of Dentistry for Persons Krista L. Pauly A. Albert Yurkstas, D49, Gerald Jerry Swee, D05 with Disabilities Student Award: Katie-Rose Wagner Endowed Prize Fund in Complete Jordan Todd Webb Supreeth L. Veeranna Denture Prosthodontics: IMPLANT DENTISTRY Alumni Clinical Excellence Genko Stanislavov Stanilov FELLOWSHIP-ONE YEAR PERIODONTOLOGY Award in Public Health Dentistry: Dr. and Mrs. Albert J. Kazis Areti Anastopoulou Mansour Hamad Alaskar Ingrid Pena˜ de Carreno Endowed Prize Fund in Crown Maria E. Gonzalez Fatema Al-Rayes American Association of and Bridge: Steven Duong Del Castillo, DI09 Marjorie Baptiste, D08 Public Health Dentistry Dental Nguyen and Scott Allan Yahya Elzarug Thomas Blanchi Student Recognition Award Recksiedler Alberto Lamberti Yumi Ogata for Achievement in Community Joseph R. Evans Endowed Evangelos Papathanasiou Dentistry and Dental Public IMPLANT DENISTRY Prize Fund in Clinical Operative Health: Elizabeth Rebecca FELLOWSHIP-TWO Campo Elias Perez Dentistry: Kelly B. Whelan Pernalete Marie Turner YEARS Quintessence Award for Clinical Sarah Stipho, D08 Dr. Esther Kaplan Colchamiro, Yaser El Kareimi Achievement in Restorative D42, and Ralph Colchamiro Dentistry: Matthew William ORAL AND PROSTHODONTICS Endowed Prize Fund for Valcourt MAXILLOFACIAL Abdullah Al-Mashan Community and Public Health: SURGERY Meng Francois Seng Nathan Freeman Clem and Dr. Joseph E. Primack, D42, Marcin Jarmoc, D07 Mohammad Taheri, D05 Brock L. Olson Endowed Prize Fund in Prosthodontics: Ruba Khader, DG06 Mamoru Tanaka, DG08 Special Care in Dentistry Award Stephen Lee Markowitz for Outstanding Performance at the Wrentham Rotation Site: Elizabeth Rose Dy

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28889p32-42.indd 40 11/11/11 7:26 PM Farah Assadipour in the World postgraduate program in endodontics, tufts university school of Dental Medicine The post-graduation pursuits of the Class of 2011 Iyad Awadallah community health center, Boston Brittany Braga private practice, hanover ALABAMA CANADA ILLINOIS Sharon Brown Christopher Peterson Rebecca Elliott Reeves Stephanie Moore private practice postgraduate program in private practice, Montreal aeGD, u.s. navy, Great lakes Angela Cala Morales periodontics, university of Cathy Zhao Mitulkumar Patel private practice alabama-Birmingham private practice, toronto private practice Moira Casey Alexandra Polus aeGD, Boston university ARIZONA COLORADO postgraduate program in Joanna Claustro Jennifer Toy Christiane Colombero prosthodontics, university of illinois, private practice, hanover aeGD, Winslow indian health care aeGD, u.s. air Force academy chicago Daniel Coleman center combined postgraduate program in Linda Tran CONNECTICUT INDIA prosthodontics and M.s., tufts aeGD, Winslow indian health care university school of Dental Medicine Anjali Banerjee Brian Cook center private practice private practice, new Delhi Albert Coombs III private practice Marcus Capalbo CALIFORNIA aeGD, university of connecticut KENTUCKY Adrian Correa private practice, Boston Franklin Chu Colleen Lam Sarath Bachali Gpr, university of southern Gpr, yale-new haven hospital private practice Giac Dang, A07 california, los angeles postgraduate program in Kyungsuk Yoo periodontics, tufts university school Linda Eaton private practice KOREA public health clinic, san Francisco of Dental Medicine Sue Youn Kim, A05 Isha Dhankar Edwin Hakimian DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Master of science Degree program private practice, southern california private practice Sheila Soroushian Peri Hanawalt Alex Doe postgraduate program in LOUISIANA private practice, la verne private practice, Wakefield orthodontics, howard university Alicia Yoon Kyung Choi Helena Kilic Kumi Ebihara Michelle Wang Military service, Fort polk Gpr, va Medical center, loma linda private practice private practice Isaac Kim Diana Esshaki MAINE aeGD, u.s. navy, camp pendleton private practice FLORIDA Rebecca Berry Tara Lindholm James Fairbanks aeGD, togus va Medical center u.s. air Force, travis air Force Base John Addison aeGD, lutheran Medical center private practice Caroline Clerisme Minh Luu Joellyn Ferro private practice private practice Elizabeth Dy private practice private practice, tampa Anna Czechowski Puja Mistry Neil Fluckiger private practice Gpr, sepulveda va hospital Nick Reynolds private practice, Boston aeGD, nova southeastern university Allison Piper Mary Min Young Park Marcy Gabrilowitz Gpr, penobscot community health aeGD, communicare va hospital Mark Sperling postgraduate program in pediatric private practice, orlando center Kelly Phillips Dentistry, Boston university Nicholas Sirois Gpr, university of california, Jordan Webb Senait Gebrewold aeGD, togus va Medical center san Francisco private practice, Gainesville private practice Genko Stanilov Scott Recksiedler Lyan Zamora Daniel Hanks private practice postgraduate program in private practice private practice, Framingham prosthodontics, West los angeles Atom Edenson Pamela Jackson va Medical center private practice MARYLAND Gpr, Brigham and Women’s hospital Shephali Shah Justin Deckard and Massachusetts General hospital private practice GEORGIA Gpr, Johns hopkins hospital Shiow Jiin Jaw Edward Song Marshall Knauer Samir Hussain Faculty, tufts university school of aeGD, u.s. navy, camp pendleton private practice Gpr, u.s. naval hospital, Bethesda Dental Medicine William Sung Michael Rosenthal, A06 Samantha Jordan, A06 private practice postgraduate program in oral and MASSACHUSETTS Master’s in public health, Masshealth access program Gregory Tentindo Maxillofacial surgery, Evlin Adamian six-year M.D. program in oral emory university aeGD, lutheran Medical center Molly Kaplan private practice and Maxillofacial surgery, university Alireza Ashrafi of california, san Francisco IDAHO postgraduate program in oral Samer Khayat Jonathan Heaton and Maxillofacial surgery, tufts Faculty, tufts university school of aeGD, idaho state university university school of Dental Medicine Dental Medicine

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Alexander Ko Theresa Woodworth Kelsey Karsten OREGON postgraduate program in private practice, Boston Gpr, new york presbyterian hospital Hannah Beatty periodontics, tufts university Michael Yoo Rui Ma Gpr, portland va hospital school of Dental Medicine private practice, Boston postgraduate program in Ross Icyda, A04 Myung-Suk Koh Rita Yoshpe periodontics, state university of Gpr, portland va hospital private practice private practice new york, stony Brook Svetlana Konfino Kyle Malesra PENNSYLVANIA aeGD, lutheran Medical center Gpr, st. Barnabas hospital MICHIGAN John Keating IV Rebekah Lucier Thomas Mascolo Ryan Sasaki postgraduate program in postgraduate program in Gpr, va Medical center, northport private practice pediatric Dentistry, children’s endodontics, tufts university Pouya Momtaz hospital of pittsburgh school of Dental Medicine Gpr, st. Barnabas hospital MIDWEST Pritesh Nathoo Athina Mantzouranis Steven Duong Nguyen Corie Rowe Gpr, philadelphia va Medical center private practice Gpr, Jacobi hospital private practice Ryan Walter Stephen Markowitz Hubert Park orthodontics Fellowship, private practice Gpr, cornell-new york presbyterian MINNESOTA seton hill university Jasmine McCaulley hospital Andrea Kanner Ruby Gpr, Berkshire Medical center Morgan Pierce private practice RHODE ISLAND Ian Pol McLaughlin Gpr, harlem hospital Diana Tran Gregory Barner private practice, West roxbury Carly Polin private practice private practice, smithfield Leila Meeve Chie Gpr, coler-Goldwater hospital Andrew Zwers Elliot Chiu private practice Afshin Rahimi private practice postgraduate residency in pediatric Patrick Murphy Gpr, Brooklyn hospital Dentistry, st. Joseph’s hospital, private practice, Milton Michael Schiffman providence NEW HAMPSHIRE Samson Nadar six-year M.D. program in oral Matthew Freitas Praveena Bhat oral and Maxillofacial surgery and Maxillofacial surgery, postgraduate residency in pediatric private practice Fellowship, Boston Medical center Mt. sinai Medical center Dentistry, st. Joseph’s hospital, Jessica Gagnon Ristuccia Christina Cowell Bradley Smith providence private practice, nashua private practice Gpr, coler-Goldwater hospital Kathryn Wych Arman Samad-Zadeh Kelly Whelan Jin Sung-Newsome aeGD, providence va Medical center postgraduate program in private practice Gpr, Woodhull Medical center, endodontics, Boston university Brooklyn SOUTH CAROLINA Eileen Saunders NEVADA Priya Tailor Shauna Basil postgraduate program in pediatric Gpr, Woodhull Medical center, Benjamin Song u.s. navy, parris island Marine Base Dentistry, tufts university school aeGD, nellis air Force Base, Brooklyn Brittany Chick of Dental Medicine las vegas Sumit Tinna u.s. navy, parris island Marine Base Benjamin Schuyler Gpr, Jamaica Medical center, private practice NEW JERSEY Queens TEXAS David Shane Adam Marengi Jackilyn Dang private practice Gpr, Beth israel Medical center NORTHEAST private practice Shehbaz Shareef Sandeep Teotia Karishma Adeshara Quan Hoang Nguyen private practice private practice private practice private practice Abeir Mekhail Sourial Joyce Myungwon Baek Matthew Sheldon private practice NEW MEXICO private practice aeGD, Baylor college of Sabah Mekki Mahadi Julie Cooper-Pratt Nathan Clem Dentistry, Dallas private practice public health clinic private practice Nicholas Sotak Jessica Stier Jennifer Eitutis Elizabeth Turner u.s. army, Fort Bliss, el paso private practice, Deerfield private practice aeGD, university of new Mexico Muddasar Tukdi Justin Stout Victoria Kaplan private practice private practice, cambridge private practice NEW YORK Charles Sutera III Vina Lu Mehdi Aryan VERMONT private practice private practice Gpr, Montefiore Medical center Cassandra Tavares Michael Luu, A07 Brian Maples Nicole Cuoccio private practice, Boston private practice Gpr, university of vermont postgraduate program in Jeanne Un, J98, G00 orthodontics, Montefiore Stacey Malcomson private practice VIRGINIA Medical center private practice Matthew Valcourt Michael Lee Samuel Greenberg Anthony Paolucci private practice aeGD, u.s. naval air station, aeGD, va hudson valley private practice norfolk Venkata Durga Varanasi health care system Ingrid Peña de Carreño private practice Amber James private practice WYOMING Aundrea Vereen Gpr, long island college hospital Rhobor Uviasah postgraduate program in Taoheed Johnson private practice Brock Olson prosthodontics, tufts university Gpr, Bronx lebanon hospital private practice school of Dental Medicine

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ENDODONTICS A. Alt-Holland, an abstract for the annual ORAL AND MAXILLOFACIAL Addy Alt-Holland, assistant professor, meeting of the Society of In Vitro Biology, PATHOLOGY was a co-convener of two symposia at Raleigh, N.C., June 2011. Jonathan Garlick, professor and head of the annual meeting of the Society of ■ “Fibroblast Differentiation from Human the Division of Cancer Biology and Tissue In Vitro Biology in Raleigh, N.C., in June: Embryonic and Induced Pluripotent Stem Engineering, and members of his lab “Functional Bioengineered Tissues: Cells Is Linked to Epigenetic Regulation Of hosted high school seniors from Gann Cells, 3-D Scaffolds, Environmental Cues PDGFR and Acquisition of A Mesenchymal Academy in Waltham, Mass., for an eight- and Beyond” and “Engineering of 3-D Phenotype,” K. Hewitt, Y. Shamis, M. week stem cell research experience, the Functional Tissues: Powerful Tools for Margvelashvili, E. Knight, A. Smith, A. third-year Gann students have come to Cancer Biology, In Vitro Toxicology and Alt-Holland and J.A. Garlick, an abstract for Tufts. Garlick received two seed grant Regenerative Medicine.” She received a a meeting of the International Society for awards from the Tufts provost’s office Tufts Collaborates! Award from the provost’s Stem Cell Research, Toronto, June 2011. to enhance learning and teaching and to office in July to advance interdisciplinary advance interdisciplinary research at the research at the university. Alt-Holland university. The Tufts Collaborates! award is collaborating with James Baleja, an GENERAL DENTISTRY was given for a project titled “Regulation associate professor of biochemistry at Jinkun “Jake” Chen, DI09, A12P, professor of Engineered Stem Cell Differentiation by Tufts School of Medicine, on a project and director of division of oral biology, has Mechanically Defined Culture Systems,” titled “Function and Mechanisms of Dab2 received a $1 million-plus grant from the to be done in partnership with Catherine in Promoting Squamous Cell Carcinoma National Institutes of Health to investigate Kuo, assistant professor of biomedical Tumor Cell Migration and Invasion.” therapies for periodontitis-associated with engineering. The Tufts Innovates! was type 2 diabetes. Chen’s lab studies the given for a new course, Humanizing PRESENTATIONS: mechanisms by which adiponectin, a hor- the Sciences through Interdisciplinary, ■ “Identification and Validation of mone derived from fat tissue, predisposes Interpersonal and Ensemble Learning: Therapeutic Targets of Squamous Cell patients to obesity and type 2 diabetes. An Introductory Course for Freshman and Carcinoma Using Three-Dimensional The researchers also have found that Sophomore Students, which is designed to Bioengineered Human Tissues,” Forsyth adiponectin promotes osteoblast (bone- further engage students in science. Institute, Boston, May 2011. forming cell) differentiation and bone PRESENTATIONS: ■ “Bioengineered Human Skin Tissues: formation. They are the first to delineate ■ “Engineering Skin-like Tissues from Stem Clinically Relevant Models for Identification the signal transduction pathway in which Cells,” Tufts Internship Program for the and Validation of New Therapeutic Targets adiponectin reduces bone resorption by Hearing Impaired, July 2011. to Inhibit Squamous Cell Carcinoma inhibiting osteoclast differentiation. The ■ “3-D Tissue Models Using Induced Development,” annual meeting of the research was published in the Journal of Pluripotent Stem Cells for Repair and Society of In Vitro Biology, Raleigh, N.C., Biological Chemistry (286:12542–63, Regeneration,” U.S. Army Medical Research June 2011. 2011). Chen is also studying bone and Institute of Chemical Defense, Aberdeen ■ “The Development of Human Skin Cancer: tooth gene expression and regulation and Proving Grounds, Aberdeen, Md., August Tools to Model It and to Establish New oral and craniofacial development and 2011. Therapies for This Disease,” Tufts School of diseases. Chen gave a number of presenta- PUBLICATIONS: Medicine’s Building Diversity in Biomedical tions this past summer in this country, as ■ “Epigenetic and Phenotypic Profile Sciences Program, Boston, June 2011. well as in China and South Korea. of Fibroblasts Derived from Induced PUBLICATIONS: PUBLICATIONS: Pluripotent Stem Cells,” H. Hewitt, Y. ■ “Suppression of E-Cadherin Function ■ “Enhanced Osseointegration of Titanium Shamis, R. Hayman, M. Margvelashvili, D. Drives the Early Stages of Ras-induced Implant through the Local Delivery of Shumin, M. Carlson and J.A. Garlick, PLoS Squamous Cell Carcinoma through Transcription Factor SATB2,” S. Yan, J. One 6(2): e17128, 2011. Upregulation of FAK and Src,” A. Alt- Zhang, Q. Tu, J. Ye, E. Luo, M. Schuler, ■ “Fibroblasts Derived from Human ES Holland, A.G. Sowalsky, Y. Szwec-Levin, M. Kim, T. Griffin, J. Zhao, X. Duan, D.L. Cells Direct Development and Repair of Y. Shamis, H. Hatch, L.A. Feig and Cochran, D. Murray, P.S. Yang and J. Chen 3-D Human Skin Equivalents,” Y. Shamis, J.A. Garlick, Journal of Investigative Biomaterials, August 19, 2011. K. Hewitt, M. Carlson, M. Margvelashvili, Dermatology, June 30, 2011. ■ “The Use of Injectable Sonication-induced S. Dong, C. Kuo, L. Daheron, C. Egles and ■ “Bioengineered Human Skin Tissues: Silk Hydrogel for VEGF(165) and BMP- J.A. Garlick, Stem Cell Research & Therapy, Clinically Relevant Models for Identification 2 Delivery for Elevation of the Maxillary 2(1):10–19, 2011. and Validation of New Therapeutic Targets Sinus Floor,” W. Zhang, X. Wang, S. ■ “Defining the Cellular Precursors to to Inhibit Squamous Cell Carcinoma Wang, J. Zhao, L. Xu, C. Zhu, D. Zeng, J. Human Breast Cancer,” P. Keller, L.M. Development,” Y. Szwec-Levin, H. Hatch, Chen, Z. Zhang, D.L. Kaplan and X. Jiang, Arendt, A. Skibinski, T. Logvinenkos, I. A. Sowalsky, L.A. Feig, J.A. Garlick and Biomaterials, September 1, 2011. Klebba, S. Dong, A. Smith, A. Prat, C.M.

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Perous, H. Gilmore, S. Schmitt, S.P. July 6–12. Yelick gave an invited talk General Dentistry, Oregon Health Science Nabers, J.A. Garlick and C. Kuperwasser, titled “The Role of Intraflagellar Transport Center School of Dentistry, Portland, Ore., Proceedings of the National Academy of Genes in Craniofacial Morphogenesis,” June 24–25, 2011. Sciences, in press, 2011. and Andreeva presented a poster on PUBLICATIONS: ■ “Human Stem Cell and the Future of her research, “Zebrafish as a Model for ■ “Sedation: The Pharmacological basis of Dentistry,” M. Margvelashvili and J.A. Mineralized Tissue Development and Pain and Anxiety Control,” M.B. Rosenberg Garlick, an abstract for the Turkish Dental Disease.” They also attended the and M. Thompson, a chapter in The Fearful Association International Congress, “Open Door Workshop: Working with the Dental Patient: A Guide to Understanding Istanbul, Turkey, May 2011. Zebrafish Genome Resources” on July 5 and Managing (Wiley-Blackwell 2011). in Edinburgh. ■ “Diagnosis and Management of Michael A. Kahn, professor and chair, PRESENTATIONS: Sedative and Anesthetic Emergencies,” was elected president of the American ■ Program leader, Cancer Biology Program, M.B. Rosenberg, a chapter in Clinician’s Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Tufts Cancer Center, Cummings School of Manual of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery on May 1, at the organization’s meeting Veterinary Medicine, May 12. (Quintessence Publishing Co., 2011). in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He attended ■ “Craniofacial Mineralized Tissue ■ “American Heart Association Updates meetings of the Dental Specialties Group Development, Disease and Regeneration,” CPR Guidelines,” J. Tsai, C. Tung and M. and Commission on Dental Accreditation Grand Rounds, Columbia University Rosenberg, Journal of the Massachusetts in August in Chicago. College of Dental Medicine, Department of Dental Society, Vol 60. No. 1, 30–31, 2011. PRESENTATIONS: Craniofacial Surgery, New York City, May 25. ■ “Head and Neck Soft Tissue Examination” ■ “Mineralized Tissue Development and and “Characteristics and Management of Regeneration,” fourth Aegean International PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY Potentially Malignant Oral Lesions,” sixth Conference on Tissue Engineering, Chania, Jessica Chiang, DG09, an assistant annual Oral Cancer Symposium, Tufts Crete, Greece, May 30–June 4. professor, is running the new Nasoalveolar School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Molding (NAM) Clinic, a project of the pedi- June 3, 2011. atric dentistry department at Tufts and the ■ Moderator, “Oral Essay Program,” ORAL AND ENT department at Tufts Medical Center. American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY The clinic offers pre-surgical NAM therapy Pathology annual meeting, San Juan, Morton Rosenberg, D74, A09P, professor for infants born with cleft lip and palate, Puerto Rico, May 1. and director of anesthesia and pain control, helping to decrease the extent of deformity PUBLICATION: was reappointed to the medical review of the alveolus, lip and nose in infants in ■ “A Clinico-Pathologic Correlation: Oral group of the Massachusetts Department preparation for surgery. Melanoacanthoma with Concomitant of Public Health. Epithelial Dysplasia,” S. Marsh, M. Kahn, PRESENTATIONS: David Tesini, D75, DG77, G79, associate D. Oreadi and N. Demtriades, Journal of the ■ “Comprehensive Review for New Jersey clinical professor, presented “Lavarsi i Massachusetts Dental Society, 60(1):38- Moderate Sedation Provider Educational Denti” (Brush Your Teeth) to schoolchildren 40, Spring 2011. Qualifier Course: Enteral Sedation and at Asilo San Pio XI in Vittorio Veneto, Italy. Dental Office Emergencies,” Jersey Tesini reports that 50 children, ages 4 Pamela Yelick, G89, professor and Shore University Medical Center and the and 5, had fun with his Italian-language director of the Division of Craniofacial Monmouth-Ocean County Dental Society, version of a presentation he and Jess and Molecular Genetics, and her lab Eatontown N.J., April 16–17, 2011. Kane D74, DG76, G78, DG79, D04P, hosted visiting scientists from the ■ “Nitrous Oxide–Oxygen Sedation Update DG06P, have given at nursery schools in University of Sydney, Radboud University and Anesthetic Considerations for the Natick, Mass., for 34 years. Tesini says in the Netherlands and Wheaton College Pediatric Patient” and “High Fidelity that with the help of family and friends this summer, as well as an exchange Simulation for Ambulatory Anesthesia in Vittorio Veneto, a colorful designo of student from Radboud; two students, Providers,” American Dental Society of a child’s mouth was made, and Sister from the Research Science Institute Anesthesiology, Scottsdale, Ariz., April Margarita did an excellent job keeping the Center for Excellence in Education at 28–29, 2011. kids in line, just in case he mispronounced MIT; three students from Tufts School ■ “Oral Sedation for the Dental Practitioner” an Italian word here or there (as he often of Dental Medicine and undergraduates and “The Dental Team Approach to Medical did). The children learned about bacteria, from Wheaton College and Northeastern Emergencies: Is Your Office Prepared?,” plaque and piccolo pezzetti di cibo that University. Yelick and her research Connecticut Dental Society, Uncasville, must be brushed or rinsed from their teeth associate, Viktoria Andreeva, gave Conn., May 12, 2011. almeno due volte per giorno. The most presentations at the seventh European ■ “Comprehensive Clinical Intravenous animated part of the presentation occurred Zebrafish Meeting, held in Edinburgh Sedation Course,” Oregon Academy of when a selected voluntario got to dress up

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28889p43-45.indd 44 11/11/11 7:28 PM as the dentista, assestente e secretario. ■ “The Effect of Enamel Matrix Protein club, called Boston South Study Club. Tesini’s mother’s family was from Vittorio on Gingival Tissue Thickness in Vivo,” The club will disseminate knowledge in Veneto, 30 minutes north of Venice, so it K. Al-Hezaimi, H. Al-Fahad, R. O’Neill, L. implant dentistry and promote interactive was also a chance for him to catch up Shuman, T. Griffin, Odontology, May 13, discussions among its members. Leaders with family and friends. 2011. in implant dentistry are invited to lecture ■ “Identification of an Odontogenic to small groups in a relaxed setting. Weber Keratocyst and Treatment with Guided joined two colleagues from the University PERIODONTOLOGY Tissue Regeneration: Case Report,” of Connecticut Health Center and the Aidee N. Herman, an associate clinical R. O’Neill, K. Al-Hezaimi, Journal of the University of North Carolina School of professor, organized the Massachusetts Canadian Dental Association (2011: 77:b6). Dentistry in providing oral health care Hispanic Dental Association’s first to the Native Americans in southeast “Symposium in Dental Careers: Promoting Alaska, near Sitka, where there is little Dentistry as a Career for Minorities” at PROSTHODONTICS AND access to such care. The dentists made Tufts School of Dental Medicine on June OPERATIVE DENTISTRY and fitted 24 dentures for 12 patients 24. More than 80 people participated, Nathan S. Birnbaum, associate clinical during the weeklong mission in June, representing middle schools, high schools, professor working 12 or 13 hours each day. More colleges and dental schools. Eight PUBLICATION: than half the dentures included implants. students received scholarship awards. ■ “Digital Impressioning,” N. Birnbaum, “Denture fabrication is a labor-intensive Herman spoke on “Multicultural Crisis in Inside Dentistry, July/August 2011. process that typically takes four to five Oral Health in America: The Role and Need appointments, with lab work in between,” of More Mentors and Leaders in the Dental Gerard Kugel, D85, MS93, professor and said Weber, “so 24 dentures in one Field,” and Amit Sachdeo, an assistant associate dean for research, was one of week for three clinicians is a lot.” The professor of prosthodontics and operative the featured clinicians at the Star of the annual Sitka mission is sponsored by the dentistry, was a symposium volunteer. North meeting in St. Paul, Minn., on April American Academy of Prosthodontics. Herman was the keynote speaker at the 30. He presented a hands-on composite Tufts School of Dental Medicine supported Mentor Summer Academic Enrichment course, along with Chad Anderson, D04, Weber’s travel this year. Program, held at Springfield Technical on May 19 at a meeting of the American Community College in Springfield, Mass., Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry in Boston, in July. She led a mission trip to the and he gave a full-day esthetic dentistry PUBLIC HEALTH AND Dominican Republic in August, in which 31 course at the New Hampshire Dental COMMUNITY SERVICE delegates provided care to 409 patients Society annual meeting on May 20. Kugel John Morgan, associate professor, has over the course of a week. Dental school spoke on CAD/CAM dentistry at the annual been named a Tisch College Faculty faculty members Frank Shin Charles meeting of the Canadian Dental Society in Fellow at Tufts University for the 2011–12 Millstein and Scott Lightfoot, and 12 Halifax, Nova Scotia, on August 6. He also academic year. These faculty fellows Tufts dental students were part of the received a $120,000 corporate grant to are providing leadership in active mission. evaluate a tooth-whitening system. citizenship teaching and research across PRESENTATION: the university. To date, 52 colleagues ■ “Evidence-based Peri-implantitis and Ronald D. Perry, clinical professor, representing every school at Tufts have Systemic Diseases Relationship,” University was chosen as a featured member participated in the program. Morgan, Pedro Henriquez Urena, Dominican of the Eco-dentistry Association adjunct faculty member Kerry Maguire and Republic, August 20, 2011. (www.Ecodentistry.org), an organization Kimberly Newton and Amy Nguyen, both committed to a dental profession that D12, were members of a health-care team Rory O’Neill, an associate clinical values both “outstanding patient care that provided dental care in Zambia for professor, is also serving as a clinical and outstanding planetary care.” Members two weeks in August. Morgan directs the professor of dentistry at the University pledge to consider the environmental Zambian project, which is a collaborative of Southern Nevada College of Dental impact of their practices in areas such project of Tufts School of Dental Medicine, Medicine in Las Vegas. as dental processes and materials; office the Dental Training School of the Ministry PUBLICATIONS: administration and marketing; and office of Health in Zambia and Options for ■ “Effect of Single and Contiguous Teeth construction, design and furnishings. Children in Zambia. The program uses oral Extractions on Alveolar Bone Remodeling: health initiatives to mobilize community A Study in Dogs,” M. Al-Askar, R. O’Neill, Hans-Peter Weber, professor and efforts in rural Africa to provide health P. Stark, T. Griffin, F. Javed, K. Al-Hezaimi, chair, and Hamasat Gheddaf Dam, an care, create educational opportunities Clinical Implant Dentistry and Related assistant professor, have have started an for health-care providers and improve the Research, June 2011. International Team of Implantology study health-care infrastructure.

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28889p43-45.indd 45 11/11/11 7:28 PM beyond boundaries providing the means for excellence

$1.2 Billion Achievement

Beyond Boundaries campaign ends triumphantly

he country may have suffered the worst economic Supporting student access was a cam- downturn since the Great Depression, but that didn’t stop Tufts paign priority, and some innovative finan- University from hitting its record-breaking campaign target of $1.2 cial aid programs have arisen as a result. billion. Success came on the eve of Lawrence S. Bacow’s departure Tufts can now provide scholarships for Tfrom Tufts in July, after serving as president for a decade. needy undergraduates to attend summer The campaign, known as Beyond Boundaries, mobilized nearly 140,000 school and eliminate loans for students donors, including half of Tufts’ alumni. Together, they contributed $434 from families with modest incomes. On million for scholarships—among them 630 new endowed and term schol- top of that, a first-of-a-kind university- arships—and other enhancements to the student experience. Another $386 wide program helps alumni working in million is earmarked for faculty recruitment and research and $137 million public service or nonprofit jobs repay a for new facilities. The balance will fund new academic and research pro- portion of their education loans. grams. Among the donations were the six largest gifts in Tufts’ history, two Thanks to Beyond Boundaries, Tufts has of them exceeding $100 million. The campaign added $609 million to the 23 new named professorships. These coveted university’s endowment. posts have helped the university attract Jonathan Tisch, A76, a university trustee and co-chair of the campaign, and retain world-class researchers. was jubilant about the outcome. “To be able to garner this kind of sup- And new construction and reno- port, particularly in this economy, is not only a good story for vations took place on all three Tufts, it’s a great story,” he said. Tufts campuses.

Above: Riaz Dini, D13, works in the Simulation Learning Center. Right: The façade of the expanded School of Dental Medicine.

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28889p46-47.indd 1 11/15/11 5:23 PM The DenTAl School S Tory More than $47.5 million was raised for Mei-Hsuan He, DG12, in the Glickman Periodontology Library. the School of Dental Medicine in support of facilities, faculty development, student financial aid and community outreach. Nearly 50 percent of Tufts’ 8,400 dental alumni made a gift to the campaign. The most visible product of the campaign was the five-story expansion of the school building at One Kneeland Street. The proj- ect created an ultramodern education and health-care facility that is advancing teach- ing, research and patient care. Building on the school’s longstanding tradition of community service, the con- struction added 73 new treatment areas to care for 20,000 patients a year, many of whom have limited or no dental insurance. Louis A. Fiore, D62, and his wife, Jean, named a 75-seat lecture hall, Rachel’s Amphitheater, to honor his mother, Rachel Valvo Fiore. The expansion also created research space and places for stu- dents to study. tribute to a perio pioneer A new Simulation Learning Center is equipped with 108 stations where first- and When her father was diagnosed with chronic periodontitis and lost four second-year students can train for their teeth in six months, Mei-hsuan he, DG12, felt helpless. “i was just a dental practical exams and dentists can pursue student [in taiwan] and could only help him find a really good periodontist.” continuing education. Two gifts from the he soon will fit that bill herself when she completes her advanced training implant manufacturer Nobel Biocare AB in periodontology next spring. of Sweden, totaling $7.4 million, named the “i chose periodontology as my specialty because i want to help more oral surgery clinic and will fund research people,” says he, one of 27 residents from 12 nations in the postgradu- in implants and prosthetics. A $5 mil- ate certificate program. she and her classmates are regulars at the lion gift from the state’s largest provider of dental school’s periodontology library. dental benefits endowed the Delta Dental “i work sometimes on saturdays and sundays, and when i go in of Massachusetts Professorship in Public the library, there are always students in there,” says terrence Griffin, Health and Community Service. The former D71, DG75, associate professor, chair and director of postdoctoral CEO of Delta Dental, Robert Hunter, D63, periodontology. and his wife, Constance, included a gift in the library, newly named for irving Glickman, D38, known as the their estate plan to benefit the school; the “father of periodontology,” is at the heart of the program. paul levi, gift was made in honor of Lonnie H. Norris, D66, DG71, a95p, led the fundraising effort to name the library for his DG80, dean emeritus, who retired in July. former teacher and mentor. the founding chair of periodontology at tufts, Planned gifts from several donors Glickman wrote the classic text on the specialty. he died in 1972. accounted for nearly a quarter of the total “he really helped put tufts on the map,” levi says. “When people raised, including an alum’s $3 million gift, talked about tufts, they always talked about periodontics. that’s be- made in honor of Norris, to support a named cause of Dr. Glickman.” professorship, and a $1.5 million gift from “Dr. Glickman was someone who challenged his residents and had a former faculty member that will endow a a great influence on their lives,” says Griffin, who runs Glickman’s old scholarship fund. practice on Boylston street in Boston. Deserving students are benefiting from “i feel Dr. Glickman deserves to be remembered across the whole the Dr. Alfred Osher, DG62, and D. Suzi school,” levi adds. “clearly he deserves to be remembered in his depart- Osher Scholarships, which Suzi Osher estab- ment. his name belongs there.” lished to honor her late husband, a longtime faculty member at the dental school.

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No Time Like the Present

we have to talk. as the school positions itself for for dental students now and for those the future, this is the perfect time for you to get involved. graduating from our school in the years to The university has a new president, Anthony Monaco, come. Your relationship with the school and our dental school has a new dean, Huw Thomas. didn’t end with graduation. It endures Additional renovations are ongoing at One Kneeland throughout your life. Street, and the school’s curriculum is being enhanced. As an undergraduate at Tufts, I learned New faculty and researchers are joining us. This is a great that the work of children is their play. The time to be part of Tufts Dental. play of my life has been my work. My inter- As alumni, we are the voice of experience, and actions with patients and staff have given me being involved in the Tufts University Dental Alumni a sense of community. The measure of life Association should be fruitful and fun. Our lives changed is what we do, and who we do it with. Share forever because of our dental school experience. It was one step in our becoming some of your experiences and time with the who we now are, and we have much for which to be thankful. Dental Alumni Association. Yes, we have to talk. You and I are the Tufts University Dental Alumni Yes, we should talk. Please join me. Association. As president of the association, I invite you to become more involved. No matter where you are from, no matter where you find yourself, we have a com- mon history. As a child growing up in Teele Square, I would walk the four blocks up the hill to the Medford/Somerville campus and dream of going to Tufts. As an under- graduate, my friends and dormmates joined my family for Sunday dinners, and peter a. delli colli, a69, d73 so began my relationship with the Tufts family. Those close bonds with classmates president, tufts university and fraternity brothers continue today. Tufts is in my blood, and in yours! dental alumni association Participate in the Dental Alumni Association. You can make a difference [email protected]

register now! Tufts Dental Career Link

• Search job openings and practices for sale or rent. (Searches can only be made by members of the Tufts Dental community. Postings are available to non-alumni and multiple members of an office.)

• Use the Alumni Advisors Network, an opt-in directory that connects Tufts students and alumni for advising, networking, referrals or just keeping in touch.

• Create or enhance resumes with templates from Resume Builder.

dental.tufts.edu/careerlink

48 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 PHOTO: alOnsO nicHOls

28889p48-52.indd 48 11/11/11 7:49 PM calendar

FAMILY PORTRAIT: Bernard Schwartz, D58, DG62, enjoys photographing wildlife and nature scenes near his home in Southampton, N.Y. This photo, taken in early May, shows a pair of swans at their nest in the marshland. If you’d like to submit a photograph, please email it to Helene Ragovin, at [email protected]. Photos must be at least 1024x680 pixels.

Alumni Together, we begin...

In a time of transition and expanding horizons for the NOVEMBER 14 MARCH 2012 MAY 4–6, 2012 university, Tufts Alumni is Alumni reception Spring training Dental Homecoming pleased to invite you to meet in conjunction with with the Red Sox and Reunion Weekend the annual session of Fort Myers, Florida Tufts University School Tufts’ 13th president, the American Academy of Dental Medicine and Anthony P. Monaco. of Periodontology MARCH 2012 Langham Hotel Miami Beach, Florida 13th Student/Alumni Boston, Massachusetts All members of the Tufts Networking Session community are invited to NOVEMBER 17 Tufts University School MAY 20, 2012 attend any of these special Welcome reception for of Dental Medicine Tufts University’s 156th Dean Huw F. Thomas Commencement events to welcome President Portland, Maine MARCH 17–21, 2012 Academic Quad Monaco and hear his thoughts Call 617.636.6773 Alumni reception Medford/Somerville campus for details. in conjunction 9 a.m. on Tufts today and his vision with the annual meeting for the future. NOVEMBER 29 of the American Dental MAY 26, 2012 Alumni reception Education Association Alumni reception London Tuesday, November 29 in conjunction Orlando, Florida in conjunction with with the Greater New York the annual session San Francisco Monday, January 9 Dental Meeting MARCH 21–24, 2012 of the American Academy Los Angeles Tuesday, January 10 Marriott Marquis Alumni reception of Pediatric Dentistry New York City in conjunction San Diego, California Honolulu Friday, January 13 6 p.m. reception followed with the annual session Atlanta Thursday, February 23 by dinner; RSVP required of the International For the most updated Miami Friday, February 24 Association of information, contact the DECEMBER 1 Dental Research Office of Dental Alumni Palm Beach Saturday, February 25 Tampa, Florida Relations at 617.636.6773; Welcome reception for Sarasota Sunday, February 26 Dean Huw F. Thomas email dental-alumni@tufts. Bedford, New Hampshire APRIL 19, 2012 edu; or visit go.tufts.edu/ Chicago Tuesday, March 20 Call 617.636.6773 Alumni reception dentalalums. Cape Cod Friday, June 15 for details. in conjunction with the annual session of JANUARY 27, 2012 the American Association As the president’s itinerary is Alumni reception of Endodontists in conjunction with Boston, Massachusetts developed, event times and Yankee Dental Congress locations will be listed at Westin Waterfront tuftsalumni.org/president. Boston, Massachusetts 6–7:30 p.m.

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ItalIan alums say ‘CIao’

The first italian Tufts alumni scientific Meeting, held in alumni president; luca Gobbato, DG10; and Fabio Mazzocco, Venice from June 24 to 26, was a huge success, on both the DG07. attendees enjoyed a bus tour of Venice and an aperitif on scientific and the social fronts. lino calvani, DG91, organized the terrace of the compagnia della Vela, the ancient sailing club and hosted the meeting at the Park Hotel Villa Fiorita, which located near the Piazza san Marco. alumni then drove to Riva sponsored lunches and dinner during the scientific sessions. degli schiavoni, a promenade along the waterfront, for dinner. alumni arrived from all over italy by high-speed train, car and The group made its way back to the hotel by boat through the plane. lectures were presented by luca Dalloca, D91; ignazio canals, admiring the lights of Venice. The next italian Tufts Berlucchi, DG98; Masahiko nikaido, DG97, the Tufts Japanese alumni meeting will be held in Rome on January 21, 2012.

Alumni and guests enjoy a Front row, from left: Luca Dalloca, D91; Alfonso poolside meal at the Park Hotel Caiazzo, DG97; Paolo Acquaviva, DG96; Masahiko Villa Fiorita. Nikaido, DG97; and Ignazio Berlucchi, DG98; second row, from left: Gianluca Paniz, DG06; Fabio Mazzocco, DG07; Lino Calvani, DG91; Roberto Pellecchia, DG03; Francesco Olivieri, DG96; Luigi Gallo, DG94; Luca Gobbato, DG10; and Federico Brugnami, DG95.

PedIatrIC dentIsts FIll annual sessIon

alumni gathered in new York city over Memorial Day weekend to attend the annual session of the american academy of Pediatric Dentistry. On saturday, May 28, more than 50 Tufts alumni got together at the Marriott Marquis to hear an update on Tufts Dental school From left: Idar Hsin, DG11; Narayani Baliga, DI07, DG11; Daniel Fanikos, D09, DG11; Joffre Martin, D08; Katayoon Dorosti from stanley alexander, D75a, professor and chair of Martin, D08, DG10; and Andrew Danberg-Ficarelli, D10, DG12. pediatric dentistry.

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28889p48-52.indd 50 11/11/11 7:49 PM new york ChaPter sPrIng meetIng

orthodontIsts new York dental alumni gathered at the Yale club ConneCt In on May 17 for a lecture by Julian Osorio, assistant clinical professor of postgraduate prosthodontics, ChICago on “The Real Biological Thinking to Enhance Esthetics and Develop the Proper Emergence More than 50 alumni gathered Profile Using computer-designed abutments.” in chicago on May 14 for a The new York chapter also elected the following reception in conjunction with the new officers: Robert Berg, D03, president; ancy annual session of the american Verdier, a96, D03, DG06, vice president; Evan association of Orthodontists. schwarz, D03, secretary; and Michael Dill, D88, alumni reconnected with friends and treasurer. To learn more about the new York Dental colleagues and learned about alumni chapter, call the alumni Relations Office what’s new at the school and in at 617.636.6773. The chapter will hold its fall their department from Barry Briss, gathering on november 29 at the Marriott Marquis. D66, DG70, D95P, DG97P, professor and chair of orthodontics.

Career aDviCe There’s a lot to think about Involved with Tufts.” The evening began with a panel beyond dental school. This past March, more than 50 discussion led by Sam Shames, D75. Students then volunteers from the Tufts University Dental Alumni broke into smaller discussion groups with alumni on Association gathered to share their experiences and topics including, “First Steps: Finding the Right Job expertise with students from the second-, third- and and the Interview Process;” “Specializing: Which Field fourth-year classes at the 12th annual Student Alumni Suits Me?” and “Dollars and Sense: Thinking About Networking Session. The theme was “Your First Job, Your Financial Future.” Students had the opportunity Your Career, Your Financial Future and Keys to Staying to spend additional time with alumni during dinner.

lone star From left: Emily Tyler, gatherIng For DG11; Matthew Del Mastro, D09, DG11; Oscar endodontIsts Peguero, DG11; Charles Rankin, D79, DG86, Daniel Green, professor and chair D08P, DG11P, professor of endodontics, welcomed alumni of endodontics; Bella and friends to a reception in conjunc- Batsevitsky, D09, DG11; Neil Campbell, DG11; tion with the annual session of the Natalie Delivanis, DG11; american association of Endodontists Kerith Rankin, D08, DG11 last april in san antonio. and Daniel Green.

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All in the fAmily

The Office of Development and alumni Relations hosted its fifth annual Dental legacy Reception at the W Hotel in Boston on august 29, when more than 80 students and alumni welcomed the school’s new dean, Huw F. Thomas, and celebrated their family connections at Tufts Dental school. all incoming and current dental students with a relation to a dental alum were invited, along with their families. Of the 181 students in the class of 2015, 20 have a relative who graduated from Tufts school of Dental Medicine.

From left: Femina Ali, DI97, A11P, D15P; Zarah Ali, A11, D15; Mark Gonthier, executive associate dean; Zann Ali; and Ejaz Ali, DI94, A11P, D15P.

From left: Matilda Gilmore, D75AP, DG79P; Barbara Gilmore, D15P; Rustam DeVitre, DG76, DI77, Dean Huw Thomas, center, with students who have a family member who graduated from Tufts D12P; a director of the Dental Alumni Association; Dental School, from left: Alan Yee, D15; Ron Hsin, D15; Adrina DeVitre, D12; Mark Paolucci, D15; William Gilmore, D75A, DG79, D15P, associate Erin Gilmore, D15; James Cogliano, D15; Zarah Ali, A11, D15; Kimberly Harte, D14; Jacques professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery and Erin Boudreau, D15; Alexa Martin, D15; Warren Woods Jr., D14; and Andrew Tonelli, A06, D14. Gilmore, D15.

j j The Perks of MeMbershiP Did You Know? It is time to renew your mem- bership in the Tufts University Dues support the Tufts Dental Alumni Association, Dental Alumni Association. which has raised more than $300,000 for student loan funds. Dues With so many organizations subsidize Homecoming & Reunion Weekend. Dues help produce seeking your membership, the award-winning Tufts Dental Medicine magazine. Dues sponsor why should you join this one? the Student/Alumni Networking Event every March, This is your organization, as well as other student/alumni programming. Dues support regional and it represents your school. receptions and activities in New York, Boston, California and Florida. We speak with pride when we Dues payers receive a $75 credit toward Tufts say we are graduates of Tufts Continuing Education programs. j University School of Dental Annual Dues for 2011–12 are $125. Medicine. We are proud of its TO PAY ONLINE: http://dental.tufts.edu/dues. reputation as a world leader j OR, PLEASE SEND CHECKS PAYABLE TO: j in research, education and Tufts University Dental alumni association, to: Tufts Dental alumni Relations patient care. A Tufts diploma 136 Harrison avenue j is a mark of excellence. Boston, Ma 02111 j j

52 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 PHOTOs:MaTTHEW MODOOnO

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Celebrations and Farewells

Dental reunioners commemorate the tenure of Dean Lonnie Norris

ore than 500 donors, alumni, staff, faculty, friends professor and chair of prosthodontics and family raised a Toast to Tufts and to the tenure of and operative dentistry at Tufts. Family Dean Lonnie H. Norris, DG80, on May 5, during a donor and friends used the lecture time to take a recognition event that kicked off Dental Homecoming trolley to Fenway Park, learning the his- and Reunion Weekend. Reunion-goers enjoyed a night of dinner, dancing tory of “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark” and tributes at the State Room in Boston. and exploring the underbelly of the Green Norris presented Dean’s Medals, the school’s highest honor, to Tufts President Monster. Others toured the new five-floor Lawrence S. Bacow, who stepped down in July after leading the university for a expansion of the dental school building at decade; Adele Fleet Bacow; John Ficarelli, D73, D10P, DG12P, chair of the Dental One Kneeland Street. Guests delighted in M Club; Jess Kane, D74, DG76, G78, DG79, D04P, DG06P, who chaired the dental seeing Norris’ portrait unveiling as they cel- school’s portion of the university’s Beyond Boundaries fundraising campaign ebrated his retirement. and Maria Gove Tringale, the dental school’s senior director of development and The Dental Alumni Association hosted alumni relations. its annual meeting and luncheon at the Acknowledging the dean’s unwavering dedication to Tufts Dental School, Langham Hotel, where 50th-reunion attend- Bacow presented Norris with a painting by Craig Mooney, one of the dean’s ees were honored as they marched into favorite artists. And, working with Dan Kraft, A87, a Tufts trustee and presi- the hall, and the Tufts University Alumni dent of the Kraft Group, which owns the New England Patriots, Bacow presented Association (TUAA) inducted new officers. Norris with an authentic New England Patriots football jersey emblazoned with Kathy O’Loughlin, D81, executive director 66, the number the dean wore when he played football as an undergraduate at and chief operating officer of the American Fisk University. Norris retired in July after a 31-year tenure, 16 of them as dean. Dental Association and a Tufts trustee, gave The Saturday slate of reunion activities included breakfast and two continu- the keynote speech. ing education courses: “Everything I Know about Endodontics I Learned after The Dental Alumni Association pre- Dental School,” by James Bahcall, D86, a professor of endodontics at Marquette sented achievement awards to Robert University, and “What’s New with Dental Implants,” by Hans-Peter Weber, See CELEBRATIONS, next page

Above: Dean’s Medal recipients Jess Kane, Maria Gove Tringale and John Ficarelli. Right: Dean Lonnie H. Norris tries out his New England Patriots jersey, a gift from President Lawrence S. Bacow, far right.

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Alums attend the continuing education lectures.

Left: Donna Norris, M99P, A01P, and Robert D. Buchanan, D46, who celebrated his 65th reunion.

Far left: Dean’s Medal recipients Lawrence S. Bacow and Adele Fleet Bacow. Left: D61 classmates Ed Galkin, Bennie Thompkins and Eero A. Aijala, A59.

for Tufts After Dark to enjoy the Langham’s to the Dental Fund between July 1, 2010, and chocolate bar and hit the dance floor to June 30, 2011, for a total of $368,000. The tunes that spanned every reunion year. cumulative total of annual gifts and capital On Sunday morning, Norris hosted his gifts made since these classes held their last CELEBRATIONS, continued from preceding page final reunion brunch, a bittersweet affair reunion in 2006 is $2,617,873. Buchanan, D46; Thomas F. Winkler III, for some, including former alumni associa- The Class of D61, the 50th-reunion class, A62, D66, D10P, DG12P, a Tufts trustee tion president John Meade, A54, D56, A90P, won the Porcelain Bridge Award for the high- emeritus and Crystal Krajewski, conference F98P, who noted, “The tribute to Lonnie was est level of giving participation; 47 percent coordinator for the dental school’s Division my favorite moment of the weekend.” of the class made a gift to the Dental Fund. of Continuing Education. Reunion fundraising plays an important The Golden Crown Award was presented to Reunion attendees gathered on Saturday role in advancing the mission of Tufts School the D56 class for the greatest overall giving night at Café Fleuri in the Langham for a of Dental Medicine. Each year 30 percent (annual gifts and capital gifts) since 2006, reception, before heading off into individual of the gifts made to the Tufts Dental Fund totaling $1,627,396. The award for the largest reunion class dinners or the TUDAA presi- come from reunion classes. This year, nearly Dental Fund reunion gift total went to the dent’s dinner. Guests came together again 500 alumni celebrating a reunion made a gift Class of D81, which raised $50,919.

54 tufts dental medicine fall 2011

28889p53-58.indd 54 11/11/11 7:53 PM Right: incoming alumni association president Peter Delli Colli, A69, D73, at the annual luncheon. Far right: Jess Kane, D74, DG76, G78, DG79, DO4P, DO6P, and Tom Brady, D71, toast Dean Norris.

Above: Fiftieth reunioners Bob Desrochers and Bob Cassidy, both D61. Left: In the school’s Simulation Learning Center, from left: John Millette, D91, A15P; Maryam Sholehvar, D91; Peter Cilento, D91; Helyne Hander Hamelburg, D91; Stephen Hamelburg, D91; and Cynthia Tsamtsouris, J87, D91, DG94.

Above, from left: Cherie Bishop, D94; Gigi Garcia-Rogers, D94; Janis Moriarty, D94; and Mary Jane Hanlon, D97, at the Toast to Tufts celebration. Left: Charles Hapcook, left, president and CEO of Eastern Dentists Insurance Co., presents Dean Norris and outgoing alumni association president Mostafa El-Sherif, DI95, with a check for $9,000 to support alumni weekend and other programming for alumni.

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Left: Members of the Class of 1956 celebrated their 55th reunion by winning the Golden Crown Award for the largest five-year class gift total. From left: Emile Vermette, Martin Sachs, Art Comolli, John Meade, A54, A90P, F98P, Paul Talmo, A52, J87P, D10P, and Max Perlitsh, DG65, J87P, J89P, D91P, DG94P.

Below: Sixtieth reunioners Frederick Spaulding, D51, DG55, David Stahl, D51, and Eleanor Covel-Henken, D51.

Above: Members of the Class of 2001 celebrated their 10th reunion, from left: Yen Nguyen, Terese Fay, Sepideh Najaran, Nina Gray and Andrea Alexandrian.

Above: At the annual meeting and presentation of the Dental Alumni Association’s annual achievement awards, from left: Robert D. Buchanan, D46, Mostafa El-Sherif, DI95, outgoing association president, Crystal Krajewski, Dean Lonnie H. Norris and Thomas Winkler, A62, D66, D10P, DG12P.

Right: The Class of 1961 won the Porcelain Bridge Award, presented to the reunion class with the highest level of participation in their reunion gift. Joining Leo Sanfacon, D61, far right in celebrating the achievement were Warren Woods, D78, John Ficarelli, D73, D10P, DG12P, and Dean Norris.

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28889p53-58.indd 56 11/11/11 7:53 PM Above: The Class of 1981 won the Cusp of Excellence Award, presented to the reunion class with the largest Tufts Dental Fund reunion gift. Marking that achievement, from left: Warren Woods, D78; William DiPietro, D81; Demitroula Kouzounas, D81, D10P; Joseph Penna, D81, D10P; Amy Dukoff, E78, D81; John Ficarelli, D73, D10P, DG12P, chair of the Dental M Club; Gary Warrington, D81; Joseph Kenneally, D81; and Dean Norris, who is wearing a lei given to him by Angela M.A. Chin, D81, who lives in Honolulu.

Right: Dipping into the chocolate bar, David Friedman, D71, Judy Friedman and Eric Gheewalla, A87, D91, DG93.

Left: A family reunion within a reunion, from left: Derek Wolkowicz, D97, DG00; Candace Wolkowicz, D98; John Wolkowicz, D55, D91P, D97P, DG95P, DG00P; Hertha Wolkowicz, D91P, D97P, DG95P, DG00P; Chris Wolkowicz, D91, DG95; and Terry Wolkowicz.

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John Morgan, an associate professor of Temba Mudenda, D71, and his wife, Florence, public health and community service at at the School of Dental Medicine’s Toast the dental school, has been impressed and to Tufts celebration. inspired as well. Morgan and his colleagues have trained a corps of oral health commu- nity volunteers in a rural Zambian village, and he knows how difficult it is to bring about change when resources are limited. Mudenda’s work, he said, is “a testament to the Tufts values of active citizenship, glo- balism and humanism. “Dr. Mudenda is a true decathlon exam- ple of these values,” he said. “His commit- ment to his community and his profession offers encouragement to all of us, but espe- cially to students early in their careers.” Mudenda said he was drawn to a career in dentistry because he could make the greatest difference in the lives of Zambians.

OverCOming Challenges When he returned home in 1971, the Ministry of Health assigned him to oversee a life of Firsts a health post in Livingstone, in southern Zambia near its border with Zimbabwe. He Temba Mudenda, D71, a pioneer in Zambian health care, was the only dentist for hundreds of miles. However, because he understood his coun- comes back to Boston for his 40th reunion by Laura Ferguson try’s challenges (it gained independence in 1964), was deeply concerned for his coun- orty years ago, temba mudenda, holds a master’s degree in public health trymen and possessed a certain stubborn- D71, graduated from Tufts School from the University of Michigan, would ness (“I had no plans to fail!”), Mudenda of Dental Medicine and embarked go on to become a nationally respected insisted that the government make greater F on a career his American class- advocate for preventive health and access investments in education and training. mates could not begin to imagine. He to care. Mudenda was instrumental in the devel- returned to his native Zambia to work as that It was this remarkable career that he opment of dental therapy training at the African nation’s first native-born dentist. shared with the School of Dental Medicine’s Dental Training School in Zambia. It edu- He brought with him one indispensable Board of Overseers this past spring, and for cates dental therapists, as they are called, to Tufts ally: the “black box” containing the which he gave generous credit to his Tufts provide almost all aspects of care, including instruments that all Tufts dental students education. “To me, Tufts was [about] diag- restorative dentistry and preventive care. once carried from classroom to clinic. nosis,” he said. “Diagnosis gives you the Mudenda was able to place dental prac- In Zambia, this brimming toolkit was a answers, and Tufts gave me the answers. titioners in each of Zambia’s 11 districts. revelation. Due to limited resources and “Tufts was a wonderful place [to learn],” “That way, people didn’t have to travel so training, a troublesome tooth was often he continued. “They made difficult things far to have their teeth attended to,” he said. extracted with forceps. easy, and at the end of the day, you are “That is my strength: The community is “Once [dental assistants] saw it, they real- able to transfer that knowledge to some- treated as a patient.” ized their training was different from mine,” body else. . . . In my country, when they Now retired, Mudenda was pleased to recalled Mudenda. “I could do anything say ‘teacher,’ it’s like saying ‘reverend.’ So I be back at Tufts for his 40th reunion—the because I had everything in the black box.” thank Tufts through and through.” first time since graduation. He admired Indeed, that artifact would open The admiration was mutual. As Dean how much it has changed, but then he has many doors. The energetic young dentist Lonnie H. Norris, DG80, pointed out, always been enormously proud of Tufts. was tapped for increasingly influential Mudenda’s commitment to improving care His black box remains a treasured pos- positions as the Zambian government and access to it has reached beyond Zambia session. If someone asks to borrow an expanded educational and training oppor- and influenced policy in eight neighboring instrument, he happily lends it out. “But,” tunities for its citizens. Mudenda, who also countries. he said, “I want it back.”

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D41

Howard Libby and his guest, Ruth Campbell

Front roW: Jerry Camann, Dick Wing, Bob Rubin, Max J. Perlitsh, Martin P. Sachs, Emile E. Vermette

bacK roW: John Meade, Paul Talmo, Gary Dickerman, Chuck Gaeta, Bob Moynihan, Art Babineau, Art Comolli D56

D61

Front roW: Chester Soliz, Ody LaRoche, Larry Page, Ralph Lauretano, William S. Toder, Bob Cassidy, Marshall Goodwin, Bob Murray

miDDle roW: Louis Bruno, Helen Rosenzweig Santis, Richard Mooradkanian, David Lubin, Gerry Beaulieu, Bob Desrochers, Sylvio P. Lessa, Roger A. Preston, Howard L. Feldman, Martin J. Dunn, Robert B. DuHaime, William F. Smith

bacK roW: Alan Wright, Edwin Ste. Marie, George Deemys, Leo Sanfacon, Stanley Pearlson, Peter Pool, Ed Galkin, Bennie Thompkins, Eero A. Aijala

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Front roW: Ronald F. Szopa, D66 Barry S. Briss, Danute Venckus Giedraitis, Manouch Darvish, Stephen Shusterman, Philip Bauer

miDDle roW: Louis Farrugia, John Giunta, Neil Bryant, Walter Golub, Joe Cwikla, Mike Cohen

bacK roW: Seymour Andrus, Earle Halsband, Tom Winkler, Marcel Korn

Front roW: Mike Lipnick, Elissa Heard, Laima Anthaney, Jenny Grunberg, Paresh S. Patel, Ken Groman

miDDle roW: Burton Stein, Jerry Casper, Bob Kaplan, Jack Belden, Chuck Elwell, Aljernon Bolden

bacK roW: James P. Dunn, William J. Fiore, John L. Benecchi, James Mushovic, Paul Murphy, Michael L. Cahoon D76

D71

Front roW: David Friedman, Bruce Baum, Temba Mudenda, H. Paul Ayotte, Frederic Mackler, Barbara Clark Kay

miDDle roW: Alfred Bongiorno, Thomas V. Brady, Harvey S. Miller, Mark J. Schiff, Howard Kessner

bacK roW: Andrew Kusmin, Barry Zide, Peter Rubinstein, Richard F. Struzziero

60 tufts dental medicine fall 2011 photos: fayphoto/boston

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Front roW: Paul Shamirian, Fran Clairmont, Angela Chin, May Mu, Shilla Yoon, Faeze Fadiani, Kathy O’Loughlin, Sari Rosenwein, Demi Kouzounas

miDDle roW: Michael F. Cuenin, Robert Desautels, Daniel Granger, George Benoit, Joseph Kenneally, Jon Krenz, John M. Murphy, Paul Harvey Jr., Mike Garber, Tom Chou, Robert Goodman, Joseph G. Penna

bacK roW: Joe Cardarelli, Anthony J. Romanazzi, Barry L. Vlass, Jim Sconzo, Gary Warrington, James Danko, Bill DiPietro, Bruce Boretsky, Herb Nachtrab, Jay Dworkin, Amy Dukoff

D86

Front roW: Tina L. Wang, Mary C. DeMello, Corine R. Barone, Leela B. Ghaffari, Ann Demick, Donna S. Goon

miDDle roW: David Hill, John Pisacane, Lou Hardy, Gary Westerman, Gary Demetriou, James Downs, Fred Blum

bacK roW: Randy Weiner, Gary Wong, Jay Sullivan, Chris Freyermuth, Jeff A. Harrison, Jeffrey E. Dodge, Frank L. Kuzmin, Gregory G. Zirakian

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D91

Front roW: Maryam Sholehvar, Cindy Rider, Mary Anne Donato, Krista Manickas, Raina Trilokekar, Cynthia Tsamtsouris, Sophia Karabatsos Martz, Helyne Hander Hamelburg, Rachel A. Perlitsh, Christina DiBona Pastan

seconD roW: Peter Cilento, Dennis TeeKing, Jay Hodge, Luca Dalloca, Frank Fruce, Peiman Mahdavi, Michael Perelgut, Nishan Odabashian, Eric Gheewalla, Paul Aswad

tHirD roW: Salvatore Colletta, Steve Brown, Brian Morin, Jacqueline Tjon Sieuw Morin, Nicholas Papapetros, John Millette, David Cusanello, Eric Thomas, Chris Wolkowicz

bacK roW: Jack Rosenberg, Phyllis Lee, Cathleen Wallent, Stephen Hamelburg, Brian Miller, James Pucci

D96

Front roW: Apara Sharma, Tracey Brennan, Praveen Vallabhaneni, Teresa Viglas-Salem, Lioubov Richter, Michelle Eng, Roya Abbott, Naghmeh Izadi

bacK roW: Jonathan Chason, Mark Halvorsen, John Payne, Tom Carroll, Mostafa El-Sherif, Paul Fitzgerald, R.D. Morlan

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Front roW: Reem Antun Lago, Mirna Caldwell, Maggie Malecki Tauber, Nina M. Gray, Andrea Naujoks Alexandrian, Elika Golara Mischkulnig, Sepideh Najaran, Edita Outericka, Angela Buitrago de Fabrique

miDDle roW: Anne-Marie Clancy, Renee Kurtz, Yen T. Nguyen, Jana Trnovsky, Terese N. Fay, Sandra A. Kmet, Susan Baloul, Erin K. Hoye, Anne Tran Nghiem, Bruce Nghiem

bacK roW: Brian Ting, Pascale Berty, Christina Spagnuolo, John H. Lee, Lokesh Suri, John Saraydarian, Paul Hutchinson, Jon Shusterman, Jessy Sidhu, Ted Wu

D06

Front roW: Kristin Lucas Huber, Stephanie Purner Kiefer, Fanny Jarquin, Neela Gandhi, Cristina Dominguez Griffee

bacK roW: Boris Bacanurschi, Jim Kirk, Matthew Clark, Roderic Dela Cruz, Ayman Aboushala

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Robert Keene is Red Logan Dental Clinic, which School of Dental Medicine’s an- a Dean’s Medal by Dean Lonnie D63 the recipient of the provides free dental care to the nual Toast to Tufts event on April H. Norris at School of Dental New Hampshire Dental Society’s underserved and uninsured in 29. Ficarelli was honored for his Medicine’s annual Toast to highest honor, the Dr. Eldon the Upper Valley. extensive fundraising efforts as Tufts event on April 29. Kane McRury Award, recognizing his chair of the Dental M Club during was recognized for his extraor- contributions to public service in Ira Lapidus, of the university’s just-completed dinary work as chair of the dentistry. Keene recently retired D69 Williamstown, Beyond Boundaries campaign, dental school portion of Tufts’ from practice, but still supervis- Mass., was appointed chair of which raised more than $1.2 Beyond Boundaries campaign, es the Alice Peck Day Memorial the Massachusetts Cultural billion. (For more on the cam- which raised more than $1.2 Hospital Smiles program in four Council by Gov. Deval Patrick in paign, turn to page 46.) Norris billion for the university before elementary schools of the Upper March. He is the first resident also presented Dean’s Medals concluding on June 30. Norris Valley region of New Hampshire of western Massachusetts to to Tufts President Lawrence S. also presented Dean’s Medals and Vermont, and the Dartmouth head the state agency, which Bacow, who stepped down in July to Tufts President Lawrence S. Hitchcock Memorial Hospital promotes access and educa- after leading the institution for a Bacow, who stepped down in July aides advocacy program. He tion in the arts, humanities and decade, Adele Fleet Bacow, Jess after leading the institution for a continues as the predental interpretive sciences. A member Kane, D74, DG76, G78, DG79, decade, Adele Fleet Bacow, John advisor for undergraduates at of the Massachusetts Cultural D04P, DG06P, chair of the dental Ficarelli, D73, DG10P, DG12P, Dartmouth College and is an Council board since 2000, school’s portion of the capital chair of the Dental M Club, and adjunct associate professor of Lapidus has served as a trustee campaign, and Maria Gove Maria Gove Tringale, senior direc- anatomy at Dartmouth Medical of the Williamstown Theatre Tringale, senior director of devel- tor of development and alumni School. Keene practiced general Festival for 15 years. opment and alumni relations at relations at the dental school. dentistry in Hanover, N.H., for the dental school. more than 40 years and made John Ficarelli, Paul many mission outreach trips to D73 D10P, DG12P, Jess Kane, DG76, D75A Desjardins Korea, Nepal, China, Ecuador was presented a Dean’s Medal D74 G78, DG79, retired from his position as and Honduras. He founded the by Dean Lonnie H. Norris at the D04P, DG06P, was presented senior vice president of global

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64 tufts dental medicine fall 2011

28889p64-68+c03.indd 64 11/11/11 7:57 PM clinical and medical affairs at Richard Bravman, instrumental in the develop- Lonnie H. Pfizer Consumer Healthcare on D80 DG83, A02P, ment of an antimicrobial gel DG80 Norris, July 18. Desjardins joined Wyeth A05P, and his wife, Debra (Atridox®) for the management Dean Emeritus of Tufts School of Pharmaceuticals six years ago Bravman, welcomed a new of periodontal disease. Wolinsky Dental Medicine, is the recipient (Pfizer acquired Wyeth in 2009) grandson, Griffin, in March. also assisted in the creation of this year’s National Dental to increase collaboration and Lawrence Wolinsky was of a remineralizing toothpaste Association President’s Award promote innovation among the named dean of Texas A&M (Enamelon®) to help reverse in recognition of his valuable research, development and med- Health Science Center Baylor early tooth decay. As associate contributions and devotion to ical teams. As Pfizer’s scientific College of Dentistry in Dallas, dean at UCLA, he developed a dentistry and the mission of the ambassador, Desjardins helped effective mentorship program for junior National Dental Association. raise awareness within Pfizer September 1. faculty to assist them in map- NDA President Sheila R. Brown about the consumer health- He previously ping their career development, presented Norris with the award care division and promoted the was associ- and he guided the dental school during the organization’s 98th value of well-controlled clinical ate dean for through a successful reaccredi- annual convention in Baltimore trials and consumer insights on academic tation in early 2011. Wolinsky on July 24. consumer products. Desjardins’ programs and received his certificate in peri- commitment to patients will personnel and a professor in odontology from the Joseph Kenneally continue into his retirement: He the Division of Oral Biology & UCLA dental school in 1986. D81 was elected to a will remain as chair of the Board Medicine at the UCLA School He also holds a B.S. in three-year term on the Board of Overseers to Tufts School of of Dentistry. Wolinsky had been chemistry from UC Riverside of Trustees of the University of Dental Medicine and spend time at UCLA for more than three and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic New England in July. Kenneally with his family at their home in decades and made significant chemistry from UC San Diego. is past president of the Maine Belgrade Lakes, Maine. He will scholarly and administrative “I believe dentistry can and Dental Association, past vice also continue to be involved in contributions to the dental should be better integrated president of the American Dental ACTION, a public-private col- school and to the campus. into the national conversation Association and serves the laboration among industry, the His research centered on on health care and that on a International College of Dentists FDA and university scientists to identifying new treatment mo- global level, dentists should be as an international councilor and improve clinical trial methodol- dalities for periodontal disease better integrated as health-care the USA Section as regent. He ogy in chronic and acute pain. as well as novel approaches to providers, working as part of a is the cofounder of the Dental managing caries. He was among team of health professionals,” Wellness Center of the Biddeford Leon the first to explore the plaque- Wolinsky said. “It is a worldview Free Clinic in Maine, where he DG77 Klempner inhibiting effects of natural I will promote as Baylor’s dental still volunteers caring for the launched Smile Rescue Fund for plant compounds, and he was school dean.” uninsured and indigent. Kids in May to provide funding to children born with severe facial and craniofacial deformities. Children helped by Smile Rescue we want to hear from you! have such significant challenges that they cannot be helped by Keep your fellow alumni/ae up to date about your personal and professional news their families, governmental by filling out this form. agencies and currently estab- lished charitable organizations, Klempner says. For more informa- tion about the organization, visit http://smilerescuefund.org. CHECK HERE IF ADDRESS IS NEW. Send to: Susan Ahearn, Tufts Dental Alumni Relations Charles Rankin, 1 Kneeland St., Floor 7, Boston, MA 02111 D79 DG86, D08P, email: [email protected] or fax: 617.636.4052 DG11P, a professor of endodon- Name Class tics at Tufts School of Dental Medicine, this spring received Street City State Zip the Dean’s Award for Excellence Email address in Pre-clinical Teaching for the 12th consecutive year.

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REUNION 2012, and allowing unchecked gathering surgical patients and extracted recognition of his contributions to May 4–6 of personal information for use by nearly 800 teeth. They also the academy. Giordano maintains David Dodell, corporations seeking maximum performed fluoride treatments, his dental practice in Worcester, D82 an assistant profits. The book is available on exams and other preventive Mass., and his forensic practice professor at Midwestern Amazon. care. Paul said the goal of while serving as a reservist in the University College of Dental the combined medical/dental National Guard. Medicine, has been appointed David Paul, school mission was “to immerse coordinator of dental D89 associate ourselves in both the community Nancy informatics. professor of general dentistry and culture to get a true feeling DG96 Arbree, Clara Hyun started taking at Tufts, made his sixth mission for what these people are living associate dean of academic harp lessons about four years trip to Nicaragua this past winter with on a day-to-day basis. affairs at Tufts Dental School, ago and recently gave a recital to lead an oral health-care There is nothing like 22 people completed Drexel University’s at the New Jersey Performing team from Tufts Dental School. all sleeping on simple bunk beds Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Arts Center. Twelve students and faculty from in one room and eating rice and Leadership in Academic Tufts School of Medicine joined beans at every meal to get you Medicine Program for Women, a REUNION 2012, the mission to provide care to into the swing of things.” Paul yearlong national fellowship that May 4–6 those in the most isolated and said he hopes that experiences prepares senior women faculty Glen Goleburn, underserved areas of Nicaragua. like these will encourage in medicine, dentistry and public D87 of Wilmington, The Tufts Dental team included students to continue volunteering health to move into positions Del., is the author of the Nathan Clem, Brock Olson and to care for the underserved. of institutional leadership. thriller, Do I Recognize You? Elizabeth Turner, all D11. The Arbree, who was mentored by (CreateSpace 2011), which team was again based in the John Giordano has Dean Lonnie Norris during the focuses on facial-recognition small village of Tadazna, where D96 attained the sta- program, called the experience tracking of retail shoppers. The they spent 12 days living and tus of member in the Odontology “life changing” and said it was an novel illustrates the risks of working without running water. Section of the American excellent opportunity to enhance embracing tracking technology The Tufts contingent treated 250 Academy of Forensic Sciences in her leadership skills.

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66 tufts dental medicine fall 2011

28889p64-68+c03.indd 66 11/11/11 7:57 PM obituaries

Ronald Lauren Castro, compassion for patients and are among the 13 recipients DG99 Perry, D09 a resident in oral outstanding interaction with all of the 2010 Richard C. Pugh clinical professor of prosthodon- and maxillofacial surgery at the levels of staff, including peers.” Achievement Award from the tics and operative dentistry at University of California at San American Board of Pediatric Tufts Dental School, was chosen Francisco, received the Krevens Arash Goli, Dentistry. This award honored as a featured member of the Award for Patient Care, which DG10 Santhosh the top 3 percent of scorers Eco-Dentistry Association, an recognizes “clinical compe- Veeranna, Jennifer Blair, D08, on the May 2010 Qualifying organization committed to a tence, professional conduct, and Amanda Kopacz Peer, D08, Examination. dental profession that values both “outstanding patient care and outstanding planetary care.” Members pledge to consider the IN MEMORIAM environmental impact of their practices in areas such as dental H. Robert Chooljian, D43A Jerome Gordon, D53 Charles F. Bobeck, D61 processes and materials, office March 2, 2011 March 4, 2011 February 17, 2011 administration and marketing, Haverhill, Massachusetts Palm Beach Gardens, Florida Northbridge, Massachusetts and office construction, design and furnishings. For more infor- John F. Flavin, D47 Marvin L. Kessler, D53 Maurice R. Michaud, D61 mation about the organization, June 25, 2011 March 30, 2011 April 16, 2011 go to www.ecodentistry.org. Concord, Massachusetts Latham, New York Concord, New Hampshire

Fred Bonacci, Lino Tiberi, D47, D88P S. Kenneth Wolfson, D53 William A. Gibson, DG62 D00 DG06, had his May 1, 2011 July 17, 2011 July 9, 2011 case report, “Hard and Soft Columbia Station, Ohio Lexington, Massachusetts Metairie, Louisiana Tissue Augmentation in a Post- orthodontic Patient,” published Richard B. Bartlett, D48 Joseph E. Kelly, D54, DG59 Richard S. Hornung, D65 in the January/February 2011 May 23, 2011 March 7, 2011 April 28, 2011 issue of the International Dunedin, Florida Milton, Massachusetts Swampscott, Massachusetts Journal of Periodontics & Restorative Dentistry. Allan I. Glazin, D48 Charles M. Friedman, D55, Joseph J. Berte, DG70 June 27, 2011 DG58 March 13, 2011 REUNION 2012, Weston and Malden, December 31, 2010 San Antonio, Texas May 4–6 Massachusetts Hollywood, Florida Cara Coleman Thomas J. Watson, DG73 D02 purchased the Marian H. Lipski, D48, DG50 Harold L. Brehm, DG56 July 6, 2011 practice of Richard Groves, June 4, 2011 July 19, 2011 Amarillo, Texas D09P, in Andover, N.H., in May. Manchester, New Hampshire East Orleans, Massachusetts Coleman has been in private David M. Fletcher, D74 practice in Massachusetts Thomas W. Quinn, D49 Arnold H. Goldberg, D56 April 28, 2011 and New Hampshire since May, 22, 2011 April 4, 2011 Kingston, New York New Castle, New Hampshire Beverly, Massachusetts graduating from Tufts. She was named a “top dentist” by New Bruce V. Pankauski, D74 Francis P. Cassidy, A48, D50, Arthur G. Ciampa, D59, J94P Hampshire Magazine in 2010. April 22, 2011 M79P, A81P April 4, 2011 West Newbury and Salisbury, March 31, 2011 Beverly, Massachusetts Massachusetts REUNION 2012, Auburn, Massachusetts May 4–6 Anthony J. Koury, D60 Donald F. Clem, D82, D11P Justin Au and James J. McHugh Jr., D52 April 27, 2011 May 11, 2011 his wife, Karen D07 April 22, 2011 Quincy, Massachusetts Albuquerque, New Mexico Kwong, welcomed a daughter, Marshfield, Massachusetts Emily Caitlyn Au, on January 19. Donald B. Stackhouse, D60 Carl J. Toga, A48, D52, A77P, May 24, 2011 Jennifer Blair and A83P Jackson, New Hampshire D08 Amanda Kopacz April 12, 2011 Peer, see DG10 Boston, Massachusetts

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DIvIsIon of ConTInUInG EDUCATIon TUfTs UnIvERsITY sCHooL of DEnTAL MEDICInE One Kneeland Street Boston, MA 02111 Telephone: 617.636.6629 Fax: 617.636.0800 Email: [email protected] Web: http://dental.tufts.edu

Don’t miss out. For more information about these and other courses, visit go.tufts.edu/dentalced.

cONtiNuiNg eDucatiON

NOvembeR 16 DecembeR 9 Osteonecrosis and Osteomyelitis of the Restoration of the Endodontically Jaws: Tips and Tricks on Prevention and Treated Tooth: A Step-by-Step Discussion Management for the General Dentist of Clinical Innovations Dr. Daniel Oreadi Dr. George Freedman

NOvembeR 18–19 maRch 9, 10, 17 OR 24, 2012 Introduction to Dental Sleep Medicine Radiology Certification Course Drs. Noshir Mehta, Noah Siegel and apRil 13, 2012 Leopoldo Correa First Impressions Do Count! Creating the DecembeR 7 Aesthetic Restoration: Hands-on Composite Simplified Oral Surgery for the Layering and Class II Restorations General Practitioner (lecture) Dr. Howard Glazer Dr. Robert Edwab JuNe 2, 2012 DecembeR 8 Esthetics Simplified Oral Surgery for the Dr. Stephen Chu General Practitioner (hands-on) Dr. Robert Edwab Tufts University School of Dental Medicine is an ADA CERP-recognized DecembeR 8 provider. ADA CERP is a service of the Products for Stress-free Dentistry: American Dental Association to assist dental professionals in identifying quality Where Have You Been All My Life? providers of continuing dental education. Dr. Fay Goldstep ADA CERP does not approve or endorse individual courses or instructors, nor does it imply acceptance of credit hours by boards of dentistry.

28889p64-68+c03.indd 68 11/11/11 7:57 PM 28889p64-68+c03.indd 69 11/11/11 7:57 PM NoNprofit org. School of Dental Medicine U.S. poStage

136 Harrison Avenue paid BoStoN, Ma Boston, ma 02111 perMit No. 1161 www.tufts.edu/dental t U ft S UN i V er S it Y offi C e of p e of UB li C atio NS 8259 11/11 8259 NS

survived, and thrived John Saunders, d52, lived through unimaginable horrors at the hands of the Nazis. he went on to build a rewarding life for himself, as a student,

dooher a dentist, an air force captain, a N husband, a father and a teacher. “i’m delighted i’m alive,” he says. “i won.” for more on his story, turn to page 26. hoto: Kathleehoto: p

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