Word: dentists
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Conant sent dental students to the Medical School for basic science in struction because 1) it is better there than it was at the old Dental School and 2) it makes the dentist aware that he is dealing with a part of medicine and of the human body, not a unit in itself. Furthermore, the new School of Dental Medicine was to emphasize research as a means to preventive dentistry. Theory was to become of much more importance in the training of a practicing dentist...
...furor burst because Conant turned a 73-year-old trend into a revolution and left some 2000 dentists "without heritage." He made the Dental School a satellite of the Medical School, which caused such a storm of protest across the country that the new ste-up wasn't recognized by any dental association for seven years. And to cap it all, at a time when only 34 per cent of the American people are receiving adequate dental care, Conant cut Harvard's yearly dentist output from...
...them despite all odds. The controversy, in fact, which arose over the 1940-41 changes over, dates back to Eliot's report of 1873-74. He mentioned at that early date "a division of opinion in the dental profession as to the expedience of having a separate degree for dentists, some persons maintaining that every dentist should be, like an oculist or acurist, a doctor of medicine...
Eliot raised the issue even more exactly in his report of 1880-81 and actually started the upheaval which Conant carried out. "Some dentists maintain," wrote Eliot, "that a dentist, like an oculist, is a physician with a speciality, and that nothing short of the full course for the degree of Doctor of Medicine can be satisfactory; others say that a dentist is simply a fine craftsman, and that there is little use of any training except that of the eye and hand. The Harvard Dental School occupies an intermediate position, which satisfies neither of these extreme parties...
People spoke, but no one took any action. Dr. Milton C. Winternitz stood up at Yale and tried to organize a "master dentist" plan. He proposed that a dentist who also held a medical degree be placed in charge of clinics of regular dentist, and that the dentists consult the master dentist on all cases in order to be sure that every complication was take care of. He was laughed down...