The Navy Dental Corps’ ongoing committedness to acquisition and grooming is exemplified successful the communicative of the Naval Postgraduate Dental School (NPDS) which celebrates its 100th day connected February 3rd, 2023.
Originally known arsenic the Naval Dental School, NPDS was founded by the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) successful 1923 arsenic a “department” of the Naval Medical School successful Washington, D.C. In those archetypal years, NPDS provided acquisition for recently commissioned dental officers arsenic good arsenic infirmary corpsmen who represented our archetypal dental technicians. The schoolhouse besides operated an progressive prosthetic laboratory, a five-chair wide dentistry clinic, a two-chair prosthodontic clinic, and a prosthodontic laboratory, each uncommon among dental schools astatine the time.
From the precise beginning, NPDS earned a stellar estimation for its grooming capabilities and prime of instruction. In 1924, Navy Surgeon General Rear Adm. Edward Stitt, the erstwhile caput of the Naval Medical School, stated that “no schoolhouse oregon laboratory successful the state is amended equipped for our enactment and we person endeavored to get from the starring dental colleges and clinics the champion that they person had to connection to marque up the courses to beryllium given.”
Students successful those archetypal years received acquisition successful “medical section duties,” bacteriology, dental prosthesis, objective dentistry, preventive dentistry, dental radiology, insignificant oral surgery, wide pathology, hematology, and metallurgy. Its plankowner instructors included Lt. Cmdrs. Harry Harvey and Joseph Mahoney, aboriginal leaders successful the nascent Dental Corps; and Lt. Cmdr. William Darnall, Sr., who served arsenic the archetypal caput of the school. Today, the Darnall sanction lives connected arsenic the namesake of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s Biomedical Library.
Both past and present, probe and innovation has been a hallmark of the school. Navy dentists assigned to the schoolhouse tin beryllium credited for processing the acrylic prosthetic oculus to code the shortage of solid eyes successful World War II; designing diversion rima guards and casualty grooming devices similar the Navy’s archetypal bleeding trauma mannikin (“Mr. Disaster”); processing a escaped moving air-driven turbine handpiece that required little unit to chopped a bony structure; and lasting up an orofacial symptom halfway to measure and dainty patients with “atypical symptom presentations” similar temporomandibular disorder, neuropathic pain, neuralgias, and headache disorders.
NPDS relocated from Washington, D.C. to Bethesda, Md., successful 1942, on with the Naval Hospital and Naval Medical School. Collectively these 3 institutions became portion of the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) on with the recently established Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI).
Over the people of its history, NPDS has organizationally fallen nether the Naval Hospital/Naval Medical School (1923-1936); Naval Medical Center Washington, D.C. (1936-1942); National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md. (1942-1975); National Naval Dental Center/National Naval Regional Dental Center (1975-1983; 1989-2004); Naval Dental Clinic, Bethesda (1983-1989); National Naval Medical Center (2004-2009); Navy Medicine Manpower, Personnel, Training and Education Command (Navy Medicine MPT&E) (2009-2012); and the Navy Medicine Professional Development Center (NMPDC)/Navy Medicine Leader & Professional Development Center (2012-Present).
Since February 1923, erstwhile NPDS launched its archetypal wide postgraduate course, precocious acquisition has remained 1 of its top strengths. Through the years the program has continued to germinate and grow to conscionable the dental and operational needs of the Navy. In 1949, NPDS initiated the archetypal specialized courses oregon residencies. Today NPDS oversees implicit 30 satellite people continuing acquisition programs successful dentistry and 7 afloat accredited postgraduate dental residency programs.
After 100 years of service, NPDS remains a beacon for outstanding technological and evidence-based acquisition and innovative cost-effective highly productive grooming programs. Capt. Steven Stokes, NPDS dean, summarizes the school’s bequest best: “Our unwavering halfway ngo has been and remains dependable successful processing tomorrow’s leaders by grooming operationally oriented and captious wartime dental specialists to conscionable Fleet requirements and unsocial subject KSA capabilities successful enactment of the Warfighter,” said Stokes.
Superbly augmented with grooming successful combat and peacetime dentistry, NPDS’ ongoing Graduate Dental Education (GDE) constitution and sustainment missions proceed to service arsenic the superior unit generating shaper for the Fleet and represents the cornerstone for the postgraduate dental pipeline, projecting aesculapian powerfulness done innovative acquisition and cutting-edge probe for sustained Naval superiority.
Sources:
Annual Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Navy to the Secretary of the Navy for Fiscal Year 1923. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923.
Annual Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Navy to the Secretary of the Navy for Fiscal Year 1924. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1924.
The Dental Corps of the United States Navy: A Chronology, 1912-1987. 75th Dental Corps Anniversary Committee, Inc, 1987.
Stokes, S. Naval Medical Postgraduate Dental School Remarks, Accessed January 2023.
Stitt, E.R. Letter astir Naval Dental School. The Military Dental Journal, Vol. VI (1), March 1923.
Velez, E. Naval Medical Leader and Professional Development Command. Medicine and the Military, 17 May 2022. Accessed from: https://www.medicineandthemilitary.com/relevant-articles/naval-medical-leader-and-professional-development-command
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