Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery - Dental Columbian Yearbook (New York, NY)

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times worse! In retrospect, we find it difficult to conjure up specific memories. Instead, we recall just a blur of exasperation, anxiety and bewilder- ment. We bought a dental engine and a weasel kit, stocked our room with mandrels,- burs, lathes, plaster, a casting machine, and a calendar to tell time. We said farewell to mom, dad, and all our friends, and worked until dawn seven days out of every week, only to learn after four months of C and B that we were six months behind and falling farther back every minute. WHO SAID AMALGAM ' S A O GOOD? ) the urge to hide in our locker, we introduced ourselves and started taking compound impres- sions. After several weeks of this, we were be- ginning to run out of explanations for the patient as to why the procedure was being repeated so often. Finally, the instructor whispered those three little words . . . pour it up . . . . and we were on our way. Operative Dentistry and C and B supplied more evidence to us why dental school is four years long. We had much to learn in making IN MY HANDS, THBRE IS Noy WEAE IS NO- - SHADE PROBLEM Just when we were about to go down for a count of ten, Pharmacology reared its ugly head. After that, our mind went blank until a sunny day in June of 1952, when our glassy eyes read a transcript telling us we had passed . . . yes, we had passed! Summer time, and the living was easy ... es- pecially after sophomore year. Many of us jour- neyed far from the city and engaged in a variety of occupations from carpentry to camp counsel- loring, in an effort to mend our wounds and for- get the past. Returning with renewed vigor in the fall of ' 52, we strolled onto the clinic floor (with a cocky junior swagger) and discovered an edentulous patient sitting in our dental chair. Suppressing the transition from typodont to human mouth. It wasn ' t long before we overcame the feel- o ing of guilt which swept over us when we found there was nothing .to do in the evening. So, we said hello to mom, dad, and our friends again, took the TV set out of storage, and settled down to the pleasant task of living a relatively normal life once more. Our days bustled with activity . . . Thera- peutics, Diagnosis, Surgery, Medicine, Perio . . . dozens of courses, and we were eagerly assimi- lating all we could. The junior year was a good year. Yes, Act III will certainly be remembered as the happiest in the four act drama of our dental education. 22

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SENIOR CLASS HISTORY It ' s over! Four years that were crowded with work, worry, anticipation, frustration, success . . . and now it ' s all over. Or, is it really? As we sit back and close our eyes, enjoying that warm satisfying feeling of fulfillment, we find a myriad of memories . . . some happv and some sad . . . but all of them, we know, will forever be a part of us. appropriate pages of Gray ' s Anatomy, and we emerged from the ordeal triumphant . . . and several pounds lighter. Bailey ' s Text-Book of Histology . . . that sounds familiar, doesn ' t it? 781 pages of big print, little print, drawings, photographs and footnotes . . . all well calculated to keep us in suspense. Weary, bleary eyes peering through microscopes; mumbl- ing, grumbling students fumbling through the text. Finally, the final, and fini to Histology! DOr T ARGUE! IF I SAY 0HE1SEQM£ THEN 60AJB JS So V£ J ALL RIGHT THEM. - (T Our thoughts drift back through the years . . . ' 53, ' 52, ' 51, ' 50 . . . September 1950, when it all began. The onset of our dental careers might best be described as insidious. With an experienced senior advisor acting as a guide, we paddled our way through the river of registration red tape and were anxious to begin. One of the first things we learned, was that the freshman year was the proverbial breeze. This morsel of knowledge was obtained from a bitter sophomore who spoke of the good old days in Gross Anatomy. Ah, yes, Anatomy. It ' s been a long time, but how vividly we recall that final practical. The white-haired, soft-spoken Southern gentleman calmly asked us questions about the cadaver we had grown to know so in- timately . . • and suddenly, we felt as though the figure on the d issecting table were a complete stranger! But somehow, our coffee-laden brains managed to parrot back the contents from the Physiology, Biochemistry, Neuroanatomy . . . the plot thickened. Confusion was king and we were his sleepless knights. We tried to find that sophomore who told us about the easy fresh- man year only to discover him on the 8th floor, babbling incoherently about something called Pharmacology and Crown and Bridge. In the meantime, a course known as Oral Anat- omy was proving to us that although we had carved model airplanes as kids, and had put to- gether a handpiece for Dr. Holliday, we still were no mechanical wizards. But soon, it was ended. We were no longer clumsy, wide-eyed freshmen. We were clumsy, wide-eyed sophomores. In sharp contrast to the previous year, our sophomore year began explosively and the pace never slackened. Assuming the attitude that it couldn ' t be as bad as upper classmen had said, it wasn ' t long before we realized that it was ten Pogo cartoons by Ronald Granger, used through the courtesy of Wolf Kelly, and may not be reproduced without specific permission of Mr, Kelly. 21

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Another summer passed, and we came back to school anxious to overcome the last obstacle on the road to our D.D.S. degree .... the senior year. Shades of sophomoritis ! We found ourselves once again racing to meet requirements. But, this time, we weren ' t able to pack the object of our efforts into a weasel kit to catch up. Even our Pedo patient couldn ' t squeeze into that little tin tool box. Never before had so many tried to do so much in so short a time. We soon became thoroughly acquainted with the Comprehensive Case System. After submit- ting our diagnosis and finding out why it was all wrong, we commenced work. Before long, we were working on several prosthetics patients at once, and each morning upon opening our lock- er, we ' d be buried beneath an avalanche of fall- ing models. In Operative, we accumulated points and hunted for Class III foil patients. In Pedo lec- ture we learned that very few children are un- manageable, and in Pedo clinic, two such cases were assigned to us. 1 WAWT To SEE THAT HOfiS£5HO£ B tPG£OH TH£ DIES, fi OM { SrrMULUS--- GO AH ID , TC W SBE TFROM - ZAVOCAI J£ Our once abundant vocabulary deteriorated to about ten words . . . requirements, stools, com- prehensive, dies, gold foil, miscast, graduation, instructor, and double impression. And suddenly, it came to a halt! There was nothing to do over ... no points to get ... no patient to call ... no worry to awaken us from slumber in the quiet night . . . nothing was left except the memories. But memories, like messengers from the past, linger on. And, despite the headaches and disap- pointments each of us experienced in those four eventful years, there are countless happy remem- brances to warm our hearts for the rest of our lives. The parties, the fine friends we made, the oood times we had, our association with men o devoted to dentistry ... all these things and so many more we will cherish. Opening our eyes now from this session of reminiscing, we realize that it ' s not all over by any means. Dental school was only the begin- ning of our professional lives. A whole wonderful future lies ahead. Columbia has given us the very best dental education, of which we are justifiably proud. The rest is up to us. Warren Nadel 23