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

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Senior Class History Alas! how swift the moments fly! How flash the years along! Scarce here, yet gone already by, The burden of a song JOHN QUINCY ADAMS The days, nay the weeks, often appeared to move by at an all but imperceptible snail ' s pace — but in retrospect, one realizes that the past four years, considered as an entity, have indeed sped by at a greyhound ' s clip. It is not the dictates of custom that seems to pre-determine the nostalgic nature of this section — it is rather a somewhat im- ponderable but eminently real desire to review, and even relive, a past segment of our existence before initiating a new phase. Hence, at the cul- mination of our professional training we feel no one would begrudge us the luxury of a few pages of reverie. As we disengage ourselves from reality, we find our minds straining to reconstruct an image of a perfectly ordinary September day in 1951. Slowly the haze dispels and we see it all with surprising clarity. Instantaneously, an alert, confident, and cocky group of college graduates was reduced to a hesitant, wide-eyed, and insecure freshman class. The first year was spent in solitary confinement on the ninth floor — a diet of anatomy (gross, microscopic, neuro, oral, and embryology) sub- stituted for bread and water. Gross anatomy was our first imposing hurdle — after months of diligent dissection, the foreboding final exam came upon us — if only we had known in advance that writing the questions in the proper exam booklet was suf- ficient basis for a passing grade! Remember the frantic pace of the histology lectures — catastrophe was an ever-present potential — a dropped pencil in the amphitheater resulting in a classmate ' s future inability to distinguish a fallopian tube from a seminiferous tubule. How about those dreaded modern art quizzes! Each and every section of the central nervous system in neuroanatomy resembled an abstract pencil sketch. Embryology taught us one fundamental biological principle — salamanders can definitely be bred with cephalic pedal extrem- ities. We struggled with physiology, biochemistry, oral histology, and with apologies to the human- ities, dental history until we reached our first tech- nic course — dental anatomy. Here we became fa- miliar with the neophyte ' s guillotine — that awe- some weapon of total destruction — the Boley gauge. This was also our basic training ground for the sophomore debacle, becoming familiar with such basic commands as too convex, do it over — too concave, do it over — too narrow, do it over — not to mention do it over for the intrinsic value of the phrase alone. The sophomore year began with the exhilarating feeling of being able to walk into the elevator and say, eight, please. The generally held feeling was that the year might be difficult but nothing could be as impossible as rumors would have us believe. The harbinger of despair and frustration came upon us quickly in the form of our sophomore kits — 4,397 items and we were familiar with nothing but plasticine. Bacteriology enabled us to see the wisdom of a student health fee — autoinoculations, 25

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Doctor, would you check this out for me? Rinse, please — - Stimulate Bleeding 1 . fa. (k How about giving him an inlay!

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Last laugh! misdirected inhalations, and seeding of the incuba- tor room with live organisms being daily occur- rences. Indeed, by the time the course ended a large portion of the class was on a first name basis with Dr. Lamb. Pathology lab was the accepted forum for political discussions and social arrangements. The pace of the first trimester was relatively slow and we began to grow more confident, assuring each other that the year really wasn ' t so tough; and even became bold enough to sneer at the juniors for their greatly exaggerated reports. At this point we met the casting machine and the picture changed suddenly. A combination of miscasts, mis- takes, misconceptions, and missed deadlines began to affect our gastric mucosae. The weasel kit re- placed the brief case as standard equipment and our average daily budget now read as follows: car- fare 30c, lunch 65c, cigarettes 24c, ivorine teeth $7.34. To darken the picture the prosthetics staff began to remind us that a certain amount of work had to be completed and in the same breath kept reiterating that quality was more important than quantity — to aid us in the former endeavor they posted a schedule which is now legend; the fastest man in the class was three and one-half months behind the day it was unveiled. Of course the op- erative department had its own little games, their pet ones being called Line Angle, and Polish It Up. The funny yet sad part of it all was that we students could never quite learn the rules under which these games were played. Then came the obstacle course of the second year — pharma- cology. The lectures acquainted us with every major drug and potion used since the time of Galen whereas the exams were designed to acquajnt us with the minor drugs for which there was no lec- ture time available. Who will ever forget our first blessed day on the clinic floor in periodontia. To be succinct, it was bedlam! Patients turned on the water for us, showed us how to manipulate the chairs, and even pointed out the light switches. It is generally conceded that patients for that session were given $50.00 gift certificates for any future dental work at the medical center. The summer before the junior year was de- voted to relaxation and wonder at the miracle of accomplishing the previous year. It was the time for marriages and contemplation of the approach- ing country club year. The first thrill of the junior year was being asked for advice by one of the sophomores and the feeling of self-importance as we answered it. We couldn ' t resist frightening the sophomores with stories of their year which were identical to the ones we had discounted such a short time ago. Most of us found a full denture patient at our unit the first afternoon and we got right to work trying to get an acceptable primary impression. We were hesitant about doing so, but nevertheless told the patient that in all probability he would be eating his Thanksgiving turkey with his new dentures. In operative dentistry it soon became apparent that your best friend was your junior typodont. Crown and bridge and oral pa- thology were frighteningly reminiscent of the pre- vious year. Operative patients finally arrived and Dam! 26