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

Page 26 text:

m our years ago we began our professional education at Columbia. At that time gradu- ation certainly seemed a thing of the far distant future. Today, on the eve of comple- tion of our study program, we can look upon a collection of many happy, a few sad, but always beneficial experi- ences. We came to Columbia from undergraduate schools throughout the country, wide-eyed and enthusiastic; eager to make an auspicious beginning. The first class gathering was the orientation week cocktail party, given in our honor by the Alumni Association. Here, after an introduction to our staff and curriculum, the first organizational influences in the class became apparent. One sober resident of Long Island was imposed upon by his more spirited neighbors to escort them home, and Car Pool 1 was formed. This organization was to last four years, and was matched in duration, even surpassed in size, only by the Thermos Club, a varied bunch who came to school equipped with lunch- boxes and steaming thermos bottles; and the Garibaldis, a group whose common ancestral origins bound them to- gether in an alliance of mutual aid and admiration. As we embarked upon our professional education, the staff stressed the importance of integration and correlation. Any knowledge which cannot be correlated with other knowledge is useless, we were told, and it will be your responsibility to integrate the material presented to you. How true this sentiment was, for as beneficiaries of a newly developed schedule we were shown schemas of the noives while recarving lateral incisors, and learned of the erup- tion patterns of perrnanent teeth by folding lily cups. Those early efforts with selective grinding and waxing crowns were quite frustrating, as we developed a full mouth re- habilitation plan for our typodent models. Slowly, however, we mastered this portion of our education, at the same time pursuing our studies in the preclinical sciences. Here, syringes of pneumococci were thrown at instructors while they were questioned about the eclipse phase of viral growth, sometimes likened to a Hershey bar. The science of Pathology was taught to us in a small, warm, drowwssy roooom, as we superimposed new and colorful cells on our old Histology drawings. Above all, we continued to inte- grate and correlate. On the eighth floor we smudged our faces with rouge and tripoli, and then continued the process downstairs with a smoke blackened kymograph drum. Our introduction to Oral Surgery soon followed on a very grand scale, with stereophonic sound and a wide angle screen. To be sure, many late hours of study marked the Sophomore year, as exams in the science courses stimu- lated our thinking classmates to run a profitable barter system with Central Autonomic stimulants as standard currency. Finally, we emerged, from the queezes in Anatomy and the showers in Biochemistry; from infarcts, sodium pumps, and Neostigmine; eager to ignite our didac- tic education with our clinical experience. The first big test came in Periodontia. One day in Sophomore year, a blizzard blanketed the entire city with snow, and the patient shortage was topped only by the total absence of instructors. In this setting we began our career as clinicians. 22