University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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3tt fnitarram ROBERT HAROLD OSTER B. S., M.S., Ph.D. The student body, both present and future, have suffered a lamentable loss in the un- timely death of Robert H. Oster, Professor of Physiology, in January, 1960, of lung cancer. Since 1949 when Physiology became a separate and self-contained laboratory course with its own staff, Dr. Oster had been the Chief of that staff, and had helped many students with many problems, both physiological and personal. A person whose most remarkable characteristics included a love of teaching, a very deep personal interest in all young people and a truly sincere interest in all things scientific. Dr. Oster came to the school unusually well prepared for his teaching post. He was a graduate eletcrical engineer from Penn State University, where he taught physics for a number of years. His Ph.D. was taken in physiology at Harvard, where he had taught medical students all of his graduate years there. He taught on the staff of both medical and dental courses here at Maryland until he attained his professorship in 1948. During the decade in which he headed the Department of Physiology, there have not been any failures on the National Boards in his discipline, a cogent factor in the student re- gard. His was a philosophy that always allowed time for a student to freely discuss personal problems, or for an extensive elaboration on an abstruse point in physiology. He tried most earnestly to maintain a high level of academic excellence in not only his own teaching, but also that of his assisting staff. He recognized the lack of practical application in physiology when taught from the basic science perspective, and attempted to remedy this by keeping on the teaching staff at all times clinical men, both an M.D. and a D.D.S., to provide the applied physiology instruction. The students take this opportunity to pay tribute to Professor Robert H. Oster in due cognizance of his life-time dedication to professional school teaching, and his many years of invaluable service, both personal and professional, to dental students. i3Y