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Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is an American dental school located in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill. In addition to the DMD degree, HSDM offers specialty training programs, advanced training programs, a Ph.D. program affiliated with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Master of Medical Sciences & Doctor of Medical Sciences degrees in Oral Biology.
Today, HSDM is the smallest school at Harvard University. With a total student body of 280, including pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students spread over several disciplines, HSDM is an intimate community of students and faculty. Even when compared to other dental schools, HSDM is small, and its total living alumni number is approximately 2,300 worldwide. While HSDM is small, it continues to have considerable influence on dental education and research within the broader oral health community. Of the 54 dental school deans in the United States, sixteen are HSDM alumni (as of 2005). Many other HSDM alumni pursue careers as full-time faculty members, department heads, and leaders of organized dentistry.
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In the early 19th century most dental practitioners had either learned their "trade" through apprenticeships, or they simply offered their services to the public as self-proclaimed experts. The move toward more formal dental education in the United States began when the state of Maryland chartered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1840. The establishment of this independent college, which may have occurred after the University of Maryland refused to add dental education to its curriculum, exemplified the nineteenth-century debate over whether dentistry should be part of scholarly education, or be taught in separate "trade" schools. As a result of this resistance, the four American dental schools that existed by 1865 were all freestanding. The move towards university-based dental education institutions (as they exist today) began with the formation of Harvard Dental School in 1867. Dr. Reidar F. Sognnaes, noted oral pathologist and founding dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry, commented on the significance of the school\'s formation in a 1977 New England Journal of Medicine article:
Harvard was the first dental school to award the DMD degree[citation needed]. Harvard University only grants degrees in Latin and school administrators thought the Latin translation of Doctor of Dental Surgery ("Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris," or CDD) was too cumbersome. A Latin scholar was consulted and suggested "Medicinae Doctor" be prefixed with "Dentariae." This is how the DMD, or "Dentariae Medicinae Doctor" degree, was started. Other dental schools made the switch to this notation, and in 1989, 23 of the 66 North American dental schools awarded the D.M.D. There is no difference between the DMD and DDS degree; all dentists must meet the same National & Regional certification standards. Harvard also helped to establish the BDent degree program at the University of Sydney which was heavily modeled after Harvard\'s DMD curriculum.
The school was established as Harvard Dental School in 1867, but renamed the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1940. This symbolic change was made to emphasize the biological basis of oral medicine and the increasingly multidisciplinary focus of dental research.
Early Graduates
Deans and Former Deans of US Dental Schools
Other Notable Alumni
| Schools of Harvard University |
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| Faculty of Arts and Sciences: College• Continuing Education
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences • School of Engineering and Applied Sciences |
| Faculty of Medicine: Medical School • School of Dental Medicine |
| School of Public Health • Law School • Business School • Graduate School of Design |
| Graduate School of Education • Divinity School • Kennedy School of Government |
| Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (successor to Radcliffe College) |
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