Two Unlikely Health Professionals Bridging the Gap Between Medicine & Dentistry
In 1940, Dr. Sumter Arnim, a faculty member of the Department of Operative Dentistry at the Medical College of Virginia, was reviewing literature for a prevention lecture that he was to give. Dr. Arnim found an article written by Charles C. Bass, a medical doctor and former dean of the Tulane Medical School, in the Southern Medical Journal.
The article was focused on the causes of tooth decay and prevention in which Dr. Bass wrote, “I am surprised that the dental profession has scant knowledge of the causes of tooth decay.”
Dr. Arnim was also surprised and said of Dr. Bass, “I was amazed to find that a physician could know more than a dentist about how to prevent dental caries by keeping teeth clean….I decided to write to the old man and tell him how wonderful it was to learn that he was writing such articles, and I hoped to see him someday.”
Dr. Arnim eventually did meet Dr. Charles Bass and they both forged an impressive relationship between two health professions where a chasm ran very deep. Dr. Bass, a medical doctor had unlocked the secret to prevention in dentistry and went on to become the “father of preventive dentistry.” Dr. Arnim, a dentist, used the newfound secrets of Dr. Bass to later become the preventive dentistry consultant to the Surgeon General of the United States Air Force and work closely between both professions.
Today, opportunities to work very closely between professions has never been greater or more needed! Studies abound linking chronic mouth inflammation with heart disease, cerebral stroke, diabetes, asthma, erectile dysfunction, osteoporosis, low birth weight, Alzheimer’s, and recently pancreatic cancer.
Three leading health challenges facing the world today include heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. All three of these “medical” diseases lead the way to a global healthcare crisis, and all three of them can be linked to the oral flora. The age of information is amazing and has made it possible for health professions to work together, without disconnect—to treat the whole patient. Today’s world of healthcare often ignores the whole health of the patient while dentists drill and medical doctors bill.
Harvey Mackay, a prominent businessman and author once said, “Our lives basically change in two ways, by the people that we meet and the books that we read.” A revolution must take place in order to reverse and change this global healthcare crisis.
Providers from all over the nation will be joining this revolution by meeting new people and attending the 6th annual AAOSH Scientific Session in Orlando, Florida, September 16-17th. Help change the future of healthcare today—just like the two unlikely health professionals nearly 80 years ago—by bridging the gap between medicine and dentistry.