"Here's What Grandpa Taught Me"

by Dr. Murray Rosenthal

My father was a graduate of the UB dental school in 1934, and my grandfather was also a dentist.

When I was a kid I was very close to my grandfather and I used to visit the office where my grandfather and father practiced.

My grandfather would take me into the lab and I would pour stone models of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. Then I would go develop x-rays. I found dentistry to be fun as a kid. I would also make - I learned from him - little model animals from cotton rolls. I learned all this then.

Later, when I was in dental school, I had an externship that they'd just begun at Children's Hospital. God, was that wonderful.

I spent two weeks in Children's Hospital just before my senior year. They sat me in there, and no one told me what to do. And I'm filling kids' teeth and learning about the management of children. I did my "coochie-coos" and all the things you do with kids that are fun.

And I said, "Here's what grandpa taught me." So I would make the little animals for them with compound cotton rolls. I put a little animal on the cord for the hand-piece that they used to have in those days. And you'd see the rabbit and the fox running around the cord.

This is the stuff that I was playing with in the Children's Hospital as well as doing fillings. And the doctors were coming to see what I was doing. I said to my professors, "You know, this is the best thing!"