"I Learned This in Dental School"

by Dr. Murray Rosenthal

In my senior year in dental school, the faculty was different than the previous years. You could ask questions, and it was easier. They would listen to you when you said, "Oh, I had this idea. Oh, I read this." The change was amazing.

Now that I'm thinking back what it did for me, it did shape me quite a bit. For instance, they had a new group in surgery that came through my senior year. They were from the Army, and again they were nurturing kind of people.

One time, the head of surgery was showing me how to extract a tooth, and he showed me this elevator. He said, "This is what does it. The forceps should only take the tooth out. The extraction is done by the elevator."

Now, when I work with young people I've set up a lot of clinics and I've worked with a lot of young dentists and I see them struggling, I say, "You know, I learned this in dental school. It's the elevator." So I go in with my elevator and I show them what to do, and the teeth come out and the dentists look at me and say, "How do you do this?" And I say, "I learned this in dental school."