I m p ressio n s
ses·qui·cen·ten·ni·al
by Dr. Stephen T. Radack III, Editor
seskwәsen 'tenēәl/
adjective
relating to the 150 th anniversary
of a significant event.
noun
a 150 th anniversary.
Happy Sesquicentennial and welcome to this special keepsake
edition of your Pennsylvania Dental Journal celebrating the
milestone 150 th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Dental Association.
I wonder if those first members back in 1868 ever imagined
that an organization of likeminded dentists they started would
still be in existence in the 21 st century. I am sure it would be
even harder to imagine the incredible changes that have
occurred not only in our profession, but the state, the country
and the world.
I know how much dentistry has changed since I started dental
school back in 1982 and can’t imagine going back in time, let
alone even thinking about how different treating patients was
when PDA was started. Just consider even the basic essentials
of what we take for granted today as we treat almost every
patient: local anesthetic, the high-speed handpiece, an electric
hydraulic dental chair, light cured composite and how impression
materials have evolved from rubber base to vinyl polysiloxane
(VPS) to no impression at all with digital scanning.
Think also about the changing face of dentistry over these 150
years. I would imagine those founding fathers were all white
males, but today a scan across the profession shows half of the
dentists now are women. As a senior colleague of mine
reminded me recently in an email, there has been a striking
change in what were mostly European names of our members’
last names to a large diverse population of dentists that are of
Arab, Middle Eastern, African, Asian and Indian descent.
That same change has also occurred in the tripartite of the
ADA/PDA and the component dental associations. In my local
Erie County Dental Association alone we have always
encouraged younger members to seek leadership positions,
and the current board is made up entirely of members younger
than 40 years of age; and the majority are women. As many of
you know, two of the last three past presidents of the ADA
are women, and since the turn of this century we have had an
African American and Asian as president.
I do not take up too much space in this special issue with my
words. There are guest editorials from our emeritus editors, as
well as so much history of our PDA to read about, a trip down
memory lane indeed. Pay special attention to the all of the
awesome photos the staff has compiled from the archives and
look at this cover. It is an amalgamation of so many of our past
covers.
It is truly my privilege to be the editor of this publication as we
celebrate this milestone and I am honored to follow in a long
line of excellent editors that preceded me, especially those
during my years as a member: Dr. Marvin Sniderman, Dr. Judy
McFadden, Dr. Rich Galeone and current PDA president
Dr. Bruce Terry. I consider myself lucky that during my tenure as
your editor, this milestone journal is being published.
Thanks to all our dedicated members who continue to be a part
of this association and to the leaders that have blazed trails in
organized dentistry since our founding 150 years ago. Also a big
THANK YOU to my associate editor, Dr. Gulia Omene, and to our
awesome PDA staff, especially Rob Pugliese for his dedication to
this publication for the last 20 years.
And finally don’t forget to mark your calendars for Pennsylvania’s
Dental Meeting, PDA 150, on April 27-28 in Hershey to celebrate
our sesquicentennial. Hope to see you there!
Enjoy this treasure!
— STR3
MARCH/AP RIL 2018 | P EN N SYLVAN IA DEN TAL JOURNAL
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