Nix, James T.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 10 | Number 4 Article 3October 1942The Inter-Relation of Doctors and DentistsEspecially as Applied to Catholic ActionJames T. NixFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationNix, James T. (1942) "The Inter-Relation of Doctors and Dentists Especially as Applied to Catholic Action," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol.10 : No. 4 , Article 3.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol10/iss4/3THE LINAORE Q U ARTERLY THE INTER-RELATION OF DOCTORS AND DENTISTS ESPECIALLY AS APPLIED TO CATHOLIC ACTION BY J A ME S T. NI X, M.D. NEw ORLEANS, L oUISIA NA The activit ies of the dental pro-fess ion have always been very close to me--naturally enough as I have been -teaching General Surgery in the School of D en-tistry of Loyola U niversity for the p as t fifteen year s. On many occasions I have dis-cussed the inter-rela tions of doc-tors and dentist s; once before the American Colleg e of D entist s, and again before the American College of Surgeons. In my book A S u1·geon R eflec ts there is a chapter on "Doctors, Dentist s and Disease ." For these r easons the question of closer affil-iation and cooperation of Catholic doctors and dentist s of N ew Or-leans is a natural one to me. I think of the phys ician and the dentist as children of the same parents. I can now p icture before me the united home of a d evoted medical family-an aged, sturdy father. whose cumula t ed wisdom of years has been reflected, nur-hu·ed and developed in each grown child. There a re two st a lwa rt sons, leaders in their chosen fields, whose active lives a re enlist ed in aiding their afflicted fellowmen . How beautiful is the affection, how strong a re the attachments of the boys to their vigorous sis-ter, Hygeia ! M.D. and D .D.S., worthy sons of a worthy sue, Aesculapius. Certainly Dr. Morton of Bos-ton and Dr. Brophy of Chicago were as worthy as a ny sons of Aesculapius. F ew men in history more clearly illustrate the inseparable relation-ship of dentistry and medicine than William Morton, D .D .S., of Boston, and Dr. Truma n Brophy, D.D.S ., of Chicago. Dr. Morton was the first to demonstrate be-fore the public that ether could be used as an anesthetic for all operations, even though the anes-thetic was first discovered and used as such by the surgeon, Crawford Long. Today, both do ctors and dentist s give anes-thetics. Dr. Brophy , Founder and Pres-ident of the Chicago College of Dentistry and President of its Board for forty years, including the time of its absorption into Loyola University of Chicago, se-cured an M.D. degt"ee in ot"der to broaden the field of his activities in his chosen call ing of dentistry. Although a phys ician, he was pre-domin antly a dentist by vocation and by activities-the father of the cleft p ala t e and h a relip oper-ations which are still the st and-a rds of today. The Master Surgeon, D:r. J. B . Murphy, said of Truman Brophy: "He had thoughts sublime that pierced the night like stars and in [ 81] 1' HE LIN AC RE their mild persist ence led men on to vaster issues ." In the last few yea r s a great er fusion has taken place between the profess ions as a great modern con-troversy has been waged a round the ques tion of whether or not dentistry should be a sp ecia lty of medicine. In order to obtain some current informa tion on the subj ect, I sent a questionnaire to some seventeen dental schools in N orth America . I received an answer from the deans of thirteen of these schools : N orthwes t ern, Ma rquette, Minne-sota, New York, Ma r yland, Illi-nois, Louisville, Michigan, St. Louis, Baylor, Georgetown, P enn-sylvania Unive rsities a nd from the College of Phys icians' and Sur-geons' School of D entistry of San Francisco. However, one dean did not answer a ll of the ques tion-na u e. From this ques tionn a ire I ob-t a ined the following information: QUAR1'ERLY mission Clinic ; one was an Assis-t ant Professor of Oral Surgery in the Dental School a nd an Associ-a t e Professot· of Surgery in the College of Medicine. In answer to the question wheth-er students of medicine and den-ti stry should follow the same course for the two or more year s : Nine said "No", three said "Yes" . In answer to the ques tion wheth-er dentistry should be considered an advanced specialty of medi-cine: T en deans said "No, it should not"; the deans of St. Louis and the U niver s ity of Illinois said "Yes". In seven of the thirteen dental schools some thirty members of the dental faculty have an M .D . as well as D.D.S. degree. The University of Illinois a nd the U ni-ver sity of P ennsylva nia each had eight men with both degrees . In three of the dental schools, how-ever , there were no fa culty mem-ber s with both degrees . The men with both degrees taught medi -cine ; dentistry ; ana tomy; physi-cal diagnosis a nd pathology ; den-t a l p a thology ; maxilla , oral and fa cia l surgery; and prosthetic dentistry. One was a H ealth Offi-cer ; one an Associate in an Ad-In answer to the ques tion wheth-er they knew any dentist s sp ecia l-izing 'in oral surgery , anesthes ia , a nd other conditions , twelve said "Yes" to ora l surgery, five said "Yes" to anes thes ia , one knew of some dentist s sp ecia lizing in gen-eral diseases of the mouth. The dean of the U niver s ity of P enn-sylva nia D ental School knew of a number of dentist s without the M.D. degree sp ecia lizing m "ma jor maxillofac ia l surgery" . . In answer to the ques tion of [ 82] whether there should be a close r affiliation between doctors and dentist s, t en said "Yes", two did not a nswer, 'one sa id he did not think it practical. The ways suggest ed for bring~ ing about a closer affili a tion: 1. By consultation. 2. By syst emic treatment for dental disease. 3. By making dental intern-ship in hospitals compulsot·y. THE LINACRE QUARTERLY 4. By requiring medical seniors to spend twenty hours ob-serving cases in the examina-tion room of a dental clinic. 5. By providing dentist s with a better knowledge of clinical medicine. 6. By providing medica l prac-titioner s with a better under-st anding of histology a nd pathology . 7 . By ma king dentistry a sp e-cialty of medicine. This , however, was expressed only by two of the deans. It was almost the una nimous opinion of the deans tha t dentistry is a n autonomous profess ion and the various school s of dentistry in America have been autonomous for the past hundred years and so should r ema in, whether or not there is a ffiliation with a medical school. Whenever or wherever a dental school is a p a rt of and under di -rection of a medical faculty-the loss of autonomy decreases the standards of the denta l school and hamper s progress . D enta l and medical education a iJ·eady have achieved some unifi-cation in such pla ces as Italy where a dentist must t ake an M.D. degree. In our own country, H a r-vard U nivers ity tra in s dentist s in it s medical school. The sp lendid Graduate Medical School of the U niversity of P ennsylva nia · re-quires both a n M .D . and D.D.S. of those who would sp ecia lize in head surgery . In most American universities pre-dental a nd pre-medical ·courses overlap in many studies . However, the ques tion before us Is not whether dentistry is a spe-cialty of medicine, but whether the Catholic dentists of New Orlean s should be organized a t all and, if so, independently or a s p a rt of, or in some way affili a t ed with the Catholic Phys icia ns' Guild. It may be well for us to keep in mind the close rela tionship of the two professions. In study ing the quest~on of whether Ca tholic dentists should be organized, we begin to wonder why they h a ve not a lready been organized. When the N a tiona l Catholic Physicia ns' Guild was first formed, it was meant to pro-vide a bulwa rk for ethi cal proce-dure and consider a tion. Since such ethical ques tion s did not a f-fect dentist s, they wer e not invited to join. At the p resent time, how-ever, the Catholic Physicians' Guild has become an important factor in Catholi c Action . The Constitution of the Ca th-olic Physicians' a nd Guild of Chicago lists points as its pm·poses. of these is : Dentist s' fourteen The fi1·s t To constitute a brotherhood of physicians · a nd dentist s who will t each and · practice the ideals of the Ca tholic r eligion by diligently cultiva ting the spirit a nd practice of prayer, by attendan ce at Holy Mass even on weekdays if poss ible, by the fr equent reception of the Sac r aments, particula r ly the life-giving Sacr ament of the Holy Eucharist, a nd by a!Jnual a tten-dance a t a r etreat for laymen. Only in the las t of the fourteen points of the constitution is the [ 83] THE LINAORE QUARTERLY original object of the first Cath-olic Physici ans' Guild stated: To instruct our fellow-practi-tioners as t o the correct procedure in doubtful cases upon which they seek the decision or t eaching of the church. Mrs. A. P. Dillon, wife of a for-mer president of the F ederation of Catholic Phys icians' Guild, writes us : "If inviting the dentists to join, will strengthen the Guild and pos-sibly help to strengthen the Cath-olicity of the individual denti st and interes t him in Catholic Ac-tion, ther e is no reason why they should not be admitted * * *. Some of our Guilds admit den-tist s; some do not. I understand tha t those who do admit them, a re well satisfied." Furthermore, the inclusion of dentist s is optional in the opinion of the national organiza tion . Aga in, Mrs. Dillon says : "My husband, when he was President of the F ederation, al-ways stressed the point tha t the F edet·ation a · such, never dictates to any MembCJ"-guild in local mat -ter s. Some Guilds adm it dentists, o;; ome do not; some admit women phys icians, some do not; some have a yearly retreat, some do not ; some have six meetings a year, some have two. These ques-tions, it has a lways been felt, a re purely local ones, that must be de-cided by the members themselves. The main obj ect of the F eder ation is to acqua int Guilds in different parts of the country with wha t other Guilds a re doing, and to [ 84] exert a certain amount of na tional strength in trying to ba r ce t· tain offensive legislation, etc." The best r eason for the organi-zation of Ca tholic dentist s is ex-pressed in a letter to us from Mon-signor Gruenewald, Chancellor of the Ca tholic Physicians' and Den-tist s' Guild of the Diocese of Belle-ville : "After all, the Guild is essen-tia lly a Ca tholic Action society . Why should it not profit by the strength of number s to be derived from the membership of denhst s who are so closely allied with the physician. Catholic dentist s are for the most part without organi-zation; * * *. But with us, Cath-olic physicians and dentist s are few in number and often live at a dist ance from one another . It was, therefore, the bes t course for us to take both groups into the one Guild and thus give also the dentists an opportunity to partici-p a t e in the Catholic apostola t e." R egarding the question wheth er the Catholic dentist s of New Or-leans could be better organized in-dep endently or as a part of the Catholic Physicians' Guild, let us review the situa tion : In Boston, Catholic dentists have had an independent organiza-t ion for the pas t twenty-one years. This organization is the Guild of St. Appoloni a, which g ave to the world the first Catholic dental journal- The A ppolonian. This o;;ep a rate guild seems to be wa r-t·a nted by the la rge number of Catholic dentists practicing in Boston. The Guild has tht·ee hun -THE LINACRE QUARTERLY dred members and its journal a circulation of twelve hundred. One of the outstanding works of this Guild has been the dental care in the last twenty years of some two hundred thousand parochial school children in Boston. In many of the larger cities of America, for example, New York, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City, Catholic Guilds of dentists are functioning independently. In Newark, Belleville, and other places, Catholic dentists are or-ganized in the same guild as the physicians-a Catholic Physi-cians' and Dentists' Guild. In Newark, some of the officers are dentists. From these instances we can see th~;~-t the question of whether Cath-olic dentists should be organized separately or with the Catholic physicians is one of local prefer-ence. However, regarding the New Orleans situation, there arc these further considerations: It might be easier for the den-tists of New Orleans to attend our meetings or join our organnation if they desire and, as they develop numbers and interest, to decide for themselves and ourselves whether they could function better in our larger group or in a separate organization. In these times of war, the effort of creating a separate organiza-tion at the outset might be uncle-sirable, especially as our own ranks and those of the local den-tal profession arc being depleted by the war. Again, there is th~ old argument: "In union there is strength.", One gn~at .organiza-tion might be better than two lesser ones. But the greatest of all argu-ments for the organization of Catholic den tists and their union with Catholic physicians is the argument of greater Catholic Ac-tion. Only on the principles of Christianity as vitalized in Cath-olic Action can be maintained the just peace outlined by Roosevelt and Churchill and pleaded for by His Holiness. Only in organ-ized Christian leadership enforc-ing Christian p1·inciples and com-batting every vestige of evil will there be redemption for our war-t·ing generation. As I see it, only through the acceptance of Christ with a stmng endeavor to apply His teachings, so well exemplified in Catholic Action-love of God and love of neighbor-can a just and lasting peace be effected. In this Crusade, regardless of what means may be-come necessary, the two sons of Aesculapius-doctors and dentists - must go hand in hand under one banner or under two, inseparably united. The time to institute closer affiliation has been delayed already. Let us start today! [ 85] 

The Inter-Relation of Doctors and Dentists Especially as Applied to Catholic Action

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The Inter-Relation of Doctors and Dentists Especially as Applied to Catholic Action

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