Page 23 - COM Outlook - Winter 2013

23 COM Outlook . Winter 2013
MELNICK MEMORIES
Looking Back…at Our Dental School
By Arnold Melnick, D.O., M.Sc., FACOP
Founding Dean of Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine (NSU-COM)
Preceding the new school by almost 40 years
was an interesting vignette. At the age of nine,
my son was injured and required specialized
dental care. I did not know the specialist recom-
mended. He was Seymour Oliet, D.D.S., founding
chairman of the Department of Endodontics at
the University of Pennsylvania, who treated my
son successfully. Over a period of years, we be-
came close friends. He and his wife visited Florida
once or twice a year, and we always got together
for dinner. Our running joke—and neither of us
believed it or was serious about it—was that
SECOM would start a dental school and Seymour
(Sy) would become the dean.
Fast forward to 1995: Morton Terry, D.O., and
I kicked around the thought of another health
school, and after we eliminated the runner-up
idea (veterinary medicine), we felt dentistry was
the way to go. When the idea was presented to
the NSU Board of Trustees, the members im-
mediately approved a taskforce. For a number of
reasons, this was the first time we went the usual
academic planning route. We organized a large
taskforce with representatives from every inter-
ested constituency, including the NSU Board of
Trustees, community dental experts, NSU admin-
istrators, deans, and many other groups. Since it
would become the first new U.S. dental school in
25 years, we needed a thorough study.
Here my background came into play for we ap-
pointed Sy Oliet, who had retired and relocated to
Florida, to be the taskforce’s chairman. We decided
there were four areas that needed investigation:
national need for another dental school; adequacy
of the applicant pool; adequacy of the patient
pool; and financial feasibility. Dr. Oliet brought in as
impartial outside consultants five nationally known
dentists, some of them deans or former deans
from across the country who proved to be most
helpful and contributed much insight, knowledge,
and experience to the founding process.
Due partly to the voiced opposition of the
American Dental Association and the state dental
society (based on the recent closings of several
U.S. dental schools), we selected Steven Zucker,
D.M.D., M.Ed., our AHEC Program director, to do
an intensive study of the situation. Following his
investigation, Steve found that the closures did not
represent a failure of the dental profession. As we
later reported, “Although dental school closings in
those years were erroneously blamed entirely on
shrinkage of the applicant pool, many were prob-
ably the result of planning problems and manage-
ment problems on the part of the school.”1
The taskforce accepted Steve’s findings and
voted unanimously to recommend establishing a
new dental college. The Board of Trustees subse-
quently approved it, recognizing the outstanding
work Dr. Oliet had done as the taskforce’s vol-
unteer chair, and immediately and unanimously
appointed him as the inaugural dean.
Throughout the entire process, one of the
most helpful participants was Ray Ferrero, Jr.,
J.D., the future president and chancellor of NSU.
Thanks to his multifaceted expertise, he shep-
herded the proposal through the administrative
process to final approval.
Dr. Oliet dealt with the details expeditiously,
putting together a curriculum and attracting a
multitude of outstanding faculty members. The
Health Professions Division (HPD), with input
from faculty and staff members, developed from
scratch a brand new dental building (75,000
square-feet of space), using a novel architect-
builder system, in just 28 weeks. We went from
the germ of an idea in 1995, to official approval
in 1996, to first student in 1997—a period of just
two years. Perhaps best of all, the HPD was able
to absorb the initial capital costs and operational
losses that occurred in the first few years.
The rest, as they say, is history. Steve Zucker’s
findings, predictably, were right on target. We
always found a large pool of capable applicants,
and today we have a larger number of applicants
than many other schools. Our clinical services
are in constant demand, and we always have full
waiting lists for appointments for dental services.
Over and above all that, since our founding
and success, several new dental schools have
been developed successfully, and several more
are now on the drawing board, completely
reversing the decline that some believed dental
education was facing.
(1. Melnick A. and Oliet S: Founding a new dental school at Nova
Southeastern University. Journal of Dental Education 65:3, March
2001, pp.262-268.)
Some may say the story
of the NSU College
of Dental Medicine is
not really a part of the
Southeastern University
College of Osteopathic
Medicine’s (SECOM)
history. But I, and those
who look at the bigger
picture, see the dental
school as a child of
SECOM (the precursor to
NSU-COM). For SECOM,
through a couple of
iterations (Southeastern
University of the Health
Sciences and NSU’s
Health Professions
Division), can be said
to have given birth to
the dental school in
1996. And SECOM can
be proud of the part
it played.