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Most of us believe that cutting edge thinking and experimentation takes place in Universities hence the term, "Intitutions of HIGHER LEARNING." The fact of the matter is that parts of universities are propelling human advancement and the other parts of the Universities want to keep these institutions entrenched in the last decade.
For the last 17 years, I have been prodding the Dental School at SUNY/Buffalo to move into the 21st Century and for a very brief time, I succeeded. My friend, Fred McIntyre and I convinced Dean Goldberg that destroying tooth structure for the sake of 'strengthening' teeth was old fashioned thinking and that our patients in the mid 1990s wanted beautiful smiles like they were seeing on television. Dean Goldberg understood that significant advancements were being made in dentistry in materials and techniques and he wanted SUNY/Buffalo to be part of that revolution and to that end he asked Dr. McIntyre and I to create the world's first Esthetic Center at a Dental Schools.
The problem that we had was that the full time faculty only knew old style dentistry and they wanted to teach only the techniques and materials that they were experts using. And so they opposed the formation of the Esthetic Center and ultimately had the Center closed. Currently, about 60% of all dental fillings are done with bonded composites but the Dental School still teaches the old silver/mercury filling techniques.
I was devistated when the Dental School announced that the Esthetic Center was closing in 2007 and I wrote to the President of the University of Buffalo asking him to have the Dean reconsider. The President asked me to speak with the Vice President in Charge of the Medical and Dental School and I took two days off from work to meet with Dr. Dunn who told me that he would look into it.
Five years later, the Dental School is STILL teaching silver/mercury fillings, I recently wrote another letter to the NEW President of UB, Dr. Satish Tripathi who forwarded my letter to the NEW Vice President in Charge of the Medical and Dental School, Dr. Michael Cain.
What do you think Dr. Cain is going to do? Ask me to visit him in Buffalo? Probably.
But the fact of the matter is that the Universtiy LIKES to teach 1980s style dentistry.
What would I have done if I was Dr. Tripathi? I would have called me to schedule a meeting with him and the Dean of the Dental School and asked the Dean if my complaints were true. And then I would have FIRED THE DEAN.
Change is necessary. Change is not optional and change is what propels humanity to our next level of progress. It's time to FIRE people that can't do what we hire them to do and won't keep an open mind to new ideas.
Change is humanities only hope.
PS: I am not a chronic complainer and Susan and I donated over $100,000 to the University of Buffalo.
