M Dentistry - Fall 2022

Faculty Profile

Dr. Larry Salzmann: Pediatric dentistry is rewarding; teaching it is even better

Growing up in a family of mechanical engineers, Larry Salzmann decided to break the tradition and go to dental school. His vision of how his dentistry career would play out didn’t go much beyond the idyllic Midwestern town where he grew up – Moline, Illinois, one of the Quad Cities that straddle the Mississippi River between Illinois and Iowa.

“Dentistry seemed like a way of helping people and being a bit independent,” he recalls. “I really looked up to my family dentist when I was a kid. We also had a dear family member who was a dentist in a small town and that’s what I thought I would do. Go hang up my shingle over Schlegel’s Rexall Drug Store and fix teeth all the time and be part of the community. It seemed like a great lifestyle and a great way to interact with people.”

Forty years later, his career in dentistry has had a much wider impact than his relatively narrow expectation when he went off to the

Northwestern University School of Dentistry in Chicago. He found a rewarding niche in pediatric dentistry and accidentally discovered that he loved being an educator. Beyond the countless patients he’s treated over the years, he’s had a part in educating and influencing hundreds of students who went on to become dentists around the country.

Salzman joined the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in 2016 after 34 years of teaching at the Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) dental schools. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry and is Director of the Predoctoral Program in Pediatric Dentistry as well as Clinic Director for Pediatric Dentistry.

Salzmann’s move into teaching was serendipitous. He was leaning toward pediatric dentistry when he graduated from Northwestern with his DDS in 1979, but he practiced general dentistry for a year in

Chicago to make sure pediatric dentistry was the direction he wanted. It was, so he completed a two-year pediatric residency at a children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He returned to Chicago thinking he would join or start a pediatric practice, but there was an oversupply of dentists at the time. Checking in with the pediatric chair at his alma mater, he was offered a teaching job and accepted, figuring it would be a “filler job” until he could settle into a private practice.

“That filler job turn out to be the love of my life,” Salzmann says. “Like finding out that pediatric dentistry was for me, I found that teaching was the icing on the cake. Like most of us dental students, it was something I had never been trained for, but it was something that I felt good about. All of a sudden I was the mentor for all of these mentees. I could take that raw piece of clay, if you will, and form them.”

From 1982 to 2001, Salzmann worked his way up through the faculty ranks at Northwestern to clinical associate professor in the pediatrics department. When Northwestern closed its dental school in 2001, Salzmann’s career moved only a few blocks across downtown Chicago to a faculty position at the UIC dental school. He advanced to the rank of clinical professor over the 15 years he worked there. During both of those faculty tenures, he maintained a private practice, from 1982-2010.

The scholarly interests he pursued include education methodology, curricular development, dental informatics, pulp biology and HIV/ AIDS. He helped establish community dental rotations for students that included health centers whose primary target populations are migrant farm workers and people living with HIV/AIDS, the latter supported by a federal grant.

In 2016, as he reached a breaking point with the administration at UIC and considered retiring, he heard about a faculty opening in pediatrics at U-M and decided to pursue it. After living for 34 years in downtown Chicago – and never owning a car – the move to Ann Arbor was jarring at first. However, he soon settled into a routine in which he splits time between an apartment in Ann Arbor and a home he owns in New Buffalo, Michigan.

As he did with his students in Chicago, Salzmann said he tries to provide a welcom ing environment for learning to treat children – it’s as much an art as science – and also an appreciation for the importance of pediatric dentistry. Salzmann shares his experience in how to warm up to children who are scared of dental care, as well as the intricacies of treating the unique dental problems of young patients ranging from toddlers to teenagers. Equally important, Salzmann emphasizes the need to communicate to both the young patients and their parents about the importance of good dental care as it relates to overall health.

“Many of the problems we see are things that could be prevented with good oral care – not enough brushing and flossing, cavities between the teeth, using mouthguards to prevent injuries in sports,” he says. “We are sort of standing on the soap box preaching and hoping our patients and their parents listen. It’s not just educating the patient, it is educating the whole family, whether it is grandma who is head of the family, or Mom or Dad. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we could have families and kids brush and floss, watch their snacking, live more healthy lifestyles – those are the things we’re trying to instill.”

“I tell my classes even today that I’m not going to make all of you pediatric dentists, but I want to give you an appreciation of what it’s like working with children. And then you can help us out in your general practices. But I may have a few of you come over to the pediatric side, then I’m happy, too.”

Salzmann’s method of teaching has drawn praise since the beginning. His CV has a lengthy list of awards he received from students and administrators at Northwestern and UIC, and it didn’t take long until similar commendations began arriving at U-M. What’s the secret to his teaching success?

“The expression is ‘Follow your bliss.’ I am very fortunate that I found education and teaching. It is my bliss. I just love it. I continue to learn, especially from my students. I honestly don’t know what I do that students like. I’m just me. This is what you get. I do find joy in teaching, so maybe that’s part of what comes through. I was on the other side of the student-faculty equation at one point in time, and I appreciated those faculty who, assuming I had the basic raw skills to work with, helped guide me to the right spot. And I’m happy to continue doing it with my students. It’s a great satisfaction. It’s nice to get an award, but it’s that individual student who says thanks at the end of the day, or that little kid who says thanks at the end of the day, that are the most reinforcing.”

D3 students Robert Mora and Miranda Eberle observe as Dr. Larry Salzmann examines a young patient.