23 minute read
Five recents gifts that are helping transform various programs and initiatives at the school
Major Henry Schein Gift Honors Former Dean Laurie McCauley
The main predoctoral clinic used by dental students at the School of Dentistry has been named in honor of U-M Provost Laurie McCauley, the former dean of the dental school.
The naming was announced Oct. 24 by school leaders in recognition of a major equipment donation to the school by Henry Schein Cares, the corporate citizenship program of Henry Schein. The company is the world’s largest provider of healthcare solutions to office-based dental and medical practitioners, with operations in 33 countries and territories.
The series of first-floor clinics where patients are treated by dental students and faculty will now be named the “Henry Schein Cares Clinic in Honor of Laurie K. McCauley, DDS, MS, PhD.” About 50 invited guests gathered for the ceremonial unveiling of the name displayed on a wall in the clinic.
Before being appointed Provost of the university in 2022, McCauley served as dean of the dental school for nine years. She joined U-M as an assistant professor of dentistry in 1992, becoming an associate professor in 1996 and professor in 2001. From 2002-12, she chaired the Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine. For more than 25 years, McCauley has led an active research program in hormonal controls of bone remodeling, parathyroid hormone anabolic actions in bone and prostate cancer skeletal metastasis.
Dean Jacques Nör said it is fitting the main clinic for students earning their DDS degrees should be named for McCauley, who has had a major impact on the school over the last three decades.
“Laurie’s leadership and vision have been remarkable throughout her career – as both our Dean and previously as a faculty member and department chair,” Nör said. “She has literally transformed our school through the recent renovations, known to many as Blue Renew, which created state-of-the-art laboratories and clinics where we teach and train our students, and provide quality care for patients from all backgrounds. Laurie, your contributions continue to leave an enduring legacy on our school and it is truly fitting to add your name to our predoctoral clinics.”
Nör also thanked Henry Schein, which was represented at the naming ceremony by its Chief Executive Officer Stanley Bergman and several other members of its leadership team. “Your dedication to expanding healthcare access and promoting a holistic approach to care aligns perfectly with our school’s mission of advancing health through education, service, research and discovery,” Nör said.
As part of the agreement, Henry Schein is providing equipment, products and supplies in each of the next five years. As the School of Dentistry expands its work using digital technology, the donation includes digital dentistry equipment to support education and patient care, to be used in programs like Community-based Collaborative Care in Michigan and in Global Initiatives in Oral and Craniofacial Health. Bergman said the collaboration links the dental school’s internationally recognized record of educational and research excellence with Henry Schein’s commitment to improving oral health worldwide.
“For decades, Henry Schein has been dedicated to expanding access to health care in underserved communities,” Bergman said. “We believe that health care is a human right, and have long supported efforts globally to advance that cause. Henry Schein also has been at the forefront of highlighting holistic approaches to care, including the strong connection between overall health and oral health, and we are pleased to join with U-M in support of this important effort.”
Naming the clinic for McCauley recognizes her longstanding body of work in research, administration and leadership related to oral health and education, Bergman said. “We all know that Dr. McCauley is a leading voice internationally in support of oral health as an integral part of overall health, as well as a highly regarded academic administrator recognized for her integrity and commitment to research,” he said.
“While the students and profession will benefit from this partnership, most importantly this clinic is a valuable resource for the underserved communities of Michigan, especially in rural areas that lack access to oral healthcare,” Bergman said.
In her remarks acknowledging the naming as an “amazing honor,” McCauley thanked Henry Schein and its leaders who attended, the dental school and Dean Jacques Nör, and numerous colleagues whom she said supported her while she was a professor and dean of the school.
McCauley noted the school’s long history with Henry Schein and its support of dentists worldwide for decades. She applauded its valuesbased culture that prioritizes delivering care to underserved communities, a hallmark of the company under the leadership of Bergman, who has been CEO since 1989. She also thanked Steven Kess, Consultant, Global Strategic Partnerships, for his wisdom and support of the school when he served on her Advisory Committee while she was dean. Early on during the Covid-19 pandemic, she recalled the company and in particular Chief Corporate Affairs Officer David Kochman reaching out frequently to offer support during an extremely challenging time to provide healthcare.
“(Henry Schein) is a model corporate citizen, an incredible partner in catalyzing healthcare access in particular, education and delivering care to underserved communities,” McCauley said.
Michel Daccache (DDS 2006): Repaying the Dental School With a Gift for the Ida Gray Fund
The distance between where he came from and where he is today is so great, both literally and figuratively, that Dr. Michel Daccache can’t help but be grateful for those who helped him along the way.
From his vantage point as a successful oral and maxillofacial surgeon operating at two major medical centers in Las Vegas, Nevada, Daccache looks back on his time at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry as nothing short of life-changing.
Daccache finds it amazing to be where he is today given that his family immigrated from Lebanon in 1989 when he was in the fifth grade. Seeking to escape the Lebanese civil war, one of his grandfathers had previously immigrated and established a shoe repair business in Las Vegas, then he sent for the rest of his family. The large extended family – Daccache’s mother, his two siblings, aunts and uncles – all lived in the same residence at first. Over time, the hotels and casinos in Las Vegas provided steady and long-term employment for the family members. Daccache’s father, who had been delayed by a glitch in his immigration status, also eventually arrived, supporting his family as an accountant and cab driver.
As Daccache approached college age and the need to decide on a career, it would have been easy to make a life by working on the Las Vegas Strip and the vast network of jobs that support it. But there was this family story that had been oft-repeated since he was a child in Lebanon. One of his grandmothers there was missing all of her teeth. One day, young Michel, probably 7 or 8 years old, told his grandmother that someday he would become a dentist and make dentures for her. It was a cute moment that could have faded from memory, but family members embraced the story and kept it alive over the years, often reminding Daccache of his “promise” to his grandmother.
So that’s the path Daccache took as he obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Nevada-Reno. He was a good student, but coming from a blue-collar family with no dentists or other professionals to act as mentors, Daccache knew he needed help. He learned about a summer enrichment program at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry called Profile For Success (PFS). Designed to encourage students from disadvantaged backgrounds, historically underrepresented minorities and first-generation college graduates, PFS tutors students to prepare them for the Dental Admission Test (DAT) and to provide insight into the profession of dentistry. He was invited into the PFS program the summer between his junior and senior years at Nevada-Reno.
“I came out to Michigan for the PFS program and that’s where my life changed right there,” Daccache said. “Those people took care of me. I got prepared for the DAT test and I did really well on it. That allowed me to get accepted not just by U-M but by multiple dental schools. My story all goes through PFS. It truly gave me my shot at success.”
Daccache’s gratitude for the U-M dental school deepened even more after he decided to return for his DDS. The support he received from faculty – especially faculty members Drs. Todd Ester, Kenneth May and George Taylor – seemed like family. He notes that going through such a challenging educational program is difficult for young people in their early 20’s who are prone to mistakes and need some early-life guidance.
“Dr. Ester felt like a father figure,” Daccache remembers. “He always would try his best to protect you and look out for your best interests, knowing where you were coming from and making sure you had the proper guidance and resources to succeed at Michigan.”
After graduating with his DDS in 2006, Daccache spent the next four years at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania to complete a rigorous residency in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. In 2010, he returned to Las Vegas to begin his OMS private practice. Early on he also taught at the UNLV dental school, but today he is focused on his private practice and work as a Level 1 trauma surgeon at the University Medical Center and at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.
Performing complex orthognathic surgery and repairing facial trauma is especially rewarding, Daccache said. “People are so appreciative for what you do, and that’s very fulfilling. You have somebody who has been in a car accident with severe facial fractures and you are able to use your training to help them and reconstruct their face and get their life back in order.”
Daccache never got the chance to make the dentures for his grandmother; she died in Lebanon while he was in college before entering dental school. Yet that family story inspired his career in dentistry, then oral and maxillofacial surgery, and ultimately his ability to help thousands of patients over the years of his career.
“I treat every day as having the privilege of treating patients,” he says. “Especially from where I came from, I value and cherish the education I received. I think it’s a gift to be able to do what I do for a living. I treat it like that.”
Daccache’s gratitude for the dental school led him to recently make a foundational gift of $50,000 to establish the Ida Gray Legacy Student Fund, named for the first African American woman to graduate from a U.S. dental school when she earned her DDS at U-M in 1890. The fund will support the PFS program that meant so much to Daccache’s introduction to dentistry.
“Now as I look back and I think about how fortunate I am in life, given the situation I’m in right now and where I’ve come from – from a war-torn country, that my grandpa got us all to America, that we lived four families to a house with my grandpa, that my family held me up to the promise of my grandma’s teeth. To know where I came from, it is pretty amazing. Sometimes it’s good to sit back and talk about it. I don’t get a chance to do that much, to appreciate it, because we are so busy working. So to be able to talk about it and say, wow! That is pretty cool.”
Julie Thomas (DDS 1989): an Adjunct Endows a Scholarship to Help Students Become ‘Leaders and Best’
Julie Thomas was moving steadily around the Sim Lab at the School of Dentistry on a Friday afternoon in September in her new role as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Cariology, Restorative Sciences and Endodontics.
With each first-year student who needed help, she would spend a few minutes giving pointers on how to hold and position instruments or examining the student’s progress on a procedure on the typodont in front of them. Once the question was answered or the problem solved, the student would thank her and she would move on to the next student who appeared puzzled by something.
A 1989 alumna, Thomas has come full circle back to the school by teaching two afternoons a week. “It’s a lot of fun, it’s a nice class,” she said, explaining that the immediate task at hand that day was preparing the students for their first cavity prep and restoration that would be due soon. “I have to say I’ve only been doing it a few weeks, but every day I love it more and more. It’s just been so much fun to interact with these kids.”
Teaching isn’t her only contribution in her return to the school. For the last three years, she has served on the Alumni Board of Governors, where she was impressed to learn much about the workings of the school, including the needs addressed in the major Blue Renew renovation.
Of particular significance is the financial gift of $100,000 she made last year to establish the Dr. Julie K. Thomas Student Scholarship Fund. It is designated for students who have demonstrated financial need as well as compassionate and empathetic leadership in their communities.
“Over the past few years I have enjoyed the opportunity to serve on the Alumni Board of Governors,” she said. “It has opened my eyes to many exciting and positive changes that have happened over the years since my graduation in 1989. Young, aspiring dentists face many challenges academically and financially. To me, ‘giving back’ means finding ways to support young people in becoming the leaders and best. That is why I established an endowed scholarship and why I am currently enjoying my work with students as an adjunct professor.”
Thomas began her career at a practice in Brighton, Michigan, for eight years, then volunteered her skills for a couple of years before leaving the profession to raise her two children. She had hoped to return to dentistry but other aspects of her life took priority, including the health needs of her elderly parents and time spent living abroad for the auto industry career of her husband, Bill Pumphrey.
A few years ago, Thomas decided the time was right to re-engage with the dental school. Although she and her husband now consider their home in Leland, Michigan, as their main residence, they also maintain a home in Ann Arbor, close to the dental school.
Thomas said she plans to stay involved with the school and in particular support students. “I have always enjoyed working with kids and young people. I think it is amazing that this dental school is always rated the best, and I think it is important to keep it that way. We need to make sure we get the best young people and we train them to be the best professionals they can be, and to represent the university the best they can.”
“It’s a really exciting place to come back to,” Thomas said. “It’s a pretty amazing place.”
The Gift of Art: A Fitting Tribute From a Son to a Father (Class of 1938)
One of the more non-traditional gifts to the School of Dentistry in recent years is coming from Harvey P. Sackett, an attorney in Napa, California. In honor of his father, Sidney A. Sackett, who graduated from the dental school in 1938, Sackett is making a bequest of an art collection that includes prints by American artists Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol and Albert Hirschfeld, among others.
After giving considerable thought to the future home of his art collection, Harvey decided the School of Dentistry would be the most fitting recipient. His father, who practiced dentistry in New York City for 47 years, never lost his love for the University of Michigan. Sidney was on campus for five years, taking undergraduate classes and earning his dental degree. He often referred to his time in Ann Arbor as “the best five years of my life.”
As Harvey was growing up in New York, his father told many stories about attending U-M. “I heard about Michigan from a very, very, very early age,” he says. Michigan sports heroes from Sidney’s college days and the ensuing decades were household names. Sidney’s love of U-M led to Harvey’s love of U-M, which continues to this day. “I knew how to sing ‘The Victors’ before I knew how to sing the National Anthem,” he says. In recent years, he has made annual trips to Ann Arbor, the university, the dental school and football games. Harvey treats U-M as his alma mater, even though he earned his undergraduate and law degrees elsewhere.
Before his father died in 2004, Harvey created a student scholarship in his father’s name. And now he is establishing this second gift – the artwork bequest – to further honor the memory and life story of his father.
Sidney A. Sackett grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Russian immigrants. The family had a meager existence, made worse by the death of Sidney’s mother before he was a teenager. After contracting the mumps as a child, Sidney also had to deal with hearing loss that required hearing aids. He overcame that challenge in high school well enough to be offered an English scholarship to Yale University. However, someone suggested that teaching English would be difficult for a person with hearing loss; a better profession would be one where he would work physically close to people, like, for example, a dentist. That led him to enroll at the dental school at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
At the end of his first year, Sidney returned home because he couldn’t afford the tuition or other basic necessities as the Great Depression deepened. He spent a year working at the gas station of his brotherin-law. A relative attending U-M suggested the university as an option for Sidney because it was an excellent school and relatively affordable. Sidney acted on the advice and made his way to Ann Arbor where, despite the Depression, he accomplished his educational goal. To earn money for his expenses, he sold his football tickets and worked for the campus department that maintained buildings. His campus work spawned a story that survived over the decades. Sidney was washing the exterior of windows at iconic Angell Hall on a frigid winter day when a professor approached him and asked if he was a student. Sidney said he was and assumed he must be doing something wrong. But the professor asked to be taken to Sidney’s boss. The professor asked the boss, “Do you have children?” “Yes,” the boss answered. “Would you want your child out here in the bitter cold washing windows?” the professor asked. “No,” answered the boss. “Well, this student shouldn’t be doing that, either,” the professor declared.
Harvey thinks of the story every time he is on campus. “Being emotional at heart, when I go by Angell Hall it just tugs at my heart, knowing what my dad went through,” he says.
After a stint in the U.S. Army, Sidney returned to New York to practice, first as an associate, then buying his own practice. His patients were not up-scale New Yorkers; they lived in the Bronx, Jackson Heights and Jamaica in Queens. Regardless of his patients’ socioeconomic status, Dr. Sackett was dedicated to providing excellent, if not lucrative, dental care for them. That in turn provided a good, if modest, life for his family.
Harvey chose a different career path, earning his law degree in California and specializing in Social Security disability law there for the last 45 years. His successful career allowed him to begin collecting art early on, mostly from what the art world labels the Post-War and Contemporary Art Market. The 18 prints he plans to bequeath to the School of Dentistry are appraised at $336,000. Beyond his father’s connection to U-M, Harvey sees the close ties between art and dentistry as another fitting reason to present the artwork to the dental school. Like Harvey, Sidney had an eye for art, and he understood that a significant part of his dentistry was artistic in nature. Harvey remembers that his father was a perfectionist with beautiful hands – “the kind of hands that Michelangelo would have wanted to draw,” he says. Sidney used those hands not only to craft beautiful dental care for his patients, but he was literally an artist who used gold from his practice to design and fabricate charms for the charm bracelets of his wife, daughter and sister for many years. And in retirement, he took up painting.
Ultimately, the gift of art will provide a visual link between Sidney A. Sackett and the educational institution that meant so much to him and his family. “I thought that, above and beyond any monetary contribution I could make to the dental school, this would be a lasting presence after I’m gone, in honor of my dad,” Harvey said. “That’s why I decided to do it. This would be a lasting testament to my dad.”
Major Estate Gift Supports the Many Growing Needs of the School's Integrated Special Care Clinic
The School of Dentistry occasionally receives major gifts from donors who don’t wish to be identified publicly. Such was the case when the school recently received a $1 million estate gift to be used for special needs patients who cannot afford dental care.
The gift is a significant contribution to the dental school’s initiative in recent years to enhance both the treatment of patients with special needs and the education of dental students in this area of patient care.
Toward those ends, school leaders included an Integrated Special Care Clinic (ISCC) when they designed the major Blue Renew renovation of the school that was completed in 2022. The second-floor clinic, supported with an inaugural $2 million gift from Delta Dental, has a unique design and accommodations to support the wide range of treatment options necessary for special needs patients.
The clinic serves patients with many physical and mental limitations and conditions. Those include cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, dementia, traumatic brain injury, progressive neurologic disorders, and disabilities that limit mobility, vision or hearing. Patients can present a variety of treatment challenges depending on their ability to communicate, interact with the dentist or sit in the dental chair for the duration of a 30-minute appointment. Patients may need a stimulation-free environment such as a private treatment room to ease their anxiety of going to the dentist. They may fear the sound of a dental drill or have a sensitivity to bright lights, both of which can be eased with thoughtful treatment and accommodations built into the physical space.
Patients who use a wheelchair need a larger room and cubicle in which to maneuver, compared to common private practice spaces. For patients who may not be able to transfer to a dental chair, the ISCC has a mechanical device that allows the patient to remain seated in the wheelchair while it is tilted back, allowing the dentist better access during the exam and treatment.
These are the sorts of challenges that Dr. Bryan Tervo, director of the ISCC, sees every day as he and students treat patients in the clinic. The school’s seemingly alreadyfull curriculum schedule was revised to add one week of ISCC rotation for both thirdand fourth-year students.
Tervo said students report that even the relatively short experience has given them important new insights into the need to be able to treat all patients, no matter their personal health needs. That understanding is as important to treating special needs patients as is the innovative physical space. By students gaining this experience now, Tervo said, they are likely to be more willing to treat special needs patients in their future private practice or other settings in which they choose to work.
Treating special needs patients is often a challenge for general practice dentists unaccustomed to their needs. As a result, dentists often refer those patients to clinics like the ISCC or hospital dentistry programs.
“That’s a frequently heard comment from parents and caregivers,” Tervo said. “They will tell us that they’ve called a number of places and they say they can’t accommodate the disability or the wheelchair or whatever their special needs. And so they try multiple offices and invariably they end up here.”
“I tell students we may not be able to treat them, either, but we’re going to try. We’re going to show effort, give it an attempt. I think it surprises the students how frequently they succeed. And they find that if you do give a little bit of effort and think outside the box, and try different ways, you can be successful. And I am very happy to see them think that way. That’s exactly what I’m going for.”
The demand at the ISCC is growing. Tervo’s latest annual report to school administrators last spring recorded 280 referrals and 170 exams. Appointments for cleanings are growing, about 300 per year, as patients became familiar with the new clinic and return more regularly. In general, scheduled visits quadrupled over the last year.
Tervo said many of the patients come from far western Michigan and other distant communities, which makes pre-appointment intake screening especially important. The clinic asks families and caregivers to fill out basic information in writing in advance, then students follow-up by phone to make sure the clinic understands and is prepared for the patient’s specific needs. In return, the family is informed of what treatment to expect during the appointment.
“People drive so far to get here, maybe a four-hour round trip or longer,” Tervo said. “I don’t want to waste their time, especially when they need special transportation like an ambulance or a van for a wheelchair. I want to make sure everyone is on the same page – that we are prepared as we can be, that they know what is going to happen, so it really helps minimize disappointments and other problems.”
The idea is to make the ISCC, its faculty and students a steady, welcoming and problem-solving presence for its patients. That improves oral and overall health and encourages repeat visits for a patient population that is often reluctant to go to the dentist because of previously unsuccessful or sometimes traumatic experiences. “I believe that a lot of dental anxiety and fear can be overcome by developing trust with the patient,” Tervo said.
