Type Private Location Washington, D.C., USA Founded 1901 | Active 1901–1990 Campus Urban | |
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Parent institution Georgetown University
(School of Medicine until 1951) Affiliation Roman Catholic (Jesuit) Similar VCU School of Dentistry, Touro College of Dental M, Howard University College o, Meharry Medical College S, West Virginia University | ||
The Georgetown University School of Dentistry was the dental school of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The school was established in 1901 as a component of the School of Medicine and became an independent school in 1956. In 1987, the school stopped accepting new students and was disestablished in 1990.
History
The dental program was formed in 1901 with the acquisition by Georgetown of the Washington Dental College and the Hospital of Oral Surgery on Massachusetts Avenue, just three years after the founding of the Georgetown University Hospital. The Washington Dental College and Hospital of Oral Surgery were integrated into the pre-existing School of Medicine as the Dental Department.
A three-story annex was added to the Medical School to accommodate the new addition. Two-thirds of the cost of this $5,000 addition was absorbed by the dental faculty while the remaining third was paid by the medical faculty. The Medical-Dental Building on Reservoir Road (which today serves as the administrative center of the School of Medicine) was completed in 1930, facilitating growth of both the medical and dental components.
In 1951, fifty years from the founding of Georgetown's dental program, the independent School of Dentistry was established. A Naval Reserve Dental Unit was created to study dentistry as performed in the U.S. Navy. Through the 1960s, the School of Dentistry put forth a pro-active effort to recruit women into the dental school who were previously only admitted to the dental hygiene program that allowed them to become dental assistants.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Dental School operated several clinics that provided free dental care to patients. The Community Dentistry Programs also sent dental students into the schools and communities of Washington, D.C. to render dental care. Students could also study abroad in Europe and Latin America to study foreign dental clinical care.
By the late 1980s, dental schools nationwide were closing for a number of reasons and many others were downsizing. Price Waterhouse determined that by 1992, the Georgetown University School of Dentistry would be running an annual $3.6 million deficit. A number of reasons for this phenomenon were speculated including a decreased demand for dental care due to advances in technology and the widespread public adoption of fluoridation, an excess in the number of practicing dentists relative to the size of the population, the rising cost of tuition, and increasing numbers of prospective dental students seeking to attend medical school, leading to sharply declining dental school enrollment.
On March 19, 1987, the Georgetown University Board of Directors voted unanimously to cease the operation of the school. The School of Dentistry shut its doors three years later, graduating its last class in 1990.