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October 8, 2025
Hugh J. Silk wishes he had a time machine.
If he did, he’d go back to the year 1840 and persuade the staff at what is now the University of Maryland School of Medicine to accept a recommendation to include dental instruction in their curriculum. Instead, the medical school rejected the idea — and the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the nation’s first dental school, was born.
“That was a pivotal moment,” said Silk, an MD and professor of family medicine and community health at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. “This divide where people who go to dental school are in the dental profession vs people going to medical school in the medical profession has really set us back.”