DOCTOR OF DENTAL MEDICINE DEGREE (D.M.D.)
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In 1839, Drs. Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris of the Baltimore College of Medicine decided to redirect their efforts to establish a specialty department of dentistry in the medical school and instead founded the first separate School of Dentistry. This new school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, granted the first Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (D.D.S.). A few years later, Harvard, the first university to organize a dental school, changed the degree to Doctor of Dental Medicine (D.M.D.). Harvard renamed the degree because they viewed dentistry as a branch of medicine, not just surgery, and so that diplomas could be written in Latin. Only a few dental schools followed Harvard’s lead and offered the D.M.D. degree. One of these school was the North Pacific Dental College (now Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry).

In recent years, more schools have changed from the D.D.S. to the D.M.D. Currently, approximately one-third of U.S. dental schools award a D.M.D. degree. The curriculums in all U.S. dental schools are similar and all must meet the same guidelines and standards determined by the American Dental Association.

my school just changed names from “school of dental and oral surgery” to “college of dental medicine” in order to “reflect the current curriculum and how it emphasizes the integration of oral health and systemic health” or some other cockamamey schmaltz. i’m sure my tuition money from five years ago paid a lot of money to some useless dudes who spent a lot of time thinking hat one up.

My dental school recently changed their degree from DDS to DMD and offered to send us new diplomas (for a fee). I never got around to it. So I’m still an old fashioned DDS.