Maryland Dental School

Six-year-old Mychael Greene doesn't like the look of the hooked tool that dentists use to scrape plaque from teeth, or the sour taste their latex-gloved hands leave in his mouth. But his mother, Shawn Greene, made sure her son opened wide during a recent checkup at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore. Her reason: the death earlier this year of Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Prince George's County boy who died after an infection from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain.

Dr. Kyrle W. Preis Sr., a highly respected Baltimore orthodontist whose research in the 1940s concluded that thumb-sucking by children resulted in distortion of teeth and facial features, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at Franklin Square Hospital Center. He was 92.Since last year, Dr. Preis had lived at Oak Crest Village retirement community in Carney.Beginning in 1948, Dr. Preis began a six-year study that compiled graphic evidence that showed children who sucked their thumbs after age 2 risked malformed teeth.

Jade Nguyen is returning this week to Vietnam, the country she and her family fled 22 years ago, to provide a rare service in her former homeland -- dental care.Nguyen, 27, is one of two dozen University of Maryland Dental School students and faculty members who left yesterday to spend two weeks in Hanoi giving basic dental care to more than 500 Vietnamese."I'm excited to be able to go and help children who don't have these services," said Nguyen, a dental hygiene student whose only other trip to Vietnam was in 1994 as a tourist.

For almost two years, Salena Donohoe and a scary-looking purple dinosaur named Flossy the Flossasaurus have been teaching North County children from low-income families about the evil of tooth decay and the good of brushing their teeth.Donohoe, 28, is a volunteer with a pilot program at the county Department of Health's North County dental clinic in Glen Burnie.Conceived by the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore, the program enlists peer counselors to preach early dental care for preschoolers to families in Women, Infants and Children (WIC)

University of Maryland School of Dentistry researchers said yesterday that a toothpaste they've developed with a Florida biotechnology company has been shown in a study to provide lasting relief for a painful condition known as hypersensitive teeth.The gel toothpaste was co-developed by USBiomaterials Corp., a former White Marsh-based company now in Florida. The toothpaste contains Bioglass, which contains a glass compound that bonds to human bone and tissue.USBiomaterials said it anticipates that a Bioglass toothpaste will be on the market in the United States within two years.

Teeth get taken for granted. People postpone or can't afford trips to the dentist, and health insurance policies often omit dental benefits. Now years of collective neglect -- like a nagging toothache -- have reached a crisis in Maryland.The state's Medicaid dental benefits are among the worst in the nation. A new study has found that more than half of the cavities in privately insured Maryland children aren't treated.People in large rural areas of the state have no fluoride in their drinking water and wind up with lots of cavities.

Louise BloomManaged storeLouise Bloom, who had been a store manager in Baltimore, died Sunday of a respiratory illness at Meridian Nursing Center-Corsica Hills in Centreville. The former Towson resident was 91.Mrs. Bloom was a part-time corsetiere at the Hutzler's store in Towson in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the 1930s and 1940s, she had worked for Schulte-United first as a buyer at its Lexington Street store and later as manager of its Gay Street store.The former Louise Smullen was a native of South Baltimore who was educated in parochial and public schools.

Dorothy SweeneyChurch volunteerDorothy Virginia Sweeney, a volunteer at Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church in Towson, died Thursday of cancer at her home in Stoneleigh. She was 78.Mrs. Sweeney, who joined the congregation around 1970, regularly visited the sick on Sundays, taking them flowers from ,, the church services, said her daughter Dr. Susan Elizabeth Sweeney of North Brookfield, Mass.Mrs. Sweeney served several terms as deacon and participated in a Bible study group for about 20 years.

Dr. Edward D. Stone Jr., who was a dentist in Baltimore forjust over 60 years, died Saturday at home on Padonia Road in Lutherville of congestive heart failure. He was 91.Services for Dr. Stone were being held today at the Roland Park Presbyterian Church, 4801 Roland Ave.He had retired in 1986 after practicing since his graduation in 1925 from the University of Maryland Dental School.Born in Greenville, Del., he came to Baltimore while in his teens when his father became pastor of the Hampden United Methodist Church.

Dr. L. Rapoport, retired dentist, dies at 75Services for Dr. Leonard Rapoport, a retired dentist, were held Monday at Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral establishment.Dr. Rapoport, 75, died Friday after an apparent heart attack at the Suburban Club. He lived on Deer Fox Lane in Lutherville.He retired in 1979, having maintained a dental practice since 1947, first in Hampden and later in the Village of Cross Keys.From 1947 to 1960, he was also an associate professor of pharmacology and an instructor in community dentistry at the University of Maryland dental school.

Dr. John Miller Hyson Jr., a retired dentist and former director of archives and history at the National Museum of Dentistry at the University of Maryland Dental School and an author who wrote widely on the history of dentistry, died Saturday of a stroke at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The longtime Timonium resident was 81. Dr. Hyson, the son of a dentist and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Ellerslie Avenue. After graduating from Loyola High School in 1945, he attended Loyola College for a year before transferring to the University of Maryland Dental School, from which he graduated in 1950.

Harry F. W. Dressel Jr., a well-known and innovative Catonsville dentist whose philanthropic interest was the University of Maryland Dental School, died Aug. 18 of cardiovascular disease at the Charlestown retirement community. He was 89. Born in Baltimore, the son of an Edmondson Avenue hardware store owner and a homemaker, Dr. Dressel was raised on Carroll Street. After graduating from Catonsville High School, he attended the Johns Hopkins University and graduated from the University of Maryland in 1942.

Joseph Patrick Cappuccio, a retired professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery and a former president of the American Dental Association, died May 23 of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 87. Born in Garfield, N.J., Dr. Cappuccio, the son of Italian immigrants, was raised in Watch Hill, R.I. After graduating from Westerly High School, he enrolled at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1943 in chemistry and biology. He was a 1946 graduate of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery - the dental school of the University of Maryland - and completed an internship and residency in oral surgery at University Hospital in 1948, and was board-certified as an oral surgeon in 1951.

John Robert Dopson Sr., a longtime Reisterstown dentist who was known for his technical skills and personable demeanor, died March 25 of heart and kidney failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 79. Dr. Dopson was born in Newburgh, N.Y., and raised in Goshen, N.Y. After graduation from high school, he enlisted in the Navy, serving as a sonarman third class aboard the destroyer USS William M. Wood. After being discharged, he attended Cornell University and studied for three years at Bucknell University.

Dr. Hector F. Paul DiNardo Jr., a retired Baltimore County dentist who practiced for more than 40 years and was a longtime proponent of dental ergonomics, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at his Timonium home. He was 81. Dr. DiNardo was born in Baltimore and raised on North Bentalou Street. He was a 1945 graduate of Loyola High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Loyola College in 1949. In 1938, when he was 11 years old, Dr. DiNardo entered a contest to serve as Baltimore Mayor Howard W. Jackson's replacement for a day and won. "He was paid $15 for his term," said a daughter, Mary Lou DiNardo of New York City.

James Bennett hadn't seen a dentist in a decade. He had other priorities, like scoring heroin. Even if he'd been of a mind to do something about his rotting teeth, he wouldn't have known where to go or whom to call. Now, at long last, he sat in the blue exam chair in the Southwest Baltimore office of Dr. Larry Bank, a cramped space with a bucolic wallpaper scene of a waterfall. At 45, Bennett is trying to restart his life. That means getting a grip on his addiction through a residential rehab program - and fixing his ragged mess of a mouth.

Dr. August Raymond "Gus" Machen, a retired Towson dentist, died Saturday at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson of complications from a fall he suffered a month ago. He was 87. Dr. Machen was born and raised in Baltimore and was a graduate of city public schools. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland Dental School. During World War II, he served as an Army dentist and was assigned to the European theater of operations. Dr. Machen, who maintained a general dental practice in Towson for more than 35 years, retired in the 1980s.

Dr. Joseph McKechnie, a retired Baltimore dentist, died of cancer Monday at his Towson home. He was 84. Born and raised in Cumberland, he earned a degree at what was then Potomac College in Herndon, Va., and served during World War II in the Army, where he received training as a dental technician. After the war, he graduated from the University of Maryland Dental School, where he later taught restorative prosthodonthic dentistry. In 1952, he opened a practice in the Marylander Apartments on St. Paul Street and later had a practice in Columbia.

"Show me your smile," the dentist, wielding a flashlight, said to the slightly apprehensive 3-year-old girl standing before her. "You brought your teeth with you?" At that, the little girl grinned. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all. The dentist, Dr. Patricia L. Bell-McDuffie, director of oral health services for the Baltimore City Health Department, was one of several medical professionals who gathered this morning at an East Baltimore community center to inspect the mouths of about 300 children ages 3 and 4 and enrolled in Head Start programs.

Alyce Driver shed silent tears at a news conference yesterday to announce new pediatric dental programs aimed at preventing deaths such as her son Deamonte's, who died in February at the age of 12 after an unchecked tooth infection spread to his brain. The Prince George's County woman has avoided attention since her son's death forced lawmakers here and in Washington to focus on improving dental care for children of poor families. But she attended the event at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore to witness something positive come from her loss.