How Veterinary Dentistry Became a Specialty (Part 1) | A 50-Year Journey with Dr. Eisner

This episode explores the history of veterinary dentistry and how the American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC) and the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians (AVDT) became recognized specialties.

What did veterinary dentistry look like 50 years ago… and how did it evolve into the advanced specialty we practice today?

In Part 1 of this two-part series, Dr. Edward Eisner takes us on a firsthand journey through the transformation of veterinary dentistry in the United States. From a time when dentistry was often overlooked… to the formation of organized leadership, education, and specialty recognition — this episode captures the pivotal moments that shaped the field.

Dr. Eisner shares the inside story of how the American Veterinary Dental Society was formed, and how the specialty ultimately gained recognition through the American Veterinary Dental College under the American Veterinary Medical Association and its American Board of Veterinary Specialties.

We also explore his 40-year relationship with Peter Emily, a human dentist whose mentorship and collaboration helped elevate veterinary dentistry worldwide.

And in a defining moment for the veterinary team, Dr. Eisner discusses his role in helping establish the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians — alongside 12 pioneering technicians — creating the pathway for the Veterinary Technician Specialty in Dentistry, recognized through the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America and the Committee on Veterinary Technician Specialties.

This episode is more than history — it’s the story of how a specialty was built.

👉 In Part 2, Dr. Eisner shares what he’s working on today, the passion projects that continue to drive him, and his vision for where veterinary dentistry is headed over the next 50 years.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

veterinary dentistry history, AVDC, American Veterinary Dental College, veterinary dental specialty, AVDT, Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians, NAVTA, veterinary technician specialty dentistry, veterinary dental education, animal dentistry evolution, dental care for pets, veterinary oral health, periodontal disease in dogs and cats, veterinary CE dentistry

WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR

• Veterinarians interested in dentistry
• Veterinary technicians and VTS (Dentistry) candidates
• Practice owners looking to elevate dental standards
• Students exploring veterinary specialties
• Anyone passionate about improving oral health in animals

WHY THIS MATTERS

Understanding the history of veterinary dentistry helps clinicians:
• Improve diagnostic and treatment decisions
• Appreciate the evolution of standards of care
• Advocate for better dentistry in general practice
• Elevate patient outcomes through education and awareness

Show Resources:

https://avdc.org/

https://www.avdt.us/

https://veterinarydentistry.org/

https://peteremilyfoundation.org/

Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry

Peter P. Emily DDS,, Edward R. Eisner AB, DVM,

First published:19 March 2021

Print ISBN:9781119545811 |Online ISBN:9781119545804 |DOI:10.1002/9781119545804

© 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119545804

https://www.youtube.com/@PawsitiveDentalEducation

https://www.facebook.com/Pawsitivedental/

@pawsitivedental

www.pawsitivedental.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome everyone to the Positive Veterinary Dentistry Podcast, the podcast dedicated to helping veterinary professionals elevate patient care through better dentistry, better diagnostics, and better decision making. I'm your host, Benita Altier, licensed veterinary technician, veterinary technician specialist in dentistry, and the founder of Positive Dental Education. Whether you're listening in general practice, specialty practice, academia, or you're still in training, this podcast is designed to give you practical insight, historical perspective, and clinical pearls you can take right back to the dental table. Today's episode is truly special. We're going to step back in time, not just to talk about techniques or materials, but to hear the living history of veterinary dentistry from someone who helped build it. This episode is the history of veterinary dentistry in the 20th and 21st century as told by Dr. Edward Eisner. Dr. Eisner has prepared a timeline of stories spanning decades from the early days when veterinary dentistry was barely recognized to the highly specialized advanced discipline we practice today. This conversation is less about questions and more about perspective and mentorship, about growth and about how this profession was shaped and what it took to get here. So let me introduce my guest. Dr. Ed Eisner is a board certified diplomate of the American Veterinary Dental College and one of the founding diplomates of the Zoo and Wildlife Dentistry Certificate Program. He retired in 2020 as Chief of Dental Services at VCA Highlands Ranch Animal Specialty and Emergency Center in Colorado. Over the course of his career, he has served as the president of the American Veterinary Dental College, the Academy of Veterinary Dentistry, the Denver Area Veterinary Medical Society, and the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine. He serves as the vice president currently of the Peter Emily International Veterinary Dental Foundation and continues to work on the executive committee of the ABDC Zoo and Wildlife Certificate Program. He has authored more than 70 professional papers, more book chapters, textbooks than you can count, and he's received numerous awards, including, which I was very impressed, Colorado Veterinarian of the Year, and also from the technician group as well. So welcome to the Positive Veterinary Dentistry Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, thank you, Benito. Very glad to be here, and uh I'm excited to share some of this information with you about the history of a U.S. veterinary dentistry in the 20th and 21st century.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Absolutely. I wanted to do this podcast with a focus on history episodes like this because I feel that verbal history is so important to capture. People such as yourself had such an instrumental role in creating dentistry as what it is today. And I think a lot of veterinary professionals take that for granted. They don't really understand what it took to pave the way, be the pioneer in veterinary dentistry to help everyone educate themselves because it wasn't done in veterinary schools. So as we start, I'd love to have you use your timeline and your stories that you want to share with us to take us back to the beginning. What did dentistry look like when you first entered the veterinary profession out of school?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, if you want to take it, Benita, to the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

There were two major time periods. The first in which the horse was the focus of most of the attention, and that was because of its importance in transportation, mechanical power, military use, and sport. The second period involved the pet domestic animals, initially uh with dogs uh and started to apply to non-domestic animals more recently. In the ancient world, we have only a very incomplete glimpse. There was a tremendous fire in the Library of the Ancient World in Alexandria in the current era of 391, and we lost 700,000 volumes at that fire. We do have approximately a thousand volumes remaining from the ancient Greeks. Um of them are in Sanskrit, some of them in Greek, some of them in Roman, some Arabic and Egyptian. By the end of the 1800s, the horse was being replaced as a result of the Industrial Revolution. That being said, I think we can get into the more salient topic for the day, and that's the current veterinary dental evolution that happened in the mid-1900s, currently in the 2000s. So, anyway, very early descriptions of dental and oral surgical procedures in dogs would horrify us today.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I bet they would.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

It took place in 1976. At a meeting, Drs. Gary Beard, Don Ross, Dan Hillman, Thane Short, Ben Colmery, and Charles Root orchestrated the birth of the American Veterinary Dental Society. No credentials were required, no examination was administered, and Dr. Colmery really ran the organization from 1976 to 1984. In 1976, I became involved with what was to me to be a 50-year career in veterinary dentistry.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

This was a time for me when the half-life of veterinary information seemingly was seven years as information floated from California eastward to Denver. It was a time when on the front range of Colorado, we had spay clinics were appearing up in Boulder, and vaccination clinics were sprouting up in grocery store parking lots, offering services from mobile units. These two factors greatly negatively impacted the incomes of general practitioners. So I opened my practice five years earlier in 1971. I was in the early stages of being a director of a future very successful AHA hospital. It was called the Campus Veterinary Clinic in Denver. Two services that propelled me into being among the top 1% of hospitals in North America were proactive comprehensive diagnostics and dentistry. The diagnostic stimulus was provided by one of my father figures, John Mullnix. John was an endocrinologist at CSU. And at dinner one evening, he suggested that to be successful, I should provide services that others could not provide. At the time, blood chemistry profiles were generally only provided for animals seven years old and older, and often only with specific tests and with client approval.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

And they had to be really sick patients, too, right? We never did routine blood work on anybody just to check their health when they're well, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

That's right. Yeah. So uh at that time, uh my practice, I started performing mandatory full diagnostic chemistry panels at five years of age on all my presurgical patients.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Remind us what year this is?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

That would be in in 1976.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Wow, that's amazing. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

I also required and administered intravenous fluids for all the patients undergoing abdominal and orthopedic surgery, whereas in most practices, these services at the time were optional.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

So that was really good foresight to think about the future, not just like how do you make your practice successful right now, but what would the future look like if this continues where some of your general business was being taken away by these vaccine clinics and, as you said, spay and neuter clinics, and you had to pivot.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

The dental stimulus occurred when I read a brief invitation in JAVMA in 1976. In the Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association, for $10, I could join the newly forming American Veterinary Dental Society, of which I spoke a few minutes ago. It was basically a support group. We all contributed to the newsletter sharing our dental experiences, our dental equipment inventory, our supply list, etc. It brought together individuals with special interest in the expertise of veterinary dentistry. And so in 1976, oh I should say at the time there there was no dentistry taught per se in veterinary schools, other than extracting painful and abscess teeth. So to learn more advanced dentistry and into more detail, we had an alternate pathway since it wasn't being taught in the schools, other than extracting these teeth, one had to either take classes at a dental school or study under a dentist.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

And that's a human dentist, correct? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

So I learned from several dentists. Most of us took this as the beginning root in our dental careers.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

No pen intended with beginning root, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

For myself, in 1976, a pair of elderly clients, Georgia and Weir Hall, came to my office with a their doxin Leepshin. Leepshin had two fractured lower first molars. All I could do was extract the teeth. And Mrs. Hall said, well, she'd have her dentist call me. And I said, Oh sure. Well, she hadn't left the office for a half hour before I received a call from Dr. Martin Allen. He says, I'm I'm a dentist, and if you know Georgia Hall, you know why I couldn't say no. When can we do it?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Okay, that's amazing. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

So he came to my office, he brought him s with him a belt-driven electric piccolo arm dental drill, a laboratory drill.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

And I provided anesthesia and he performed root canal therapy on those two molars and saved the teeth.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Wow, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And I was duly impressed.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

It wasn't a month later, I was at a party in Castle Rock, a southern suburb of Denver, sitting next to a man at a bar in the host basement, and he said, My name's George Russell, and I'm a dermatologist from Boulder. And I'd like to trade professional questions with you. And I showed him a bump on the back of my hand, and he told me it was a ganglion, he picked up a book and whacked it and it went away. He said, Okay, my turn.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

He said, I have an old English sheepdog named Porky. And Porky needs a root canal therapy, and I have a dentist who'll do it. But I need someone to anesthetize the dog. We set a date at my office, and I provided anesthesia, and Dr. Bob Olson provided the dentistry. He's a a human dentist. And while we're having dinner afterwards with our wives, waiting for Porky to wake up from his anesthesia. Dr. Olson offered for me to come to his office on my days off to observe and see some dentistry. And I did this for the next two years. After two years, he uh brought out a shine catalog and helped me order some equipment and instruments, and I became the owner of my own belt-driven electric piccolo armed dental drill. I was in business. Anyway, the next year I decided every dog and cat in my practice should have its teeth cleaned, which was unusual. Very and ultrasonic scalers were brand new to the field, not yet in my possession. So I cleaned the teeth manually with a hand instrument. The following year the teeth were worse. I felt terrible. So I at that point I went to uh the national AHA meeting in Salt Lake City in 1978, and I spoke with the grandfather of veterinary dentistry. His name was Don Ross from Houston, and he gave me some pointers to improve my technique, including the value of ultrasonic scaling and polishing, and my patients did much better the following year. In 1982, I met Peter Emily, also a human dentist. We met at a catered reception during the opening of the new Denver Zoo Hospital. Someone who knew us both introduced us. Peter and I became instant friends. And we traveled to Las Vegas the following February to the Western Veterinary Conference, and there were speakers from the American Veterinary Dental Society. There were five speakers Gary Beard, Ben Colmery, Tom Mulligan, Don Ross, and Chuck Williams. These names you continually hear that were in the foundation of organized veterinary dentistry. We had found a home, Peter and I. We exchanged ideas with these half dozen speakers. Pete was, as well as being a dentist, was an American Kennel Club dog show judge for working dogs. And he would see problems in the show ring and he'd send them to my office for the following Thursday. And he came to my office every Thursday for three years. If it wasn't for Peter Emily, we would not have a dental college today. He was he may not have been the grandfather of veterinary dentists, but he was the godfather. Being of Italian descent, he was very proud of it. So he helped me buy a used x-ray machine, dental x-ray machine. And I learned a tremendous amount of dentistry from he and Betty Glass, his expanded chairside assistant. In 1985, the AHA meeting in Orlando, a AVDS representatives, Chuck Williams again and Tom Mulligan, met with them AVMA American Board Veterinary Specialists, the ABVS, members Doctors Don Sawyer and Bill Jackson, and Bill Kay, well-known figures in early veterinary medicine in the United States, to discuss appropriate means for obtaining specialty recognition. Well those guys were told that it was inappropriate to advertise a specialty if the service would not be readily available on a national basis. The concept was they suggested we should form a group with qualifying standards, with credentials review, with an examination for membership, and use that as a preparatory step for the formation of an AVMA recognized specialty organization. So a lot of time and effort went into this. A committee was formed to pursue the forming of an academy. It had to be. With this information, a constitution and bylaws for the Academy of Veterinary Dentistry was drafted. In 1986, the Academy was created.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Sounds like a scary concept. Oh, good job.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

I passed it and became a charter fellow of the Academy. I was elected its president in 1988 and 89. In 1987, the Academy was legally incorporated in Michigan. And the first credentials review and examination process were conducted in 1986 and 87 by three persons eminently qualified in veterinary dentistry. Dr. Keith Grove. He was a human dentist. He was a veterinarian graduate from University of Pennsylvania. He had a m master's degree in periodontology. He lived in Faroe Beach, Florida. Don Ross was the second person. He was from Houston. He had an MS degree in dentistry from the University of Texas Dental School. And he was a veterinarian. And then there was Peter Emily from Lakewood, Colorado. At the time, Peter had about 20 years of extensive experience in veterinary dentistry, working in collaboration with veterinarians in zoos and small animal practice. And he was the adjunct faculty uh member at the College of Veterinary Medicine at CSU. So these guys were subsequently required to take credentials and examination processes also before being accepted to full membership, or they remained as an honorary member, which Peter did. So we had the um Academy was being formed, um, and we called for interested persons to make application for membership. Forty-four veterinary insubmitted credentials, 35 were permitted entry to the exam, and 25 passed. The first examination were certified as Fellows of the Academy of Veterinary Dentistry, AVD. Gary Beard was elected the first president. Dr. Charles Williams, president-elect, Colin Harvey, Secretary Treasurer, and myself and Ben Colmery were on the board of directors as members at large. Subsequently, we had standing committees organized for the new credentials, review, and examination committees. In 1987, it was a big stepping stone. The Academy of Veterinary Dentistry sponsored a comprehensive continued educational forum in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was the first of the American veterinary dental forums.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Cincinnati, Ohio. I did not know that, so that's a new one for me. I'd never looked back to see where the first BDF was held.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

We invited the heads of anatomy and surgery departments of all 23 veterinary schools complimentarily with invitations to attend our meeting. And it was a huge success. May 12th, the next year, 1988, because of the rapid and successful development of the economy, the ABVS, the American Board of Veterinary Specialties, realized they had no control. We were doing this independently, which is not enjoyed by politicians. So they recommended that we make application with the AVMA for the establishment of an officially recognized specialty college in veterinary dentistry. An organizing committee of eight accepted by the AVMA, ABVS, was made up, and the chairman was Charles Williams, Gary Beard again, Ben Colmery, Keith Grove, Colin Harvey, Sandra Manfra from the University of Illinois, and Tom Mulligan from San Diego, and Don Ross, with Peter Emily as an advisory member. This resulted in quite a bit of jealousy and resentment among many Academy fellows who weren't included in the organizing committee. Facetiously we referred to them as the gang of eight. Early AVD members, this was because A V D members had been members of the AVDS. Many had grown up together with those chosen eight, acquiring a similar initial dental education. Many perceived themselves as equally qualified, and some were but actually the chosen eight were either politically. Tightly connected with the AVMA hierarchy, or they were double boarded in the AVMA, or they were connected with human dentistry. So they were eminently qualified. And the AVMA would not entertain any requests that we made to expand the size of the organizing committee. It was limited to eight. In 1988, the American Veterinary Dental College became a reality with the AVMA organizing dentistry as a bona fide standalone specialty organization. To be a member required three more years of study, another more extensive credentials package, and more involved three-day written and practical examination. I passed that first examination and was accepted as an entry-level specialist and expert in the field.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

What was the study involving during those three years? Did you or others have mentors that you met regularly, or was it something just Pete was my mentor?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Pete Emily. Mentor, friend, and colleague. And we lectured nationally and internationally for 40 years.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

In 2021, we published the first hardback textbook in Zoo and Wildlife, Wild Animal Dentistry. And that's cementing his legacy of 50 years performing advanced level oral care on captive wild animals. We cited in that book 352 species with endodonic and surgical descriptions for many of them. So that's, you know, and the others they had their mentors. Peter was mine.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Yeah. So people did have someone, a human dentist, most likely, that they worked with because there weren't very many veterinary professionals that could mentor someone at that time, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Absolutely. So in 1988, provisional approval for the AVDC was granted by the ABVS on July 17th. The ABVS set a goal for us, okay? We had to have a hundred diplomates to have sufficient perceived specialty dental coverage to provide adequate service to the nation. They estimated it would take us 10 years to do this. Steve Holmstrom, he was the fourth AVDC president from 1994 to 96. I was the fifth from 1996 to 98.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

So in 96, after giving presentations at the National AHA meeting in Boston, Steve and I flew to Schalmsburg, Illinois, and promised the ABVS we would have those hundred diplomates within a year. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Campaign promises.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Exactly. We didn't quite meet that goal, but our promise resulted in the same desirable successful outcome. 1997, the VDC was awarded full recognition as an AVMA specialty organization. Well, I was the college president. Exactly after 10 years of the initial probation. We were awarded that honor in Reno at the annual AVMA meeting in July 1997.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Excellent. Wow. What a journey to just get to that point to have your hundred members.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

And the work effort was tremendous. I mean, we're talking in the 80s. We didn't, you know, we had computers, but we didn't have an internet till the 90s. It was all done by hand, typed, copied, uh, with white out marks and a whole bit. My credentials package was two binders four inches thick when I submitted my credentials. Very labor intensive. Today we have a a DMS or a document management system much more streamlined.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yes. I don't think people realize what a heavy lift that is and how dedicated you have to be to make that work when you don't have the technology and tools that we have today.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Well, and I didn't know how I was going to do it. I had a new child and which took a lot of family time. I would get up at three in the morning and study for two hours every day before family woke up and we'd start the day. I did this I did this for three years.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah, and you were running your own practice as well, right? Trying to keep your practice successfully. So what did dentistry look like at your practice between 1988, 87, and 97?

SPEAKER_00 26:52

I had a a general AHA practice of medicine and surgery.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Were you growing the number of patients? Because you mentioned that your goal was to have every dog and cat in your practice get anesthetized to have their teeth cleaned. Is that something that you were seeing improvements with the general public at that time? Because we have to educate the pet parents, so to speak, to get them to say yes to what we're offering. How did you find that to be between that time period?

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Well, my uh staff said I had a silver tongue.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

As I tell people getting into practice, you have to know your your craft. And once you feel secure that you're providing the service that you're advertising, your clients will hear it in the tone of your voice. If you're not so sure, they don't sign up. So to get back to where we were, we were AVDC was awarded full recognition as an AVMA specialty organization in 1997 in July. And there was obviously potential at this point for public misunderstanding of the difference in the qualifications to be an a fellow of the academy or a diplomate of the college. Anyway, there was considerable overlap between the two. It just was increased credentials and a longer examination, etc., uh, to become a diplomate. Many uh of us in the college were still members of the academy, and I still am today. And the academy no longer exists today. It doesn't have a credentials package, it doesn't have an examination, it's basically a committee in the college. The academy always, once the college was established, was kind of used as feeder stock, if you will, a stepping stone to the academy, because you do your credentials for the academy and the examination, and then you just add to them a bit and then make application to the college. But the academy was never recognized by the AVMA. Only the American Veterinary Dent Dental College is an AVMA organization. In 2023, the Foundation for Veterinary Dentistry was formed. And this is was to solve the problem. It brought the Dental Society, the Academy, and the College all under the same umbrella in the foundation. The AVDS, the society, ceased to exist. The members st still paid dues and received a journal of veterinary dentistry, but they were now foundation members without being encumbered with a credentialing process or an examination. The foundation co-sponsored the American Veterinary Dental Forum, and the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry became the official journal of the organization and eleven other national and international veterinary dental organizations.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

I think you said 2023, but did you mean 2003? Or was it 23. 23, okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Just recently, just recently we had a foundation that brought it all under an umbrella. Okay politics grinds slowly.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Mm-hmm. Okay, okay. For some reason I thought that was farther ago.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

So with this foundation, the the college kept its individual identity as the recognized specialty organization of the AVMA. In 2025, just last year, we finally got veterinary dental specialist and board certified veterinary dentist to be registered trademarks because we you continually have problems of people exaggerating their status, calling themselves specialists when they have nowhere near specialist abilities. Correct. So th this helps protect that.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, that was a great accomplishment to get that.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Yeah. So that's where we are as veterinarians. Then we come to the veterinary technician evolution.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

The expansion of veterinary technician dental education and expertise was another aspect of this dental evolution. Technician programs accredited by the AVMA were developed in the nineteen seventies. But similar to veterinary schools, dentistry as a separate discipline was not taught. In the nineteen nineties, the Henry Schein Dental Distributor Company, spearheaded by their sales manager, Jerry Selen, created the American Society of Veterinary Dental Technicians, ASVDT. It was an uncomplicated, unaccredited beginning. Mr. Selen wrote an educational compendium, created a take-home examination, collected a fee, and a veterination could receive the educational materials and a take-home book examination. Once the tuition fee was collected, they received a certificate of completion and a membership to the ASVDT.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I was one of those people that did that.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah. Well, it was the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

It was what we had available to us, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

There was no oversight, and the quality of the ASVDT members understandably varied tremendously. And it tainted the perceived overall quality of veterinary dental community. In 1998, Bob Wiggs succeeded me, Ed Eisner, as president of the AVDC. In 1999, two years after the AVDC was recognized as a full VSO or veterinary specialty organization, Bob created an ad hoc veterinary technician certification committee with myself as the chair. And Steve Holmstrom and Jan Bellows were members of our committee. And we were tasked with investigating the feasibility of the certification of veterinary dental technicians. I contacted Mr. Patrick Navarre. He was the executive director of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America. He indicated that the AVDC would be welcome to apply to NAVTA to be the sponsoring organization of the veterinary dental technicians. He indicated that Navta Committee on Veterinary Dental Specialties would be reviewing the application and that only certified veterinary technicians would be acceptable in order to receive AVMA recognition as a veterinary specialty organization. His recommendation was to duplicate the AVMA requirements for VSO with very minor modifications to the AVDC package. Two colleges had done this in the technicians. They were the Academy of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Technicians and the Academy of Veterinary Technician Anesthetists. I enlisted the my colleague, Steve Holmstrom, who, as I, had previously chaired the AVDC Credentials and Examination Committees, and also was a past AVDC president. And together we modeled a credentials package and dental technician examination in the same image as the AVDC, but with reduced technician requirements in time commitment and level of expertise. These two programs were approved by the AVDC in 2000 and the AVDT was off and running. Steve and I assisted in administering their examinations for the first few years, just to make sure quality control.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I enlisted my certified veterinary technician, Sarah Sharp, to join me in creating an inaugural group of highly motivated technicians to form the veterinary technician group with verifiable, highly qualified dental expertise.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yes, and Sarah Sharp was one of my original mentors, and I'm so grateful to her and all of her contribution to this, especially in the beginning there, where you saw the need for technicians to have a higher level of expertise and understanding, not just the veterinarians, right? So that's super important that you were a part of that when and had that vision because we wouldn't have what we have today as technicians without the support of the whole entire veterinary team, including veterinarians like you.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Absolutely. So Sarah and I placed open invitations in the Journal of American Veterinary Association and in the Journal of Veterinary Dentistry for people interested in assisting the in the development of the newly forming Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians, the AVDT. We invited them to attend a February meeting at the Western Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas in 2001. I and Sarah arranged for the first meeting in 2001 at the Western Veterinary Conference, and those who showed up were grandfathered in as the organizing committee for the future VDT specialists. All of the attending twelve technicians were either certified, registered, or licensed veterinary technicians in their respective home state. All had extensive experience either working for or with an AVDC diplomate. It was attended by myself and those twelve technicians. They were Sarah Sharp, Jeannie Vitto, Vicky Baird, Wendy Bauer, Pam Noel, Susan Berrihill, Thomas Koenig, Judy Ozier, Kathy Sylvester, Mary Berg, Jerry Ann Holstrom, and Sue Elder.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

And Sue Elder. She was one of my mentors as well. Tommy was my official mentor. I did not know them in 2001, and I did not attend that meeting because I didn't know that was happening, but I I met them in 2002 at the Veterinary Dental Forum in Savannah, Georgia. Is that correct? Was Savannah in 2002?

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Yeah. So that's where I met them. So that was how I got them on my radar, and I was like, wow, this is really cool what they're trying to do here.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

So at that first meeting, those 12 elected Jeannie Viteau as president, Vicky Bayard was the president-elect, and Sarah Sharp was the secretary. By 2005, the AVDT was self-governing, and my role was as their advisor from the AVDC. It took them five years, and in 2006, they were accredited with NAVTA as the third veterinary technician specialty organization designated a VTS dentistry.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yes, that's amazing. We're celebrating our 20-year anniversary this year of that accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

So generally speaking, providing specialized dental services has been a response to consumer demand. You know, w without consumer wanting it, it none of this would ever occur. Just like the whole uh beginning of the technicians society was because people were tired of having a one or two percent death rate in space. You know, so technician schools started to spring up. And that that's how it all got started.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Anyway, uh it's particularly true in preventive aspects of dentistry, has become increasingly important as the understanding of the tr interactions between oral diseases and systemic health has increased. There are now university veterinary dental residency programs in numerous universities in North America. Veterinary dentistry is well established as an important discipline when providing comprehensive health care for animals while optimizing their overall well-being. As of a few days ago, February 25th, 2026, the expanding veterinary dental profession has 293 active AVDC diplomates, six equine residency programs, and 77 small animal residency programs approved by the AVDC. And there are 125 VTS dentistry technician specialists with more making applications as I write. So this is going to be an exciting 20th anniversary for you.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

Yes, yes, we hope to have a good group there. We're going to celebrate at the Veterinary Dental Forum in Orlando, Florida, in October. And this is a huge part of it, just really even knowing the history and the foresight that these people had to put this all together and then to be able to be a part of maintaining that and making it better and strong as we work towards the next 50 years.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

So there are just to wrap it up, there were 10 key dates in the 50-year evolution of veterinary dentistry. In 1976, the society was formed, the AVDS. In 1986, the Academy of Veterinary Dentistry was formed. In 1987 was the first veterinary dental forum in Cincinnati. In 1988, the AVDC received provisional recognition as a VSO. Ten years later, in 1997, the AVDC received full recognition as a VSO. In 2023, the Foundation for Veterinary Dentistry was formed, board certified veterinary dentists and veterinary dental specialists becoming registered trademarks. For the technicians, 1990s, the ASVDT was the very beginning with Jerry Shellen and Henry Schein. In 1999, the ad hoc committee of the dental college was formed. And in 2001, the first meeting of the AVDT occurred at the Western Veterinary Conference. And in 2006, the VTS accredited the with NAVTA as the third veterinary technician specialist dentistry. So that's our history. I feel really fortunate just to have been in that time period. You know? The time, the time. And if you're there and you're paying attention, you can be one.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Thank you so much for listening in today to the Positive Veterinary Dentistry podcast and part one of a two part series with Doctor Edward Eisner. It's been really fun listening. To his recounting of the history and the humble beginnings of veterinary dentistry. So please stay tuned for part two so that you can learn a little bit more about Dr. Edward Eisner, his passion projects, what he's up to today, and his take on the future of veterinary dentistry. We really look forward to it, so I hope we will see you there. And I know a lot of veterinary professionals out there don't know this podcast exists. So we would love it if you would share, like, subscribe, and listen wherever you listen to podcasts, watch the video on my YouTube channel. For now, keep doing positive veterinary dentistry, and we'll see you in part two of this two-part series.