By Racy F. Harris
The university administration has been marketing the University of Louisville as a “premier medical research” institute — but their evidence probably doesn’t include the ground-breaking work the dental school has done.
Currently, the dental school has more experience in black footed ferret anesthesia and elephant tusk root canals than any other program in the United States.
It’s all thanks to an innovative course called “Exotic Animal Dentistry.” The program is open to 40 seniors each spring — 20 slots for dental students and 20 for dental hygiene majors.
Dr. Tom Clark started the program seven years ago after volunteering at the Louisville Zoo for nearly 20 years. He was responsible for most of the dental work at the zoo; however, former zoo director Bill Foster wanted to begin giving animals regular cleanings.
Clark said that Foster wanted to shift toward preventative care, but Clark, who is a professor and also operates his own private dentistry practice, couldn’t devote that much time.
“It became a manpower issue,” he said. But Clark knew where he could find plenty of trained and willing volunteers: among his students.
For years, Clark had been talking about his zoo work and showing pictures of his work on animals to students as a way to keep them interested in the lectures. Students, he said, were constantly approaching him and asking if they could tag along on his next trip.
So Clark told Foster about his idea and developed a plan. Clark had Foster write him a letter asking if such a class could be created. Clark then hand-delivered the letter to Dean John Williams. According to Clark, Williams was very excited about the class.
“In something like 10 days, we had the class,” Clark said. The class was set up for the spring semesters because that was biologically better for the zoo, and fit better with the staff’s workload.
“It became our most popular selective course,” he said, “and it still is.”
The course is composed of three main parts: the first is the lecture series, which covers zoo information, veterinary dentistry and animal care. The lectures are delivered by Clark and by zoo staff members.
The second part is two zoo tours — one led by Clark and hygiene professor Susan Grammer to get a feel for the zoo, the other a “behind-the-scenes” look at how the zoo works and how staff interact with the animals.
Grammer, who Clark described as a great help to the program, said many students come into the program thinking they want to work on a certain animal. There’s a rotation schedule, so carnivores are seen by the students one year, and primates the next. This year was carnivores. Grammer said students always come in wanting to work on the lions, but by the end of the semester, students have found that all the animals were exciting. The actual operations performed at the clinic comprise the third part of the course.
Not only do students have a good time in the program, she said, but “it’s such a nice thing that we’re working with the zoo.”
The zoo agrees. “Having this relationship with them has been great — they’ve done a lot of good dental work,” Dr. Zoli Gyimesi said. Gyimesi is a staff veterinarian for the zoo and works with the students when they visit.
In addition to the dental work, animals are also given physical examinations while anaesthetized, he said. Vaccinations are updated and blood is drawn for testing. Gyimesi also pointed out that the zoo does have staff trained to do the teeth cleanings, but more difficult extractions and other advanced dentistry come back to Clark — and often the U of L students.
There have been a number of experimental procedures done at the zoo, said Clark. He recalls several of those procedures as being particularly memorable.
When the Louisville Zoo first received the endangered black footed ferrets, the zoo called Clark to report that the ferrets were breaking their teeth. Losing even one of those animals would have been an “incalculable” loss, he said, so he consulted with a number of other professionals to find a solution.
Clark and Dr. Roy Burns, another zoo veterinarian, had to figure out how to anaesthetize the ferrets. “No one had ever done it before — there was no protocol,” Clark said.
Using the animal’s weight and how similar animals had reacted to different chemicals, a formula was found.
Two root canals were done that day on Ranger, the first ferret ever anesthetized. Ranger would later receive more root canals and live to be eight years old — four times longer than his normal life span, Clark said.
As far as ferrets and woolly monkeys go, the Louisville Zoo has more experience doing dental work than any other zoo.
Frank, the silverback gorilla, came in with some pretty bad problems of his own — he had been losing weight, Clark said, and Clark ended up taking out “four or five teeth” and performing periodontal surgery. After that, Frank started regaining weight.
But other than having an enjoyable time poking around in a lion’s mouth and working as free help, what do students get out of the program?
Clark and Grammer both emphasized that many of these students will go on to be community leaders, and the zoo program spreads the message of conservation to students. Then, Clark said, the students can go out to their practices and spread the message there.
Clark said the students will have the opportunity to influence fiscal policy and environmental laws, and if the conservation message is all the program accomplishes, that’s enough.
Gyimesi also said the program teaches students to “think outside the box and apply their skills.” While they may not be working on animals all the time, situations will arise when they have to deal with new problems. Working with the animals gives them a head start on that, he said.
