O MELHOR DOS MELHORES - HERBERT SHILDER - Clinician, Educator and Mentor

The Endo File Cabinet Dedication - To Dr. Herbert Schilder  Dr. Herbert Schilder grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and received a doctor of dental surgery degree from New York University and a certificate of advanced graduate study from Temple University. A member of the Boston University faculty since 1959, he became a professor and the chairman of the Endodontics department in 1963. He retired in 2003.  Dr. Schilder helped found the Boston University School of Dental Medicine in the 1960s.  He was responsible for popularizing the Endodontic concepts of “Cleaning and Shaping of the Root Canal System” and “Vertical Compaction of Warm Gutta Percha”. Schilder is regarded as a giant in the specialty because of his influence in creating an appreciation of the relationship between anatomy and its role in the treatment of endodontic pathology. For many dentists, his “Rationale of Endodontics” lecture was the first time that they truly understood the relationship between the anatomy, biology and etiology of endodontic disease. A past president of the American Association of Endodontists, a former director of the American Board of Endodontics, and a past first vice president of the American Dental Association, Schilder wrote scores of scientific articles and textbook chapters and lectured in more than 25 countries and on every continent.  In 1995 he received the AAE`s highest honor, the Edgar D. Coolidge Award, given to an individual who has displayed exemplary dedication to dentistry and to Endodontics, and who has been active in the AAE throughout his professional lifetime.  “It was the first time that many in the audience had ever seen Herb speechless,” said a graduate of the Endodontics program. Most recently, Schilder’s name became more widely known by the public because of the mention of the “Schilder Technique” in the popular Disney animated film, “Finding Nemo”. One of Dr. Schilder’s greatest legacies are the approximately 400 Endodontists from all corners of the world who were fortunate enough to graduate from his program. Herb was not the easiest mentor. He was relentlessly and stubbornly dedicated to producing the highest quality clinical results and he expected nothing less than the finest effort from his students. He was adept at bringing out the best in them, no matter how difficult the situation seemed to them at the time. At BU you were not merely a graduate Endodontic student, you were one of Dr. Schilder’s Endodontic Residents and for this he demanded your complete and unflinching commitment. Ask any BU Endo grad and they will inevitably have a favorite “Herb Story”.  It has been said by some that being a graduate of Schilder’s Boston University Endodontic program entitled you to become part of the “BU Endo Mafia” - with Schilder as the Godfather.  While some of us may have had a bit of a rough ride under his tutelage, he embraced each and every student upon graduation. The BU Endo alumni were his “family”.