by Dr. Glenn T. Sameshima Los Angeles, CA Orthodontic Program Director, USC.

The University of Southern California (USC) Department of Orthodontics is one of the oldest in America. Orthodontics has been taught since the USC Dental School’s inception in 1897, but the orthodontics department formally opened in 1934. Dr. Spencer Atkinson was named the first chair of the fledgling program. Dr. Atkinson was a graduate of the Angle School of Orthodontia in Pasadena, California and had taught there and at his alma mater, Emory University in Georgia. He was supported by Drs. Stenson Dillon and Albin Oppenheimand other local orthodontists who were mostly from the Angle School, which was conveniently located in Pasadena. Dr. Oppenheim escaped Nazi Austria to come to the United States in 1937 thanks to Dr. Atkinson; Dr. Oppenheim had been one of the few European orthodontists that Dr. Edward Angle had invited to teach at his school, which is how Dr. Atkinson got to know him. Dr. Atkinson served as chair until he retired in 1956, and the graduate program closed for a few years. A 1955 grad, Dr. Sakae Tanaka, stayed to teach the graduating classes, and then he finished all the cases after they all left. In 1960, Dean McNulty resurrected the department, and with Dr. Cecil Steiner’s encouragement, Dr. Harry Dougherty, a Curriculum II University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) grad, agreed to be the chair.

So began the Dougherty-Tanaka era. Dr. Dougherty asked Dr. Tanaka, or as he became known to all “Dr. T,” to stay and teach with him. Dr. T would end up being the only full-time faculty for nearly half a century. Successive deans refused to give Dr. Dougherty full-time status. He was born two centuries too late; he was a real Renaissance Man—larger than life, almost Hemingwayesque. His biography read like a Hollywood script, including his graduation from Hollywood High School. All his graduates and colleagues would agree that he was undoubtedly the most interesting man they had ever met: Marine medic in the battle of Okinawa, founder of a calligraphy association, French cathedral stone sculptor, inventor of numerous orthodontic instruments and techniques, polyglot, poly math, ABO president, emeritus faculty, etc. He was even knighted for bringing fame and honor to the Dougherty name. Sir Harry would remain as chair until 1993, training an entire generation of outstanding clinicians, but he would be the first to tell you he could not have done it without Dr. T essentially running the program out of the limelight as the clinic director. Dr. Dougherty’s first class—the class of 1962—became the most celebrated class of all.

Their support for the department is still felt today, and many came back to volunteer teach for Dr. Dougherty during the ensuing three plus decades. During the Dougherty-Tanaka years, no program had more ABO grads than USC. The tradition of a hands-on typodont course early in the first summer was created and was for many years taught by the legendary Dr. Eldor Sagehorn, who passed the torch to his practice partner Dr. Jim Loos (class of 1964). In 1963, an alumnus of the class of 1962, Dr. Val Clark, started the USC Orthodontic Alumni Association, the first of its kind in the country. The department would not have survived without the financial support of the Association. The first Dr. Steiner meeting occurred in 1987, and from 1986 until 2020 all students earned an MS degree in craniofacial biology (CBY).

In 1993, Dr. Peter Sinclair was recruited to be the new chair and program director. He had been the program director at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, widely considered the top program in America at the time. Dr. Sinclair came with a bold vision and the energy and talent to make that vision a reality. The department relocated from the basement, a.k.a. The Dungeon, to a brand new, state-ofthe-art facility on the third floor in 1997. The move was made possible by a successful fundraising campaign spearheaded by alumni Drs. George Boone and Ralph Allman. Rapid change followed with the addition of more full- and parttime faculty: Dr. Joseph Zernik came from University of Connecticut, becoming the only orthodontic faculty member to be the recipient of two R1 National Institutes of Health grants. Dr. Robert Keim, the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics editor, came from Tennessee as clinic director; Dr. James Mah from Harvard joined us for research and predoc, and Dr. Glenn Sameshima was hired for research and didactic teaching. Dr. Mah brought USC to the forefront of cutting-edge imaging and technology, and thanks to the generosity of Dr. Ron Redmond (class of 1970) we had one of the first cone beam computed tomography facilities in America. The department also added Dr. Charles Warkomski for the predoctoral clinic and Ellen Grady, a well-known practice consultant, as part-time faculty. Ellen became the only non orthodontist ever to serve on our faculty; she gradually took on more of a role in managing the clinic and became the de facto clinic director. The core faculty that Dr. Dougherty brought in remained through the years, but as they retired, they were replaced by another generation of mostly USC grads such as Drs. Milt Chan, Rob Hambleton, Gary Kawata, Nile Sorenson, Rick McLaughlin, Bob Denny, Roy Parle, Rex Peters, Harry Aronowitz, and John Trotter. The first female faculty joined during the 1990s: Drs. Alice Shen and Saijai Peng. The first father-son duo to teach in the clinic was Dr. Bob Schacter (class of 1968) and his son Warren (class of 1997), and the first father-daughter duo was Dr. Rob Hambleton (class of 1986) and his daughter Lindsey (class of 2011).

In 2006, Dr. Sinclair left for private practice, and Dr. Glenn Sameshima became the first USC trained chairman. Dr. Sameshima had been one of the first to complete the combined program of orthodontics plus a PhD degree in CBY in 1990. Born in California and raised on US Air Force bases around the world, Dr. Sameshima went to the University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate (majoring in mathematics) and then the UCSF dental school and returned to school after serving as a dentist in the Air Force, achieving the rank of major. Sir Harry, Dr. T, and his mentor Dr. Michael Melnick inspired Dr. Sameshima to pursue a full-time academic career. He feels very fortunate he never had to leave USC and Los Angeles! Evaluation and adoption of practical advances in new technology became an important part of the program while maintaining core values of quality, goal-focused patient care. The number and variety of patients treated has increased, and the vast majority of graduates in the past eight years have colleagues. Current full-time faculty include Ellen Grady and Dr. Ivan Shnorhokian (predoctoral ortho).

All faculty who teach in the graduate orthodontics clinic are required to be board certified; USC was the first program to establish this. Most of the faculty are Angle Society members; all faculty did their orthodontics residency in America. Dr. Dan Grauer taught with us for eight years before leaving for private practice, and the students he mentored for their thesis projects won numerous awards. The number of graduates per year has remained unchanged at six since the 1970s. The program length has been 34 months since the early 1990s. In recognition of the rapid advances being made in orthodontics in other nations and regions, the department began sponsoring resident exchanges with top programs in Japan and Korea, and now each class cohort attends a foreign meeting or orthodontics program. Visiting scholars who spent a year with us have become chairs at four renowned international programs. The department continues to thrive thanks to outstanding alumni support. Ten years from now we will be celebrating our centennial. We have definitely come a long way and the future is bright ! PCSO is fortunate in having outstanding residency programs in orthodontics and great leadership in all of them.

The PCSO program directors meet remotely several times every year to help each other out. All programs in America have had problems recruiting young talent, but in 2024 we finally won the golden ticket by recruiting one of our own grads, Dr. Glenn Jou, to be our latest full-time junior faculty. Dr. Jou comes from a USC family. His father is one of our grads (class of 1994), and his mother finished her pediatric dentistry residency at USC the same year. Dr. Jou will be involved in modernizing the program top to bottom—stay tuned for exciting, bleeding-edge changes rooted in science, ethics, compassion, and most of all doing what’s best for our patients. Fight on!