Dentist

Every two weeks or so, Doc Young would mosey into town and set up shop in somebody's living room. It was only a matter of time before almost everyone in town would pay him a visit. "Everybody needs to go to the dentist sooner or later," said Floyd E. Baker. He should know. Floyd Edward Baker, DDS, followed in Doc Young's footsteps. Once a year, the 76-year-old Mount Airy dentist returns home to where Doc Young practiced - a small, one-dentist town in Missouri - and rolls up in a mobile home-type van that's been converted into a fully equipped dental office.

A dentist suing ABC and "20/20" correspondent John Stossel for libel admitted under cross-examination yesterday that most of his patients are referred to him by negligence lawyers and that he finds a jaw problem in 99 percent of these patients. Dr. Owen Rogal, who runs the "Pain Center" on Broad Street near Locust, also testified that he wrote a book, "Mandibular Whiplash," about temporomandibular joint problems (TMJ) sustained in auto accidents. In the book, he advises dentists and lawyers that "every accident has a TMJ component," he testified yesterday.

A female dentist and graduate student has sued Temple University in federal court, alleging she has been subjected to sexual harassment and discrimination by a professor at Temple's dental school. The dentist, Anastasia Batsis, is seeking money damages from both the university and the professor, Asterios Doukoudakis. The alleged wrongdoing began in January 1991, when Batsis enrolled in the school's prosthodontics program, which Doukoudakis directs, and included "inappropriate and unwanted sexual touching, comments and other advances," the suit states.

Slain Society Hill dentist Stephen Grosse was drunk at the time of his murder, with tests showing his blood-alcohol level was enough to prevent him from fending off his attacker, authorities said yesterday. Toxicology tests show that Grosse, 44, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.15, which is 50 percent above the legal limit of 0.10, said Montgomery County Coroner Halbert Fillinger. Tests are not complete on whether Grosse had any drugs in his system when he died, Fillinger said.

A Philadelphia dentist has been charged with cheating hundreds of poor people under the state Medicaid program by making them pay extra for anesthesia. Dr. Bernard Rothman, 49, of Delancey Place near 21st Street in Center City, was charged with 524 counts of Medicaid fraud in Harrisburg yesterday. Rothman, an oral surgeon, is accused of requiring his poorest patients to pay $15 to $20 a shot for general anesthesia, then billing Medicaid for the treatment. Each count is a felony and carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

Root canal. Fillings. Crown reconstruction. For many people, even routine dental operations provoke responses of fear. For dental phobics, the fear is multiplied a thousand times. Brian Moscow, a dental anesthesiologist, believes that dental phobics need not go through life shielding their teeth from the world. He believes the solution, in a word, is anesthesia. "Ninety percent of my patients are people who want to go to the dentist, but don't want to hear a drill and can't handle a needle.

William H. Phillips, 77, of Wayne, a dentist in Havertown for 37 years, died Tuesday at Paoli Hospital of a stroke. Dr. Phillips, whose father died when he was 5, was educated at Girard College, then a boarding school for fatherless boys. He was grateful for the tuition-free education, his daughter Anne Murphy said, and returned to Girard every year for a reunion with former classmates. He earned a bachelor's degree from Villanova University on a Navy ROTC scholarship and then served in the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier Kula Gulf.

Harry Field, 91, a dentist in Northeast Philadelphia for more than 40 years, died of cancer Wednesday, May 11, at McKnight Place Extended Care in St. Louis. Dr. Field opened a dental office in Frankford in 1948 and opened a second office in the Summerdale section of Philadelphia in 1951. After several years, he closed the Frankford office. He practiced in Summerdale until he was in his early 70s. Dr. Field grew up in Overbrook Park, graduated from Overbrook High School, and attended what is now La Salle University.

Dominic Angeloni, 102, formerly of Gladwyne and South Philadelphia, a retired dentist, died Thursday at Sunrise Assisted Living in Haverford. Dr. Angeloni graduated from South Philadelphia High School. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree in dentistry from Penn. During Prohibition, he made wine in his family's basement and smuggled wine casks onto the trolley to sell at campus parties, his daughter Rita Pelagatti said. He met his future wife, Rose Blasi, at her family's boarding house in Wildwood.

Everything seemed to last a long time for Dr. Paul Zonies, and that usually was a good thing. He loved his wife for 67 years, practiced dentistry for 46, and helped raise three sons, who in turn gave him six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. On Saturday, April 13, Dr. Zonies died in a Voorhees transitional facility with sons Steve, Ken, and Ralph by his side after years of struggling with a brain tumor. He was 90. Born in 1922, Dr. Zonies grew up in Camden but lived mostly in Pennsauken.

Four seats will be contested in this fall's Cherry Hill township council race, with three incumbents vying to keep their spots on the all-Democratic panel. Council President David Fleisher is running for reelection to the seven-member council along with first-term members Jim Bannar and Susan Shin Angulo. Joining the Democratic ticket is Carole Roskoph, an English teacher at Cherry Hill West and chairwoman of the planning board. Republicans are running two former candidates - Nancy O'Dowd and Dan Loveland Sr., both unsuccessful in 2009 - and new contenders John Galie, a former school board president, and Stephen Cohen, a dentist.

TULSA, Okla. - Health officials Thursday urged an Oklahoma oral surgeon's patients to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying filthy conditions behind his office's spiffy facade posed a threat to his 7,000 clients and made him a "menace to the public health. " The Oklahoma Board of Dentistry said Thursday that state and county health inspectors went to W. Scott Harrington's practice after a patient with no other known risk factors tested positive for both hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS.

DEAR ABBY: I am writing to you because I can share this anonymously. I am close to 60 years old, and I'm terrified of the dentist. Every time I pick up the phone to make an appointment, I get so anxious I feel like I'm going to die. Do you think I will be able to find a caring, compassionate and nonjudgmental dentist? Are they out there? Sometimes I wish I could die instead of going to the dentist. Am I crazy? - Mrs. Anxiety in the U.S.A. DEAR MRS. ANXIETY: Let me put it this way - if you're crazy, you have a lot of company.

Anthony M. "Sonny" DiDio, 85, a dentist for generations of families in the Fox Chase section of Northeast Philadelphia, died Saturday, Jan. 26, of prostate cancer at a nursing-care facility in Montgomery County. Dr. DiDio grew up in North Philadelphia and graduated from Central High School. He completed a semester at Temple University, then enlisted in the Army. He was commissioned a second lieutenant at Fort Benning, Ga., where he was a weapons instructor. He left the service in 1948 and returned to Temple, where he studied dentistry.

A Delaware County dentist is offering a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction of whomever broke into his Upper Darby practice, stole copper tubing, and caused over $40,000 in damages. John-Eric Kramer, who had moved his offices from Philadelphia, was renovating a large stone Tudor-style building he had purchased at 7200 Bradford Rd. He said the thief or thieves broke in through a basement door. The repairs are costly, he said, because plumbing for a dental practice requires special fixtures to prevent contamination.

THEY ALLEGEDLY yanked teeth, did root canals, put braces on crooked teeth and administered drugs. But the two women who ran an underground dental business in Bryn Mawr, luring patients by offering deals to the uninsured, were not licensed dentists, authorities say. In fact, one had no medical training whatsoever. Lower Merion police arrested the pair Monday and issued a public plea to help identify potentially dozens of people whom they allegedly illegally treated. Cheryl Laing, 45, and Jessica Gullickson, 24, both of Broomall, were charged with corrupt organizations, criminal conspiracy, reckless endangerment, theft by deception and unauthorized practice of dentistry after a grand-jury investigation found that they had treated patients at Smilz 4 Life on Old Lancaster Avenue near Elliott Avenue, said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

Two employees of a Bryn Mawr dental practice have been charged with masquerading as a dentist and her assistant while performing cut-rate procedures in the office after hours. According to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, the women - a receptionist and a dental assistant - pulled teeth, took X-rays, applied braces and crowns, and dispensed medications. Cheryl Laing and Jessica Gullickson, both of Broomall, have been charged with running a corrupt organization, criminal conspiracy, multiple counts of theft by deception, unauthorized practice of dentistry, and recklessly endangering another person, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Sidney R. Bridges, 81, a dentist who served patients at his West Philadelphia office for 50 years, died Saturday, Dec. 1, of Alzheimer's disease at Rosemont Presbyterian Village, an assisted-living facility. Dr. Bridges was an emeritus member of the Northeast Regional Board of Dental Examiners, which administers clinical examinations in dentistry and dental hygiene. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Board of Dental Examiners since 1975, and was on the board of governors of the Philadelphia County Dental Society.

James S. Williams, 85, of Hatboro, a retired dentist and orthodontist known to his patients in Olney as "Dr. Jim," died Saturday, Dec. 1, of a heart ailment at Chestnut Hill Hospital. Born at Germantown Hospital, Dr. Williams attended Olney High School, but contracted scarlet fever and transferred to Mercersburg (Pa.) Academy, from which he graduated in 1945. He joined the Navy and trained at the Pennsylvania Maritime Academy. He earned a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 and graduated with a degree in dentistry from the Dental School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1954.