Longtime Dentist Loses Battle with Leukemia

Bernard Smith

Bernard A. Smith, DDS, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in San Francisco in late January 2008, following a long battle with leukemia. He was 87. Born in Oakland, CA, on Nov. 15, 1920, Smith graduated in the Class of 1944 from the former College of Physicians and Surgeons, now the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry at the University of the Pacific. His postdoctoral education in pediatric dentistry was undertaken at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. During World War II, he served at sea as a dental officer in the US Naval Reserves (1944-1946), and subsequently had a highly successful private practice in pediatric dentistry on Telegraph Hill in his native Oakland. For some 17 years, he was a respected half-time faculty member in the Division of Pediatric Dentistry of the UCSF School of Dentistry, serving under the chairmanship of Merle E. Morris, DDS, and retiring in 1990 at the then-mandatory retirement age of 70 as a tenured associate clinical professor of pediatric dentistry. For the following two or three years, he served part-time on the pediatric dental faculty at the Dugoni School of Dentistry. Smith was a diplomate and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. He was president of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry from 1964 to 1971 and president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry from 1970 to 1971. He was a past president of the Alameda Dental Society and a member of the attending dental staff of Children's Hospital Medical Center, Oakland. Smith was briefly married to Mary Lynn McGill, an Atlanta pediatric dentist and widow of Ralph McGill, the former publisher of the Atlanta Constitution. He leaves no children and is survived by four loving nieces and nephews.