The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry

 Discover the stories of just some of the 40,000-plus artifacts inside the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry, located on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The museum has reopened to the public with two new exhibits (13:38), and of course, fan favorites including George Washington's dentures (16:35).  Scott Swank, DDS, MS, MBA, FACD, clinical assistant professor, University of Maryland School of Dentistry (UMSOD), and curator of the museum, and Patrick Cutter, MBA, MA, research assistant professor, UMSOD, and assistant director of the museum, share the stories behind the teeth on this edition of The UMB Pulse podcast. Need a visual? Watch a replay of The Pulse taking a tour of the museum on Instagram. The museum is open Wednesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission info and more can be found at www.dentalmuseum.com.

The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry  received congressional designation as the nation's official dental museum via a joint resolution introduced by the late United States Senator Paul S. Sarbanes and the late United States Representative Elijah E. Cummings. President George W. Bush signed the resolution into law on Nov. 12, 2003, 

Listen to The UMB Pulse on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you like to listen. The UMB Pulse is also now on YouTube.

Visit our website at umaryland.edu/pulse or email us at umbpulse@umaryland.edu.

Transcript

Jena Frick: 0:04

You're listening to the heartbeat of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the UMB Pulse

Charles Schelle: 0:17

Welcome to the UMB pulse. I'm Charles Schelle.

Dana Rampolla: 0:19

I'm Dana Rampolla.

Jena Frick: 0:20

And I'm Jena Frick.

Charles Schelle: 0:21

And today we are going to sink our teeth into a UMB landmark. The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry is often referred to as the National Museum of Dentistry or NMD for short. The museum is an extension of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry here on the campus of UMB. And it offers plenty of scholastic information, including how dental records are used in law enforcement and disaster investigations to the transition from baby to adult teeth, and proper oral health care, you can find just about anything in this museum. During the next half hour or so, we hope to share with you just how unique this museum really is. It has more than 40,000 items in its collection. And in case you're not aware, it is actually attached to Davidge Hall, which we covered in our previous episode on the UMB Pulse. So listen to that. And the exhibits and galleries are housed on two levels here filled with displays that are enlightening, intriguing, provocative, even with some of them. And as the museum itself admits, sometimes it's a little bit gross.

Jena Frick: 1:24

Yes. And before we sink our teeth into that to the discussion, let's note that the mission of the National Museum of Dentistry is to inspire the future of oral health through celebrating the heritage of the dental profession. And the museum has these goals of improving oral health through education, serving as the leading steward of dental history, being the culture bridge between the dental profession and the public. And what's distinctive is that the museum's seamlessly blends dental education with entertainment and has extended its reach with many links on its website.

Dana Rampolla: 1:55

And notably, the US Congress has designated it as the official museum of the dental profession, all sorts of fun stuff to talk about today. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guest curator Scott Swank, and Assistant Director Patrick Cutter. They're both with us today to shed some light on the museum and what it offers. So let's start by learning more about the name of the museum and its background. Charles, you mentioned that there's 40,000 objects in the collection here. So gentlemen, in general, what types of things are actually in the exhibits?

Scott Swank: 2:26

There's everything in the exhibits. I mean, we've got things that go back to ancient times a Mayan skull with, you know, inlaid teeth in it right up through modern times, you know, the most current X ray type equipment and scanning equipment. So it runs the gamut. We've got toys, we've got artwork, you name it, it's here.

Dana Rampolla: 2:51

Well, and one thing that we didn't mention is that the cohosts actually got a special tour of the museum before we sat down to do the podcast today. So I'm sure we'll be referencing a lot of those items. Patrick, thanks for taking us around for that.

Jena Frick: 3:04

You did a very thorough job of explaining everything. Yeah, like we learned a lot,

Charles Schelle: 3:08

You can actually watch a tour of that on the UMB Instagram account that we did a live tour. So just scroll through the feed, and you'll get a little visual component with the podcast this time,

Patrick Cutter: 3:19

And the museum will be sharing it on its Instagram account as well.

Dana Rampolla: 3:23

Perfect. Maybe Patrick, you can take this when will you trace us back to the roots. Oh my gosh, I can't stop with the dental jokes. Will. Will you take us back to the roots of the founding of the museum?

Patrick Cutter: 3:33

Sure. So the museum itself and its collection actually started with the founding of the dental school, the very first dental school of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The founders started a natural history museum with their educational program, and has been grown ever since. So people from all over have donated objects and items. And whenever the museum started becoming an idea in the 1980s, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery collection was the main component for that. So it got its foundation in 89, and then started the building process up until 96. With help from the namesake of the museum, Dr. Samuel D. Harris, and we've been open to the public since June 22 1996.

Dana Rampolla: 4:21

And we're excited for you guys because you're you've reopened since the pandemic correct here.

Unknown: 4:26

Yes, yes, we are officially open again to the public walk ins, schedule, your tours, whatever you want to do, come visit us.

Dana Rampolla: 4:33

Sounds good. Tell us a little bit about how NMD is affiliated with the Smithsonian.

Unknown: 4:39

Sure. So that's a partnership that goes back probably 20 years almost started the 2000s. And really, it's been a great partnership to help bring the Smithsonian to Baltimore to the UMB campus. And it's also helped us with multiple projects and multiple exhibits. Throughout the years, so it's really been a great asset. They designate us as a Smithsonian affiliate, because they believe we kind of match their standards. So we take it to heart to really do what we can to provide the same type of mission that the Smithsonian does.

Charles Schelle: 5:14

The building itself. We'll talk about that a little bit. It's very interesting with all the natural light in it. But then you have all these little touches of dental themes throughout between just seeing the little chairs for the kids when you enter the door, and the railings through the stairs. So walk us through a little bit about some of the architectural significance.

Unknown: 5:36

When the museum was designed Davidge Hall had not become a national landmark yet. So they actually attached the atrium, the museum's atrium roof to Davidge Hall, which would of course, would have never happened today. And that's where all this you know, glass and the light comes in, in the atrium, which makes it tough for exhibits, it's a little too much light, actually in the atrium for exhibits, although we do, you know, exhibit a few things in there. But that's where that light comes from. And then they left all the windows on the exterior. So it looks like there's all these windows and of course, there were a lot of windows and because the original building was built as a dental school, for the University of Maryland, so there was a lot of light to capture the natural light for the dental students procedures, but then they're blocked off on the inside, which gives us you know, the ability to regulate the light levels for, you know, sensitive materials, especially, you know, artworks and that kind of thing.

Charles Schelle: 6:37

And you walked us up the stairs during the tour, you pointed to these little pointy objects on the stair railing. Tell us about what those are.

Unknown: 6:46

Well, the design firm wanted to bring in a dental theme design element into the stairwell, staircase and those are elevators, their oral surgery extraction elevators, and specifically what is termed a goat's foot elevator because of the way the elevators shaped and you can't really explain it without seeing it, you have to look at the at the podcast to see what those what those look like. But they incorporated that element as the railing stanchions for for the staircase.

Charles Schelle: 7:19

And right beside there, you have this tower of chairs, which is has an interesting backstory that you share with us tell us a little bit about those,

Scott Swank: 7:28

The backstory of the tower of chairs has three chairs on it. And it was a design element that the firm came up with, to highlight these, these dental chairs and to bring a lot of interest into the, into the staircase itself. The problem was, or is that I started 11 months after the museum opened. So the chairs were already in place. And I didn't, of course see how the chairs were put on to the tower. So I have no idea how to get the chairs off of that.

Jena Frick: 8:05

They didn't leave you an instruction manual instruction manual.

Unknown: 8:09

And what was worse is the bottom chair, the chair that the lowest chair was not actually the museum's. Originally it was on loan to the museum. And I just envisioned this scenario of the owner of the chair calling and saying I want my chair back. And me trying to explain that, well maybe you will never get it back because I don't know how to remove it. And later in many years later, after I started the the gentleman donated the chair to the museum. So the chair is now officially the m-- is owned by the museum so we don't have to worry about changing it anymore. And that'll probably be a design element long after you know, I'm I'm gone maybe even after Patrick's gone.

Charles Schelle: 8:54

That's amazing. There's little touches, I guess, you know, really throughout this building and some of it maybe what was built required and we'll get into the exhibits later. But one of the more interesting features is that trapeze artists, Penny "Iron Jaw" Wilson, on the leather strap right when you're entering and just tell us a little bit about that area of the museum.

Unknown: 9:16

Sure. So you're talking about the entrance to the museum, our gallery exhibits. And it's really to introduce people to dentistry without scaring them off with dental instruments and scary things from dental history.

Jena Frick: 9:30

All those on the second floor.

Unknown: 9:32

We build everybody into getting acquainted with dentistry and making sure that they understand you know, it has its past but it's also a good future for viewing dentistry and oral health care.

Charles Schelle: 9:44

And you have that children's area a little bit later where you have the dentist chair and then they can put on the coats right and kind of practice that that there are dentists right?

Unknown: 9:54

Yeah. One of our main goals is to get people interested in the dental profession and joining us so One of the exhibits that we have is Mouth Power, which is all about having students, learners of all ages, we have kids that come in, we have adults that come in, that will brush the giant teeth there that will try and put on the lab coats and realize they don't fit and adult. But it's really just a fun place to pretend to be a dentist or a dental hygienist or dental assistant.

Charles Schelle: 10:26

I feel like after walking through, I've should have been handed a sticker and a little bag with a toothbrush and toothpaste and be like, good job.

Patrick Cutter: 10:34

We have those downstairs.

Charles Schelle: 10:35

Oh, good! I'll be looking for those!

Jena Frick: 10:38

Well, speaking of learners of all ages, do you find that many people use the museum for research at all?

Unknown: 10:45

It comes and goes. We have actually during the pandemic we started remote internships and volunteer opportunities. So we've had a big influx and people finding us online and realizing that we have just untapped resources here. dental history is one of the understudied humanities for sure. We're doing our best to kind of promote it and get all of our resources available to people. But I would say within the last few years, we've definitely had a big increase. People were caring more about, you know, what has brought them to this point in their lives and what has really shaped them. Yeah. And, back in August, we've got a scholar from England, coming over to use the collection as part of her research for, you know, the research he's working on now. So yeah, we've, you know, and there have been other people like that in the past. And it's, it's not used as much as you might think. But yeah, people are starting to realize what a resource we have here.

Jena Frick: 11:45

That's so interesting. And part of the tour that we had had, before recording this podcast, we got to see kind of like a peek into the storage area. And you you had said, Patrick, that only about like 5% of all of your stuff is actually on display right now. And there's a whole underground of other things, right?

Unknown: 12:01

Yes, yes. So we have 40,000 to 50,000 objects, and archival records. And we can't put that on display. We if we had the room to do it, that would be amazing. But unfortunately, about 95% of it ends up in our storage area for us to use for our own research purposes to plan exhibits arounds and hopefully bring people in to come see it on Yeah, and hopefully do research as well. Exactly.

Dana Rampolla: 12:28

Do you sometimes build exhibits out of that storeroom, then? Like Oh, my

Unknown: 12:33

Oh, yeah. We, we do. Yeah, we we've done rotating exhibits. We did a toy exhibit in the atrium one time, just because we've got all these dental related toys, and people don't realize how many toys are out there that have a dental theme to them. You know, from Dennis the Menace to Barbie, and you know, all kinds of board games and all kinds of things. So we also have the two new exhibits drawing teeth and ancient Japanese dentistry, which were collections that we have had in storage for a while that we know needed to be shared. Because I mean, they're visually appealing. They're very interesting and tell stories that we really haven't told yet. So we'd love getting into the collection right now. COVID, COVID actually provided us with the opportunity with nobody in the museum to do some renovations and bring a lot of the collection out. And Patrick was you know, researching things while there wasn't anybody here. So we've we've definitely enhanced the exhibits during COVID. So it's a great time to come visit now.

Jena Frick: 13:38

Yeah, can you you said that you had these two new exhibits the ancient Japanese one and then the drawing drawing teeth one. Is there an interesting fact that you can tell our listeners from each of those exhibits that you can share?

Scott Swank: 13:51

I'll let Patrick work on the art one but for the Japanese exhibit, you would be surprised to find dentures on display that have black teeth in them. And dental manufacturing companies actually made false teeth that were black in for the Asian market, specifically Japan because that was a sign of wealth and status for a married woman in you know, many, many years ago and in Japan.

Charles Schelle: 14:21

It was amazing. It looks so shiny, too.

Scott Swank: 14:24

Well, they're porcelain. Yeah, so they actually incorporated the black color into into porcelain teeth. And of course we would. That's just anathema to us, but to them it was quite the society thing.

Jena Frick: 14:34

Wow. I'm just picturing now like walking down the street and just seeing somebody with like a shiny black T shirt right now. Interesting. And then from the drawing exhibit. Any interesting fact you want to share Patrick?

Patrick Cutter: 14:47

Well, I think it's just interesting that every type of artwork has been shaped by dentistry so you have you know, sculptures, we have ornaments. We have 2D art where we have sketches, prints, paintings, and um things that were styled in the way of the old masters of art and Renaissance paintings and it's it's all over the place. Dentistry has been a common theme throughout history whether it's through the toothache and dealing with dental pain or whether it's actually celebrating the dentist so that's the fun thing thing with that.

Dana Rampolla: 15:18

Yeah, I commented at one point when we walked through because there was a Norman Rockwell portrait hanging there and I and one right behind me. Yeah, one right behind me and one on that wall. And it's just interesting because I, you know, I flashed back to my more youthful days where Norman Rockwell was such a sought after artists and, and as soon as you see them, it's like, oh my gosh, I remember these and there are a number of them, people visiting the dentist being in a dental chair. So a visit to the dentist can be daunting. We were talking about the dental display downstairs that is geared towards children. Sometimes dentistry can be frightening for a child the first time they go to the dentist and we understand that you have a ready for the dentist program.

Unknown: 16:00

Yes and I'll make a plug for a new education coordinator here Elise Peterson. She's been a great addition where she's coming up with numerous and various programs that like ready for the dentist's where this program is all about making sure that young kids and anybody with dental anxiety has a chance to come figure out what they're going to experience at the dentist. So they get to touch and feel things that they would find in the dental office, they get to learn about the history a little bit and really make dentistry seem not as frightening as some people might think it is.

Jena Frick: 16:35

So we kind of got into a couple of the new exhibits that you'll have. Let's talk about some of the other ones. And I know one of the big draws here we have is the George Washington gallery exhibit. Can you tell us a little bit about that and why it's so novel?

Unknown: 16:47

Well, the novelty of it comes from actually owning one of George Washington's dentures. I mean, scholars think he had as many as seven sets. We know that four exist. Mount Vernon owns a set, we own one, there's one that the dental school used to own. Back during the Civil War, it got taken it was taken to London for quote, safekeeping and ended up in London and it's now owned by the London Hospital archives and museum. And then the other denture is owned by the New York, New York Academy of History, I believe is what they call themselves. So we've got one of Washington's four known dentures, which, while it's not unique, it's very, very rare. And we had all the extant dentures on exhibit when the museum first opened and then Mount Vernon Ladies Associated wanted theirs back because they took it on the road actually, it was a traveling exhibit and wildly denture was traveling they made a room in Mount Vernon, in the in their exhibit gallery, not the mansion, but in the exhibit gallery that is like our George Washington room. So they made a room specifically for their denture just as we made a room specifically for our denture, but I believe the dental Museum is still the only place where you can see one of Washington's real dentures, and then we have replicas of the other three. So that's the only place you can come and actually see all for it at one time.

Jena Frick: 18:24

And I learned I learned something new on the tour about these teeth that they weren't actually made of wood. So can you explain to our listeners who may have also thought of that the teeth are made of wood?

Unknown: 18:34

It seems like most everybody thinks they were made of wood. When I was giving tours to school children, that was the I mean, that was my lead-in line, mainly for the chaperones. You know, what are George Washington's teeth made of? And the kids would kind of look at you but one of the chaperones would would be would fall in to immediately say, Oh, they're made out of wood. And then of course, you get the chance to explain No, they're not made out of wood. They're made out of ivory. And then so where does that whole wood, urban myth thing come from? Personally, I think it's because most of the dentures all had ivory teeth on them. Ivory grows throughout an animal's life. It has a growth ring pattern, just like wood has a growth ring pattern. Washington was a known drinker of dark liquids, Port lines and teas and coffees and all that kind of thing, which would have all stained the ivory in those dentures. The ivory wasn't sealed in any way. So it would have picked up, you know, any kind of stain that you put on them. And if you saw them, which I don't think you would have gotten a chance to see them much in his mouth, they would have probably looked pretty, pretty wooden and then there was a newspaper article from the centennial 1876, and the writer was describing washing tins denture and described how it, you know, his wooden countenance, and that kind of thing. And I think that probably all filtered into this whole wooden wooden teeth mystery. But there are little wooden pegs that hold our lower denture together, the teeth section and the section that would set on the gums are held together by little wooden pegs. But that's the only wood wood in them.

Charles Schelle: 20:26

You know, the other thing you mentioned during the tour, too, that maybe this would lend itself to that myth, as you said, Washington would actually carve or trim or modify his own dentures, right? So I'm thinking if people saw him, like, maybe work on them, they're like, Oh, he's like whittling wood.

Unknown: 20:45

It actually would look like you were whittling. And I'm not sure how much Washington did, I do think he trimmed them a lot. Because if you look at them, and you think, well, it's just this little you, and there's not much shape to it, and that looks like he would hurt when it was in your mouth. And it probably would have by the time he got finished with it, you know if you've seen a modern denture and the flanges and how they tried to get as much support as possible. And one of Washington's dentures looks like that. So Greenwood obviously made them with a larger base to make them as comfortable as possible. But for some reason, Washington was always fiddling with them. And then he would ask, he would send them via courier to Greenwood with instructions on you know, I need new springs or the springs need to be adjusted, or and it needs to be, you know, trimmed here and there. And you know, by the time they were done, they're just this little U shape that probably wouldn't be good for anything anymore.

Dana Rampolla: 21:41

Well, it's been fun talking about a couple of these exhibits. Let's play around of what's your favorite exhibit? Patrick, can we start with you.

Unknown: 21:47

So my favorite exhibit is the History of Toothbrush collection. It kind of shows the development of toothbrushes from a chewing stick all the way up to the modern electric toothbrushes that we have today. And there's so many different shapes, so many different brush heads, so many different figures that toothbrushes have been shown throughout the years. And everybody has a toothbrush now. So it's something that's just is involved with everybody's life too. It's just fun to see.

Jena Frick: 22:16

I saw like a vintage Snoopy one sitting in the glass there, which I loved. There's plenty of different ones.

Unknown: 22:22

Yeah, the toothbrush was the only thing used in the NASA Apollo missions that wasn't altered from its original state to take into space. They they use a toothbrush as was as is of course they had to change you know, the toothpaste and everything like that. And the museum owns a toothbrush that went into space. It was on the Apollo mission just before the that was the rehearsal for the actual landing on the moon. I think that was Apollo 10. It was Cernan, whose toothbrush we own so that was the only thing not modified by NASA that went and has gone into space.

Jena Frick: 23:02

Wow, that's so interesting.

Charles Schelle: 23:03

But I'm looking at your notes our little cheat sheet in front of us. And I'm completely must have missed this during the tour. There is a narwhal tooth?

Unknown: 23:13

The narwhal tooth is not on exhibit anymore.

Charles Schelle: 23:17

Oh no.

Scott Swank: 23:19

Yeah, the narwhal we had a model of a full size narwhal course they're not large whales. But that was hanging right outside this room. And it was on loan to the museum. And the person that loaned it to the museum made a connection with the Smithsonian for them to use it in their Arctic their new Arctic exhibit so it's with the Smithsonian now and it just the items we had on display of the exhibit the narwhal exhibit just didn't make a whole lot of sense without the narwhal on display so yeah, that all came out during during COVID made room for some other exhibits that we've we've altered since then.

Jena Frick: 24:02

Did you have the narwhal for a long time before the Smithsonian took it?

Unknown: 24:04

We did have the narwhal for a pretty good while. Yeah, I can't, you know time flies. And I've been here so long things kind of run together. But we did have it for a while.

Jena Frick: 24:14

Yeah, I only asked this because I was telling you all at the beginning of our tour. The last time I came for a tour of the the dental museum, I was 8 years old and it was on a field trip with my Girl Scout troop. And I remember the narwhal because I thought the exhibit was super cool. And I was at that age where I really love dolphins so I was like Oh, not at all it's just like that.

Charles Schelle: 24:35

The reason why jumped out to me because you had like a plush doll of Hermie The Misfit elf who was a dentist with the land of Island of Misfit Toys I'm like well there's a you know entire exhibit creating itself between Hermie and then the narwhal tooth because they got the narwhal from the Christmas movie so just writes itself.

Dana Rampolla: 24:54

And the big Megalodon tooth one of my favorites.

Scott Swank: 24:57

Oh yeah, you gotta love that right now.

Dana Rampolla: 24:59

Did someone find that locally? Or was that...?

Unknown: 25:02

No that was in the, you know. Patrick, Patrick had mentioned that the collection goes back to the dental schools founding in 1840. And that was one of the pieces that just kept getting, you know, handed down and handed down and handed down. That's an that's an original piece.

Dana Rampolla: 25:17

So Scott, well, how about you? What's one of your favorite?

Unknown: 25:20

Well, I, you would think it's George Washington's denture, but it's not I mean, that, you know, that kind of speaks for itself. I've got to, and I, you know, I think because I like the British Royal Family, and the whole history of that, and the fact that they're still there. And, you know, Elizabeth just celebrated her, you know, 70th anniversary on the throne. So she finally beat Queen Victoria as the longest British monarch on the throne. And we have a set of Queen Victoria's dental scalars. So in the Victorian era, if you had the money, instead of going to the dentist and having the dentist, scrape your teeth, or clean your teeth with the scalars that he used for everyone, you purchased your own. And of course, since she was the queen, she had a set made. And, you know, just think British royalty, and you'll think of the opulence of these things they've got mother of pearl handles in their gilded silver fittings on them. And I mean, they're just, you know, you look at him and you just think, yeah, that's, that's the height of Yeah, opulence, right when you've got gilded silver, dental scalers that you that. And of course, she didn't go to the dentist, the dentist came to came to her and was actually granted a dental degree by the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery early on, he was made a you know, granted one of those honorary degrees. But that the instrument, the thing I really, like best, I'm a gadget guy. I mean, I'm sitting here with a with a Leatherman on my side now. And there's this little teeny exhibit when you go in and you're looking at the Mayan pyramid. On the left on the wall is an exhibit of a pocket knife, or a pocket tool, we would call it really today. And it's for extractions, it's set up with like three different kinds of elevators on it. And it's got a pelican tooth extractor in it. And it all folds up into this multi tool, extraction device. And I've I've only ever seen that one. And, you know, you can just kind of picture this person walking around with that in their pocket, maybe a physician, maybe somebody that made their living as you know, as a dentist, probably more like a physician, and just carried this in case, they had a patient with a toothache and needed a tooth extracted, or something like that. But it's a really interesting piece. And it's kind of off to the side. I don't think a lot of people see it. The Swiss Army knife it is it's a Swiss Army knife of extraction instruments. Yeah.

Charles Schelle: 28:09

I'm just imagining it being used in like a mob movie, too.

Dana Rampolla: 28:13

Right. We were talking about movies and dental torture and movies and how frightening that is, which could be why a lot of people have some apprehension about going to the dentist, but Marathon Man, I think was one that we

Scott Swank: 28:27

Yeah, yeah. Popular culture has not been kind to the dentist and dentists role in society and medicine and, you know, all that kind of thing.

Dana Rampolla: 28:37

Well, and especially when you see some of the tools that are actually down there.

Scott Swank: 28:40

Yeah, you can't help but admit that, you know, before the advent of anesthesia and different things like that. You know, you can't say that. Oh, you know, I'd like to go back to the good old days. Well, the good old days for dentistry are right now trust me.

Charles Schelle: 28:57

Yeah, I was -- we mentioned earlier during the tour, like, I'm sure the kids are super excited about the dental interactive exhibits where they get to play dentists and everything. And they're, they're happy. They're they're looking forward to it as maybe us as kids, maybe weren't so much. But now you're given headphones. And then TVs on

Scott Swank: 29:17

TV on the ceiling, right?

Charles Schelle: 29:18

Yeah, TVs on the ceiling. I'm sure there's some places that probably give you like a manicure while you're getting your teeth cleaned. Oh, yeah. We've really only scratched the surface of everything that is in this museum. So it can probably take you quite a long time just to get through and pause and look at all of the different placards and descriptions of everything so to visit by yourself or maybe with your family. Scott, what are the hours and how much does it cost to visit?

Scott Swank: 29:49

I'll let Patrick do okay. Yeah, I've been out of that arena for a little while. And Patrick knows a lot better than I do.

Unknown: 29:54

So since we've reopened with the pandemic. We are now open, Wednesday through Friday 10am to 4pm. And as walk ins, you can schedule tour groups. You want a guided tour, just let us know a little bit in advance. But otherwise come in and take a look around team is happy.

Jena Frick: 30:10

Do you have to purchase tickets to take a tour?

Unknown: 30:12

Yes, there is admission for individuals and for groups, different rates that can be found online at our on our website at www.dentalmuseum.com. So anybody in the UMB community come visit whenever you want, it's free. bring guests, we don't tend to enforce the admission too often on that.

Charles Schelle: 30:33

So does that include the hospital system, folks?

Patrick Cutter: 30:36

Yeah, anybody with in walking distance of fear associated with the school visit

Scott Swank: 30:42

BioPark, hospital.

Charles Schelle: 30:45

And as far as you know, access to get here, the light rail is just steps away if you want to take the light rail to come here or even a bus line. But what about parking nearby to get to the museum.

Unknown: 30:58

So with the pandemic, actually, there's been an increase in available spots on Greene Street. So street parking is definitely the easiest one to get a spot right out front and walk right up our steps. There are garages in the area of associated with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, that are easy parking within five minute walks from here. And we also have the circulator spot. That's the National Museum of Dentistry circulator stop on the Orange Line.

Charles Schelle: 31:25

Great. And whether you want to do daily visit or school or group experience, give us your contact information, your website, or what's the best way to reach out?

Unknown: 31:34

Sure. So you can either call us at 410-706-0600, one of us will answer and walk you through every step of setting up a tour visiting or you can sign up online, we have both individual admission and tour group reservations, forums online at www.dentalmuseum.com.

Charles Schelle: 31:55

Fantastic. And as with every museum, even if it's free, or there's a charge, it takes a lot to put into keep the lights on. So how can our listeners donate to the museum, if they're feeling generous,

Unknown: 32:09

They can go to our website as well. We actually have a sub link support dental museum.com that people can visit and takes you right to all the different ways that you can support us whether it's donating objects that are things that you have from your past, or donating monetary funds or even volunteering with us. We're always looking for volunteers to help with our education programs with going through the collection and all the fun things that we do here.

Charles Schelle: 32:34

It sounds like a fun adventure!

Jena Frick: 32:35

Yeah, definitely for like the summertime, if you're looking for a fun summer project, why not volunteer with the dental museum? So thank you so much, Scott, and Patrick, for joining us on the Pulse today and for giving us a special tour of everything before we sat down and really talked about it.

Patrick Cutter: 32:50

You're welcome. Thanks for talking with us.

Dana Rampolla: 32:54

That was a fun conversation. And I especially enjoyed them giving us a personal tour. So I would encourage our listeners to stop by, I do want to share with our Pulse Pals that we have a new email. So you can either connect with us on our website through the Wufoo form that's there, where feel free to shoot us an email at umbpulse@umaryland.edu

Charles Schelle: 33:16

And we'll take suggestions for future guests. You can also leave us a review on Apple podcast. By the way, we've received a five star review for our positive schools episode. So thank you CS Zukowski. Hopefully we'll revisit positive schools and a future episode. Also subscribe while you're at it on Apple or wherever you listen.

Jena Frick: 33:39

Yeah, and if you leave us a positive review, you know, we'll give you a shout out in one of our episodes maybe. So we've had a lot of fun this summer kind of visiting all the different cool places that we could check out around campus and everything. But in September, we are going to return with our changemakers theme. So check out our website at umaryland.edu/pulse To find out what our lineup of Changemaker guests will be in this upcoming season.

Charles Schelle: 34:01

And thank you again to Scott Swank and Patrick Cutter for joining us on the podcast and thank you for listening to the UMB Pulse.

Jena Frick: 34:16

The UMB pulse with Charles Schelle, Dana Rampolla and Jena Frick is a UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs production. Edited by Charles Schelle, sound engineering by Jena Frick, marketing by Dana Rampolla. Music by No Vibe. Recorded in the University of Maryland Baltimore Community Engagement Center.