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Dentristry a century-long family tradition
VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — At 84 years old, there are few people Victoria resident Paul Highberg Sr. trusts with his health.
As Highberg’s memory and eyesight begin to deteriorate, his teeth still remain strong, he said, thanks to Dr. Buddy Lee and his dentistry staff.
Buddy, and his brother Mac Lee, are celebrating the 100-year lineage of dentistry in their family this year.
“He takes care of us like old friends,” Highberg said. “They’d have to hog tie me and drag me. I’ve been going to him too long.”
If memory serves Highberg correct, he and his wife Frances have known and been with the Victoria dentist for about 40 years, he said.
The three met in Karnes City and didn’t just form a friendship — they formed a bond.
“Wherever he went, we went,” he said. “We’re treated like royalty.”
Buddy still remembers the smell of warmed up pink base wax at his grandfather’s dentistry office in Edna.
“It puts off a smell kind of like a candle,” he said as he reminisced about his early childhood memories of dentistry.
The Lees’ grandfather, Robert Edward Lee Sr., opened his dental practice in 1910 on the corner of U.S. Highway 59 and state Highway 111 in Edna.
The practice was all-encompassing and had a drugstore and bank below the dentistry office.
As the Lees remember it, the office wasn’t very big.
It had a plop-up chair and drills that were belt driven.
As scary as the tools may sound compared to today’s technology, their grandfather was ahead of his craft, Mac said.
“He was always very advanced, for even that time,” said Mac, who still works in that Edna office.
Though drills had to be pumped by foot and needles were boiled to sterilize for reuse, “Doc,” as they called him, led the charge in gum disease treatment.
Their grandfather based the philosophy that gum disease was an infection and should be treated like one by removing and treating the bacteria.
That method was passed down to Mac and Buddy’s father, and on to them.
Mac even took the extra stride and obtained the formula his grandfather used and received Food and Drug Administration approval to change the name and use the anti-bacterial agent in the profession.
Mac continues to teach this philosophy to dentists across the globe, he said.
“It is my belief that my grandfather and father gave me the permission to go forward and be progressive like they were,” he said.
Despite their exposure to dentistry as children, there was never any pressure to follow in their father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, Buddy said.
“It just seemed like something I always wanted to do,” he said. “We just kind of went down that road.”
Mac agreed that there was no pressure to become a dentist, the pressure actually comes from knowing that they are part of the lineage.
“On one end, it gives you a great boost. It makes you feel good that they paved the way for you,” he said. “You have a lot of pressure on you to uphold all of the things that happened in the past.”
Keeping the patient’s trust and that lineage going is the harder part.
The easy part is working on the patient with the advancements in technology that would have made their grandfather proud.
“There is no comparison to what my grandfather or father’s days were to today,” Mac said.
High-end equipment now sits in the brothers’ offices.
Technology hasn’t advanced as much in all of the past 100 years as it has in the past 15 years, Buddy said.
“It’s just amazing to me,” he said.
Crowns on teeth no longer look obvious.
“You can’t tell it from the real McCoy,” he added.
The advancement is almost like magic.
The Wand, a tool that numbs the oral cavity during surgical procedure, has helped lessen the pain and fear, Mac said.
When teeth were missing back during their grandfather’s time, that was it. There was no real solution to fixing the problem.
Now, porcelain veneers have helped reshape any set of teeth.
And of course, digital technology has added a whole new way to examine a patient.
As fundamental and advanced as the tools were that his grandfather was using in the early 1900s, Mac and Buddy think their grandfather would be in awe of the modern day dentist office.
“If my grandfather were alive today, we would have all the latest and greatest, and would be a major leader in our profession,” Mac said.
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