Dentistry has been a constant presence in Dr. Michael MacEntee’s life. His father was one of Ireland’s first college-educated dentists who went on to set up a practice in a small town. The youngest of three children, he was the only one to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“Neither of my siblings were interested in dentistry, and I thought it was something my father would approve of,” says Dr. MacEntee. “Nothing else was pulling me away, so it felt like the natural path.”

After earning his degree at the same school as his father, Dr. MacEntee worked in Ireland and England before moving abroad. Canada wasn’t a long-term plan, but opportunity knocked, and a sense of curiosity and adventure landed him at a dental practice in Winnipeg. It was there that he encountered a problem that would shape the rest of his career.

“The practice had many older patients with a lot of dental concerns, and I felt like I didn’t have the skills or knowledge at that point in my career to deal with it,” says Dr. MacEntee. “I contacted a former teacher of mine, and he suggested I get more training, which led me to prosthodontics.”

After completing prosthodontics training in South Carolina, Dr. MacEntee took a position with UBC Dentistry, making him the first prosthodontist to join the Faculty. At the time, in BC, prosthodontics wasn’t formally recognized as a specialty. One of his first tasks as a new faculty member was to help change that. He advocated for its recognition, unified the fragmented approaches to crown and bridge and removable dentures, and helped lay the foundation for the UBC Graduate Prosthodontics Program, which welcomed its first class in 2010.

As Dr. MacEntee’s interest in geriatrics solidified, it led him to research. He was seeing a large volume of older patients in private practice, and it seemed the problems he witnessed in Winnipeg still existed. Much of the research at the time was lab-based, but Dr. MacEntee was drawn to people. He began pioneering some of the first qualitative studies in dentistry, asking not just what diseases existed, but how they mattered in people’s lives.

“I was asking research questions like, ‘Does it matter that older people have lost some teeth, and how does the loss and other dental problems influence their lives?’” says Dr. MacEntee. “I realized then very clearly that qualitative research methods are essential to understanding and providing better dental care.”

Along the way, Dr. MacEntee mentored many students, including his first graduate student, Dean pro tem Dr. Andrea Esteves followed by Drs. Mario Brondani and Leeann Donnelly.

“Michael was a wonderful supervisor, especially for an international student like me, who was fairly inexperienced,” says Dr. Esteves. “I feel lucky that he has remained an important mentor and friend throughout my career.”

In the 1990s, Dr MacEntee connected with an enthusiastic young dental student, Chris Wyatt, who showed a particular interest in prosthodontics and geriatric care. When Dr. Wyatt returned to the Faculty as a prosthodontist, the duo started transforming an emerging area of research into a robust clinical program. Dr. Wyatt and Program Manager Shunhau To pushed the work forward. In 2001, the UBC Geriatric Dentistry Program launched, which has continued to expand into the extensive clinical and educational program it is today.

“The Geriatric Dentistry Program at UBC is unique—there’s nothing like it in North America that has the same scope of geriatric care combined with a robust educational presence and research potential” says Dr. MacEntee. “It serves as a model for other universities.”

Now retired, Professor Emeritus Dr. MacEntee continues his interest in dental geriatrics and prosthodontics. He recently co-edited a second edition of Oral Healthcare and the Frail Elder*—more than a decade after editing the first edition—to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive reference for managing the global burden of dental and other noncommunicable diseases.

“My father died when I was in dental school, so I wasn’t able to take over his practice, which was fortuitous because I went on to have a challenging but wonderfully rewarding career,” says Dr. MacEntee. “We’ve come a long way with geriatric care and the work at UBC Dentistry will be pivotal to keep moving the discipline forward.”

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*The following UBC Dentistry faculty and staff also contributed to this book: Fernanda Almeida, Mario Brondani, Leeann Donnelly, Denise Laronde, David MacDonald, Nicholas Tong, Shunhau To and Chris Wyatt.