2024 WINNER
Anna M. Pattison, RDH, MS
Past Winners
- 2010 Esther M. Wilkins, BS, RDH, DMD
- 2011 Maxine Alper Tishk, RDH, MS
- 2012 Gail N. Cross-Poline, RDH, MS
- 2013 Michele Leonardi Darby, BSDH, MS, and Margaret Walsh, RDH, MS, MA, EdD
- 2014 Juanita S. Wallace, RDH, PhD
- 2015 JoAnn R. Gurenlian, RDH, MS, PhD
- 2016 Pamela R. Overman, RDH, MS, EdD
- 2017 Olga A.C. Ibsen, RDH, MS, FAADH
- 2018 Deborah Bailey Astroth, RDH, BSDH
- 2019 Jacquelyn L. Fried, RDH, BA, MS
- 2020/2021 Jane L. Forrest, BSDH, MS, EdD
- 2022 Winnie Furnari, MS, RDH, FAADH, FAAFS, FADE
- 2023 Ann Eshenaur Spolarich, RDH, PhD, FSCDH
With more than 50 years as a dedicated dental hygienist, educator, administrator, editor, author, and speaker, Anna M. Pattison, RDH, MS, certainly deserves to receive the 2024 Esther Wilkins Lifetime Achievement Award. Her expansive career has exponentially influenced the profession of dental hygiene.
Ms. Pattison began her teaching career at the University of Southern California (USC) Department of Dental Hygiene in 1968 and went on to hold several influential positions at the school. Her international experience as a clinician and instructor at the University of Zurich Department of Periodontology further enriched her expertise. Upon her return to the United States, she served as an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Forsyth School for Dental Hygienists in Boston.
In 1975, Ms. Pattison returned to USC, where she served as chair of the Department of Dental Hygiene from 1984 to 1989 and as a full-time associate professor until 2003. Since then, she has continued to contribute as a part-time clinical associate professor, demonstrating her enduring commitment to education.
Ms. Pattison is perhaps best known for co-authoring the seminal textbook Periodontal Instrumentation written with her husband, Gordon Pattison, DDS. This essential resource has been widely adopted in dental and dental hygiene schools globally and has been translated into six languages. Her contributions to the last six editions of Carranza’s Clinical Periodontology further underscore her influence on the field.
Her dedication to education extends beyond traditional classroom settings. For the past 37 years, Ms. Pattison has presented lecture courses and hands-on instrumentation courses worldwide, including faculty in-service courses for dental and dental hygiene instructors. She has also developed a series of on-demand instructional videos that have become invaluable resources for students and clinicians alike.
She has made a monumental impact clinical dental hygiene. Ms. Pattison has shaped how periodontal instruments are held, fulcrumed, and activated during the removal of calculus. Her contributions to the highly specific skill of nonsurgical periodontal instrumentation, with advanced fulcrum techniques and activation, have made it possible for dental hygienists to reach the base of deep periodontal pockets, thus providing greater success against periodontal disease.
Ms. Pattison’s contributions to dental hygiene include her leadership as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. She led the journal through its inception and inspired its 20-year history as a highly regarded peer-reviewed publication.
A thoughtful, generous, and caring individual. Ms. Pattison also has a gift for storytelling and a wry sense of humor. She was a close friend and colleague to Esther M. Wilkins, BS, RDH, DMD, until Dr. Wilkins’ death in 2016, three days after her 100th birthday.
Ms. Pattison’s legacy and ongoing contributions to the field will continue to inspire future generations of dental hygienists.
Esther M. Wilkins, BS, RDH, DMD
Honoring an Enduring Legacy
Esther M. Wilkins, BS, RDH, DMD—the matriarch of dental hygiene—dedicated her professional life to the prevention of oral disease and the advancement of the dental hygiene profession. She passed away December 12, 2016, three days after her 100th birthday, but her legacy lives on through her textbook, her passion for dental hygiene, and the mentoring she provided to both friends and colleagues.
After earning both her Doctor of Dental Medicine degree and a post-doctoral certificate in periodontology, Dr. Wilkins set out to ensure that dental hygiene was regarded as a profession with high standards. She touched several generations of dental hygiene students with her seminal textbook, Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist, now in its 12th edition. She came up with the idea for a dental hygiene textbook while serving as the founding director of the dental hygiene program at the University of Washington (UW) School of Dentistry in Seattle. Essentially, the book was an enhanced compilation of the student handouts that Dr. Wilkins and her teaching staff had created since the program’s inception. In the fall of 1958, H.L. Hudson, a representative of the publishing company Lea & Febiger, paid his annual visit to UW’s Department of Dental Hygiene. Dr. Wilkins showed him the student manual. He turned the pages of the thick, heavy handbook, and finally looked up and said, “We should publish this,” to which Dr. Wilkins replied, “I think that is a very good idea.” He then asked if she could have it ready for that fall. Dr. Wilkins later said, “Little did I realize that therein was the beginning of the rest of my life.” The 12th edition of Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist was published in March 2016. The book will continue publication under the editorship of Linda Boyd, RDH, RD, EdD, of the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene at MCPHS University in Boston.
Dr. Wilkins began teaching at Boston’s Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in 1964, after completing the school’s post-doctoral program in periodontology. Extending her reach beyond Tufts, she was also a prolific provider of continuing education for dental hygienists, presenting more than 1,000 programs worldwide throughout her expansive career.
In 2004, Dr. Wilkins’ alma mater, the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene, now part of MCPHS University in Boston, opened a state-of-the-art dental hygiene clinic in her name—the Esther M. Wilkins Forsyth Dental Hygiene Clinic. In February 2012, she was honored with the American Dental Education Association’s William J. Gies Award for Achievement, Dental Educator.
Dr. Wilkins’ dedication to dental hygiene education and commitment to improving oral health provide a lasting legacy, and her inspiration to the profession is clearly illustrated by the dental hygienists who continue to follow in her footsteps.
