2 minute read
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations Dr Gary Davis
Earlier this year, Dr Gary Davis received his 60-year pin for continuous membership of ADAWA, celebrating an impressive career in dentistry.
Graduating in 1960, Gary Davis began his career with the School Dental Service. “I was way out in the country, so I did not have much communication with the ADA at that stage,” Gary recalls. “In 1962 I started my practice in Bayswater, so I joined the association around that time.” In the mid-60s, Gary was invited to join the Dental Study Group of WA (of which he is still a member), and around that time, also joined the Australian Prosthodontic Society and the Australian Society of Endodontology. He spent his practising life in Bayswater, but was also a respected educator – tutoring at the Dental School in Perth from 1965 to 1995, with a year in 1974 tutoring at Northwestern University, Chicago, in Professor Gilbert Brinsden’s Crown and Bridge Department. the dental world. ADAWA kept us up to date with what was happening in the State and what was happening interstate and with the federal body.” Gary has seen many changes in the association over the years – significantly, the attainment of the first ADA House. “When I graduated, ADAWA did not own any premises in Perth,” Gary says. “We had meetings in various halls around West Perth, always a different one each month. It was only through the foresight of some of our senior members at the time that they went guarantor, so ADAWA was able to purchase their first ADA House (in Altona St, West Perth). If those guys hadn’t stepped up and gone guarantor, ADAWA wouldn’t have got the foothold they got in real estate in West Perth.
Over the 60 years of his ADAWA membership, Gary has known nothing but support. “I have always felt it was good to have a professional backing,” he explains. “It was good that if you got into any problems with your practice there were people to help, and the fact you could get insurance. “I think access to postgraduate education was also important to all of us, so there were lots of reasons to join and I never regretted being a member; I always felt it was good to keep in touch with what was going on in “I think it is important that the younger members realise we haven’t always lived in such splendid circumstance – the ADA wasn’t always in such a lovely big building as it is now.” Laughing at the speed at which the previous 60 years has gone by, Gary hopes the next 60 pass in a slower fashion. Fishing, golf, and family now fill his time. Congratulations, Dr Davis.
