Volume 9 • 2022 • Issue 3

Remembering Dentistry Leaders Dr.MervynGornitsky Dr. Mervyn Gornitsky of Montreal passed away on March 15, 2022. He was 92 years old. D r. Gornitsky graduated fromMcGill University’s faculty of dentistry in 1953. He started his private practice as an oral surgeon in 1956, when this specialty was relatively new in Canada. Having trained in New York, he became the first oral surgeon in Montreal to be certified by the American Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. He joined the Jewish General Hospital’s (JGH) department of dentistry in 1957. Dr. Gornitsky served as chief of dentistry at the JGH from 1971 to 1998 and went on to serve as research director and chief emeritus. Dr. Gornitsky had a remarkable compassion for patients; his care had no boundaries. He treated Vietnamese refugees arriving in Canada in the late 1970s—including HIV/AIDS and chronic hepatitis patients—when they had no access to care. In the 1980s, Dr. Gornitsky personally treated about 2,000 HIV patients, using special techniques for this purpose. In 1984, he travelled to Sweden with some JGH colleagues, where they learned how to surgically place dental implants in the jawbone, which was a novel technique at the time. They brought back these implant techniques to the JGH and later Dr. Gornitsky’s team developed a new approach to facilitate bone healing around dental implants using low-intensity electrical stimulation. Dr. Gornitsky’s sustained commitment to research received wide acclaim. The JGH dental clinic was named in his honour, in recognition of his contribution to the development of the residency training program and dental research. During the later stages of his career, Dr. Gornitsky’s research focused on salivary biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions, TMD and sleep apnea. His most important contribution to health sciences might be the creation of the LDI/JGH Databank for Saliva Specimens, Canada’s largest biobank of saliva. Dr. Gornitsky’s work has been instrumental in detecting other diseases using salivary biomarkers, such as COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Gornitsky’s career in academic dentistry and oral and maxillofacial surgery spanned over 60 years. He was at the forefront of research, but he was also a devoted teacher and humanitarian. He was a trailblazer in the development of dentistry departments in Canadian hospitals, enabling thousands of people to have access to dental care they couldn’t receive elsewhere. He was chair of the Hospital Dental Services Committee for Quebec for 15 years and chair of the Council on Hospital Dental Services for the Canadian Dental Association for six years. Dr. Gornitsky has made a significant impact on the next generation of Canadian dentists. He received several teaching awards throughout his career and was appointed professor emeritus at McGill University in 2002. He continued to teach and conduct research into his 90s, and his last student obtained a PhD in 2021. He believed that “the key is to stay interested, stay curious and be open to new ideas.” “Mervyn Gornitsky encouraged his residents and professional colleagues to reach out to fulfill their full potential. He set the same high standards for himself,” remembers Dr. Mel Schwartz, chief of the department of dentistry at the JGH. “He once told me about a conversation he had for one of his research grant applications when he was in his 80s. The person reviewing his application thought he’d made an error with his date of birth. When he explained that indeed he was that age, they asked him why he was still active in dental research? Mervyn responded jokingly that his wife didn’t want him hanging around the house!” Dr. Gornitsky is survived by his wife Rena Steinberg, his three children, ten grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. 46 | 2022 | Issue 3 Obituaries