John Zamet

John Saville Zamet FDS (11 November 1932 - 5 May 2007) was a periodontist in the United Kingdom. He established the first exclusively periodontal practice in London in 1966.

After he retired, he attended the University College Hospital and took a course in Holocaust studies, leading him to write the biographies of refugee dental surgeons in the UK, and assess their skills as a missed opportunity for improving the ordinary quality of interwar British dental surgery. He died shortly after completing his PhD thesis on German and Austrian Refugee Dentists 1933–1945, The Response of The British Authorities in 2007. His PhD degree was awarded posthumously and his thesis remains unpublished.

Early life and career John Zamet was born in London on 11 November 1932.

In 1958, three years after completing his studies in dentistry at the Royal Dental Hospital (RDH), he obtained his fellowship in dental surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

With an interest in periodontology, between 1956 and 1962, he worked in the departments at the Eastman Dental Hospital, Guy's Hospital and the RDH.

He went to America in 1962 on a post-graduate fellowship to study at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Periodontics. There he came under the influence of periodontologist D. Walter Cohen.

In 1966, Zamet established the first, and for many years the only, singularly periodontal practice in London. He was also the first UK periodontist to participate in the Brånemark Osseointegration Programme in Gothenburg. This programme stemmed from when, in 1952 Per-Ingvar Brånemark put titanium-encased optical devices into the legs of rabbits to study the healing process. At the end of the research period, after removing the devices, they discovered unexpectedly that the titanium had fused into the bone and could not be removed. He called the process osseointegration. The toleration to long-term presence of titanium led to the potential for new research in using it to create an anchor for artificial teeth.

Zamet pursued recognition for periodontology as a UK speciality and played an influential role in the establishment of the General Dental Council's Specialist Register in Periodontology.

Other roles Societies He took up responsibilities in numerous societies, including President, Honorary Vice-president and Honorary Life Member of the British Society of Periodontology, a Life Member of the American Academy of Periodontology and an Honorary Member of the American Dental Society of London.

Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity At a time when Jewish students were not allowed to form social groups, a group of Jewish dental students founded The Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity in 1907 at the University of Maryland School of Dental Medicine, which claims to be the oldest international dental organisation and the oldest international Jewish medical organisation. It eventually incorporated over 100 alumni and student chapters in ten countries.

Zamet became the first and twenty-fifth chairman of the London chapter of the Alpha Omega dental fraternity, which sponsored numerous projects in the UK and Israel. He also served as secretary of its London Charitable Trust. After completing an MA, he furthered his studies by working on a PhD thesis on German and Austrian Refugee Dentists 1933–1945, The Response of The British Authorities.

He recreated the biographies of refugee dental surgeons, and assessed their qualifications and skills as a missed opportunity for improving the quantity and quality of interwar British dental surgery. As a result, he established many contacts with surviving refugees and their families, assembling a unique compilation of sources. His research has been described by medical historian Paul Weindling as "outstanding" and "exceptional". Despite demonstrating a British need for them, of the 360 Viennese dental surgeons (stomatologists) that applied to the General Medical Council (GMC) to register on the Dental Register, there being no General Dental Council until 1956, only 41 were granted registration, and only after re-certification. Many of those disallowed registration and therefore denied entry to the UK, "despite their excellent training, probably died during the Holocaust" and his PhD degree was awarded posthumously in 2007.

Selected works Book chapters "Periodontics, the frontier" in The British Society of Periodontology, the First 50 Years, 1999.

Articles "Glickman's Clinical Periodontology, a book review", Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 72, July 1979, pp. 545–546. "Particulate bioglass as a grafting material in the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects". Journal of Clinical Periodontology, Vol. 24, No. 6 (June 1997), pp. 410–418. (Joint with U.R. Darbar, G.S. Griffiths, J.S. Bulman, U. Brägger, W. Bürgin, H. N. Newman) . "Aliens or Colleagues? Refugees from Nazi Oppression 1933-1945", British Dental Journal, Vol. 201, No. 6 (September 2006), pp. 397–407. "The Anschluss and the Problem of Refugee Stomatologists", Social History of Medicine, Vol. 22, Issue 3 (1 December 2009), pp. 471–488.

Unpublished "German and Austrian Refugee Dentists: The Response of the British Authorities, 1933–1945". Oxford Brookes University, 2007. Unpublished PhD thesis.