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Dentistry wasn't initially in the cards for Dr. Robert Fredrickson, DDS, but that is the profession from which he retired late last month, ending a career spanning 55 years.
"Heading into college, I thought I wanted to be an engineer until I took trigonometry. That didn't work out so well," Fredrickson said with a laugh.
Having a friend whose father was a dental technician, he was familiar with the industry and decided to take up the subject at the former Lynchburg College, now known as the University of Lynchburg, where he majored in biology-chemistry, effectively a pre-med and pre-dental major.
"Orientation week, we had to take a test to see what your inclinations were for a profession, and lo and behold, dentistry came out number one, pilot came out number two and preacher came out very last," Fredrickson, a Myerstown native, said.
Having an interest in flying, Fredrickson applied and was accepted into the Air Force officer program, but was accepted to Temple Dental School before needing to sign on the dotted line.
Consequently, Fredrickson would end up in the Army's early commissioning program as a full-time dental student with two children balancing 40 hours a week on the I.V. team at Temple University Hospital.
"When I graduated, my daughter was three and a half, and my son was a year and a half. I don't recommend that as the way to go through school, but we worked hard and we did it," he said.
After completing dental school, Fredrickson went on active duty and was stationed in Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
"It's an area that's very much like Pennsylvania, rolling hills and farmland," he said.
"We tried to assimilate into their culture and learn all we could about their customs, traditions and foods, and you don't get homesick if you're willing to assimilate and accept your surroundings," Fredrickson added.
At the end of his tour in July 1974, Fredrickson was encouraged to move to the Williamsport area by fellow Temple dental student, Dr. Dan Wurster, with whom he would partner for a year and a half before moving upstairs in the same building for the next five years. He and Wurster remain close friends to this day.
In 1980, Fredrickson purchased the old firehouse number seven on Market Street from the city for $25,000, renovated it and moved his practice there in January 1981.
He would remain in the space until 2023, when he moved his practice in with Dr. Ryan Linn, DMD, at 1202 Clayton Ave., where his parents will be transitioned to his current hygenist, Elaine Confair.
"That's comforting to me to know that I'm not abandoning the patients or Elaine," he said.
Throughout his career, Fredrickson has continued to further his dental education.
"I'm a member of the American Dental Association and Pennsylvania Dental Association, the Academy of Sports Dentistry and I was elected into the International College of Dentists," he said.
"Within the Academy of General Dentistry, I received all of their continuing awards, from a fellowship, to a mastership, to a lifelong learning and service award, because of the commitments I had to the community of teaching at Penn College and taking in interns into my office that could do a shadowing from Lycoming College. I took in 24 kids over the years, and most of them went on to dental school," Fredrickson said.
In his 55 years of practice, Fredrickson has seen several changes in the industry, both good and bad.
"Restorative material advances have gotten better, especially in white filling materials. White crowns used to be made with porcelain, now the white crowns are zirconia, and the unfortunate part of that is that zirconia is very inexpensive compared to gold crowns on molars," he said.
"Gold, being one of our best restorative materials, has gotten so enormously expensive that it's not being used at all now, and is not even being taught in some of the dental schools," he said.
Technological advances also top the list of changes Fredrickson has seen, including the digitization of x-rays, medical records and the creation of crowns, much of which has been positive.
"When doing a crown now, we do it by scan, put it on a computer, and the crown is made on a milling machine, and they can do that in a day, whereas we would take the impression, send it to a lab, they would pour it up, a lab man would do all of his craftsmanship on the bench by hand and send it back, meanwhile the patient had a temporary on. Now, you don't have a temporary, so digitalization has become huge," he said.
Fredrickson said the milled crowns are actually an improvement over the previous, handmade ones.
"I have less adjusting to do with the crown that has been digitalized and milled, so that's really an improvement, it's time saving, and it reduces stress," he said.
"Its been a good advancement in dentistry with the computerization and with all the digitalization of even techniques. It's made some things easier, but it's also made them much more expensive. The costs go up with all this digitization and modernization, with milling machines and 3D printers. It's cool stuff, but none of it's cheap," Fredrickson said.
On the other hand, Fredrickson said today it is much harder for graduating students to go into solo practice for themselves .
"They come out of school so heavily in debt, and there's so much corporate dentistry going on that they just need a job, and for them to try to buy a practice, it's very difficult," he said.
Along with his dedication to dentistry, Fredrickson has had a longstanding dedication to soccer.
Fredrickson was introduced to soccer during elementary school, and went on to play for four years while in college, including in two NCAA tournaments and was named captain of the team during his senior year.
While stationed in Crailsheim, Fredrickson became the first, and as yet, only American to join the town's amateur club.
Realizing there was no high school soccer in the Williamsport area, Fredrickson answered an ad in the newspaper and helped bring the sport to the region, going on to serve on the board of directors for AYSO for nine years, flying to California every six weeks for meetings.
"In 1980, I met with 18 different school districts to get soccer into their schools, and that was a little bit touch and go," he said, explaining that, at the time, soccer was still looked at as a "foreign sport" by district administrators, many of whom were former football coaches.
"You had to be delicate and kind of political to talk them into it, but it obviously worked. We have state champions locally now," Fredrickson said.
"I was involved with soccer locally at all levels, from playing, administering, promoting, refereeing, coaching and even starting an adult league," he said.
In 1986, Fredrickson was selected by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America as National Youth Boys Coach of the Year, and was subsequently inducted into the Hall of Fame at the University of Lynchburg, with a later induction into the West Branch chapter of the Pennsylvania State Sports Hall of Fame.
"My involvement led to all of those accolades, which I'm proud of, but humbled by at the same time," he said.
While his retirement is obviously well deserved, it was still not an easy decision to come to.
"I always said 'dentistry isn't what I did, it's who I am,' and that gives me a little apprehension about retiring because, geez, I'm not a dentist anymore now," he said.
"When I made this decision in January, I thought, 'what am I doing here?' There's no special reward for just hanging on. Once you turn 82 you only have 18 years until you're 100. There might be something I want to do," Fredrickson said.
Preparing his patients for his retirement was, at times, an emotional experience.
"I look at their mouths and I see all the beautiful gold work I did all these years. Some of it's been in there 40, close to 50 years, and it's held up beautifully, and I'm proud of that, and that kind of legacy, having patients thank me, and say 'I don't want you to retire, but I really do,'" he said.
"Some of them will tell me, 'you're the only dentist I've ever been to. I came to you when I was 7 years old, and now my grandkids are getting out of college,'" Fredrickson said.
"It's amazing. I've seen generations in 52 years in Williamsport, so I'm proud of the legacy and my commitment to the community," Fredrickson said.
"My philosophy is if you live in the community, you need to support it both financially and in your activities, and I've tried to do that," he said, adding, "Williamsport has really been a wonderful home to me."
In his upcoming time off, Fredrickson plans to spend more time hitting the green and traveling.
"I have three kids, eight grandkids, and two great-grandkids, and none of them are in the state, so there's an opportunity to travel there," he said.
"A friend of mine, we're taking a trip in September to the Western Rockies to Banff and flying to Vancouver. So basically more golf and more travel. That's the simple answer," Fredrickson said.