Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist

Esther Mae Wilkins was born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts on December 9, 1916. She received a bachelor's degree in science from Simmons College in Boston in 1938 and a certificate from Forsyth School for Dental Hygienists in 1939. Soon after that, she went to work for a dentist. She graduated from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and was recruited by the University of Washington to start their dental hygiene program. Her lessons plans became the basis for the first edition of Clinical Practice of the Dental Hygienist, which was published in 1959. In 1964, she returned to Tufts to study periodontology. She taught at Tufts for 45 years. The 12th edition of her textbook was published in 2016. She died from a stroke on December 12, 2016 at the age of 100.

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