John A. Yagiela, D.D.S., Ph.D.- A Dental Anesthesia Giant 1947–2012

The entire dental profession mourns the loss of John A. Yagiela, DDS, PhD, an internationally recognized authority on pain and anxiety control in dentistry, who died suddenly on February 22, 2012. John was one of the most brilliant men whom your editor has ever known. We first met soon after the Journal of the American Dental Association published my review of his first pharmacology textbook in 1980, and we subsequently became life-long friends. We traveled with our spouses all over the world to places including Scotland, Germany, France, Israel, New Zealand, Japan, Australia, and South Africa. John was a caring, selfless, soft-spoken gentleman, who did not have a huge ego to feed. John was devoted to improving patient comfort, safety, dental education, and anesthesia training. He not only possessed tremendous expertise in pharmacology and anesthesiology, but he also had in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of nondental subjects, from the courtship rituals of grasshoppers to the differences among the various types of rocket fuel. He was a walking Wikipedia. He had a boundless enthusiasm for life and nature. John kept pet snakes and for a while even had an iguana living in his bathtub before eventually donating it to the zoo. John had an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge and had a mind like a super computer that could save it all for instant retrieval. He loved photography, woodworking, and his loving family. He was not afraid to tackle major home remodeling projects. He was a perfectionist, a trait that is universally present among mobile providers of office general anesthesia like John. When professional painters did a less than perfect painting in his high-ceiling dining room, John built his own scaffolding and redid the entire paint job himself. He was an erudite communicator, educator, textbook author, editor, researcher, consultant, and clinical dentist anesthesiologist. During his lifetime, John got up early and worked late in order to accomplish everything that he wanted to do. He could create on his computer a new lecture while flying to a meeting and minutes later could present such a highly polished program that he would receive a standing ovation. John was totally honest, a trait that brought about tremendous frustration when he was dealing with individuals who were disingenuous. He was a great humanitarian with a heart of gold, especially when providing office general anesthesia for small children and for those with special needs so they could have full mouth restorative dentistry completed without physical restraint or antiquated procedures like “hand-over-mouth” control.

John received his DDS degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Dentistry in 1971 and earned his PhD in pharmacology from the University of Utah in 1975. From 1975 to 1981, John taught dental therapeutics and pain control at Emory University. He came back to UCLA in 1982 and enrolled as an anesthesiology resident at the School of Medicine. John became Professor and Chair of the Division of Diagnostic and Surgical Sciences, Coordinator of Pain and Anxiety Control, and Head of the Dental Anesthesiology Residency Program at the UCLA School of Dentistry until he retired in 2011 as a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Dental Anesthesiology after 29 years of devoted service. He was also Professor of Anesthesiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an attending at the UCLA Center for the Health Sciences. He was an in-office examiner for the State of California for both moderate sedation and general anesthesia. His former positions include chairman of the Fellowship Committee of the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology (ADSA), editor of Anesthesia Progress, and editor of The Pulse. John also served previously as president of the American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists (ASDA) and president of the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology, and he was the North American representative to the International Federation of Dental Anesthesiology Societies (IFDAS). He was a member of the American Dental Association's Anesthesiology Steering Committee and a consultant to the Council on Scientific Affairs and Commission on Dental Accreditation. He was, in addition, lead editor of the textbook, Pharmacology and Therapeutics for Dentistry (Mosby), the standard reference for all dental students, now in its sixth edition, and co-author of Local Anesthesia of the Oral Cavity. His teachings gave countless dentists a sound foundation in dental pharmacology and control of anxiety and pain. He was a frequent lecturer at dental meetings both nationally and internationally. His lectures were evidence-based long before that term became popular, and his slides were replete with the most current references from peer-reviewed journals. He had a wonderful ability to make complicated things simple, but could provide complicated details for anyone interested after his lecture. He served as past president of the Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Toxicology Group and the Anesthesia Research Group of the International Association for Dental Research, and he was actively engaged in research on pain and anxiety control that resulted in numerous highly regarded peer-reviewed publications. Over the course of his career, John received many awards for his contributions to the field of anesthesia, including the highest award from each of the three leading dental anesthesia organizations: the Leonard M. Monheim Distinguished Service Award from the ASDA, the Heidbrink Award from the ADSA, and the Horace Wells Award from the IFDAS. In 2004, he was also named the UCLA School of Dentistry's Alumnus of the Year.

John had a significant role in the final editing of the 2007 ADA Guidelines for the Use of Sedation and General Anesthesia by Dentists and the Guidelines for Teaching Pain Control and Sedation to Dentists and Dental Students, as well as the ASDA's 2011 Parameters of Care and the Commission on Dental Accreditation Standards for Advanced Dental Education Programs in Dental Anesthesiology. John's dedication to his field drove him to be such a passionate advocate for dental anesthesiology becoming an ADA-recognized specialty that he authored the first three ASDA specialty applications and helped edit the current application that will be voted upon by the ADA House of Delegates this fall in San Francisco. He was a staunch advocate for maintaining the opportunity for all dentists and dental specialties to determine their own parameters of care for sedation and anesthesia while working within the framework of the ADA community. He believed that the specialty would enhance the <@?show=[to]?>sedation training and practice opportunities for all dentists and would permanently carve out dental anesthesiology as being within the scope of dental practice.

The American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists, California Dental Society of Anesthesiology, and the California Society of Periodontists have dedicated their 2012 meetings in John's memory, and certainly additional tributes to this giant in dental education will follow. His life's work will be a source of inspiration for generations to come. John will be greatly missed by the entire dental community, but his legacy will be the well-trained residents who graduated from his CODA-accredited 2-year dental anesthesiology residency program; tens of thousands of dentists across the nation who have a sound foundation of pharmacology; and the global community of clinicians, teachers, and researchers who care about advancing anesthesia knowledge and skills for all dentists and who care about keeping dental anesthesiology in all of its many forms within the independent control of our profession.

In addition to his 102-year-old father, Stanley, John is survived by a son and a daughter, Greg and Leanne, and five grandchildren; he was preceded in death in 2011 by his devoted wife, Dolores.