Thursday Talks: Salvatore Napoli

Next up on our Thursday Talks Q&A series is Salvatore Napoli, associate professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) at Rutgers School of Medicine (RSDM).

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at RSDM.

I’m an oral and maxillofacial surgeon and the director of OMFS predoctoral education. I’m also an attending faculty at the University Hospital. Every day, I work with students and residents, whether in the classroom, the clinic, or the operating room (OR). I’m the course director for seven OMFS courses, coordinate several others, and lecture in many more school courses. I truly enjoy helping students understand not only facts, but also the foundations of the facts, diving as deeply as they want to go. I also spend one day a week at my private practice in Denville, NJ.

What was your journey that led you to RSDM?

I’ve been teaching at this institution for about 18 years. After college, I attended Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery (now the College of Dental Medicine) in 1975. Upon graduating with my DDS, I continued with an anesthesia residency at Long Island Jewish Hillside Medical Center. Then I completed my OMFS training at Bronx Municipal Hospital. After finishing in 1983, I pursued two years of medical school, then a general surgery residency here at RSDM (then the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey). Shortly after, in the summer of 1986, I joined Columbia University College of Dental Medicine as a full-time faculty. During the 1990s, I gradually transitioned to private practice. However, I missed the academic environment, so in 2006, I joined RSDM as a part-time faculty member, which soon transitioned into a full-time position.

What’s it that you love most about teaching?

A teaching environment is dynamic. You must stay “on your toes” and up to date. But more than that, it allows me to share my enthusiasm and fascination with human anatomy and physiology, both in health and disease, with students. I have an insatiable curiosity; I’m the type of person who is not satisfied with rote memorization—I need to understand the “why,” even down to its foundations in basic physics, mechanics, and chemistry. I’m completely in awe of the marvel that is the human body, and it’s my job to try to instill this same level of curiosity, reverence, and understanding in my students.

What is something you try to instill in all your students?

We are the experts in oral disease and healthcare. As dentists, apart from treating oral disease, I believe we need to fully incorporate the medical model, understanding that systemic disease is frequently mirrored in the oral environment and oral disease can have significant systemic effects. Essentially, dentists should be “stomatologists.” There’s a continuum between being a “technician” and being a stomatologist, and students need to consider how they’ll practice their profession along that spectrum. My goal is for my students to employ the medical model and treat all their patients holistically.

What do you like the most about RSDM?

What I like most about RSDM is its close relationship with other allied health sciences, including University Hospital and especially the OMFS residency program. Because of this school’s proximity to the medical school and the hospital, I can incorporate a lot of teaching and influences from those other institutions into RSDM, which is really special. Moreover, the community that RSDM serves benefits tremendously from the services provided by our students, which certainly provides for a very rich learning environment.

What do you enjoy doing outside the school?

I’m a very outdoorsy person. I live on a farm in a rural part of NJ. Along with my wife (usually as her assistant!), we raise chickens and crops. I also enjoy canoeing, windsurfing, sailing, bicycle riding, and hiking. I don’t travel much outside of the United States. If I do travel, it would be to visit nature’s wonders, like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc. The best vacation I ever had was in the Florida Keys, where I stayed at a campground on the beach. It was great to have no schedule, no responsibilities, and just enjoy the freedom to do as I please. As for music, when I’m in the OR, I have a great mix of classic rock music, mostly from the ’80s but spanning decades before and after.

You can find Napoli’s OR playlist here.