Scott McClanahan Biography

Dr. Scott McClanahan’s service to endodontics exemplifies the model of an involved, contributing citizen. Currently a trustee of the Foundation for Endodontics, he is a former president and board member of the American Board of Endodontics, AAE, and the US Navy Association of Endodontists, and has served on a host of committees, task forces, and advisory boards.¹

Stories of his dedication to preparing generations of endodontists at the University of Minnesota and Navy Postgraduate Dental School² for their careers in the specialty are legion. His own endodontic training was itself legendary³, which he then sought to pass on throughout his career to all who crossed his professional path. His exhaustive manuals⁴ and OneNote notebooks⁵, articulating every expectation with military precision and putting every resource at his students’ fingertips, set up residents for success from the beginning to complete their training, join the AAE endodontic community, and attain board certification. Thanks to his high standards, residents interacted with preeminent clinicians over table clinics, became more adept at endodontic surgery, submitted research worthy of publication, and earned Diplomate status with the ABE⁶. Indeed learning doesn’t end with his training, as he continues to circulate to his UMN alumni new literature citations added to the residency reading list after their graduation⁷.

As a program director, he set his own best example, working tirelessly⁸ more hours than there are in a day⁹ and making himself available to residents outside clinic hours even at the cost of foregoing his own professional meetings¹⁰. As an educational leader, he both instilled an appreciation for the historical development of the specialty¹¹ and created a culture of learning that fostered an extraordinary number of graduates with master’s degrees in addition to their specialty certificates,¹² and produced new clinicians whose depth and breadth of experience made them disciples of knowledge rather than of a particular system or technique, armed to use a variety of approaches to achieve the best outcome^13.. The legacy of his high standards and mentorship¹⁴ lives well beyond his retirement in the expectation of Board certification among University of Minnesota trainees which remains in place to this day¹⁵. His willing ability to share knowledge¹⁶ also inspired others to pursue careers in endodontic education¹⁷. He embraced industry relationships with the spirit of innovation rather than suspicion and, backed by the ongoing support of alumni¹⁸, brought leading-edge technologies into the classroom¹⁹.

Most admirably, Dr McClanahan is driven as much by humanity as a pursuit of technical excellence, recognizing individual potential and giving life-changing opportunities to his students to become more than they ever thought they could achieve²⁰, building well-complemented teams of co-residents who become family to one another²¹ and treating everyone like family even when they are no longer under his tutelage.