In collaboration with the Waring Library Society, CLS will host a NOT by the Book seminar with guest speaker, Dr. Theresa Gonzales. Dr. Gonzales will lecture on John Shaw Billings – the Enigmatic Bibliophile of the Army Medical Department.
John Shaw Billings was a career army medical officer who served on active duty during the Civil War. Subsequent the war, Billings was reassigned to the Office of the Surgeon General, where he began to develop the Surgeon General’s library which ultimately became the National Library of Medicine. Later, he designed and oversaw the construction of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and advised academic planning for the medical school. Billings was a lecturer in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and was a faculty member in hygiene. After his work at Johns Hopkins he became a professor of hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania, and he served as founding director of the New York Public Library from 1896 until his death in 1913. His story is that of battlefield surgeon who rose from obscurity to have a profound and lasting effect on American Medicine.
This event is free to the public, but we ask you RSVP by calling 843-723-9912 or email mstokenberry@charlestonlibrarysociety.org
Dr. Gonzales recently retired from the United States Army Dental Corps after a long and distinguished career in active federal service to this Nation. Most recently, she was a nominative selection as the Director of Strategic Communications for the Army Surgeon General. She has commanded formations in Europe and the United States. Prior to her successive command selections, she served as Director of Orofacial Pain Management and a Staff Oral and Maxillofacial Pathologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Theresa graduated Magna Cum Laude from the College of Charleston with a B.S. in Chemistry and received her D.M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina. Colonel Gonzales began her military career at Fort Jackson, South Carolina as a resident in the Advanced Education in General Dentistry program. She then completed a residency training program in oral and maxillofacial pathology in 1992 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. In 2006, she completed a two-year fellowship in Orofacial Pain at the Naval Postgraduate Dental School and completed a Master of Science in Health Care from George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Dr. Gonzales has earned Fellowship status with the American Academy of Oral & Maxillofacial Pathology, the American Academy of Oral Medicine, and the Academy of General Dentistry. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and the American Board of Orofacial Pain. She holds Diplomate status as well as with the American Board of Forensic Examiners and the American Board of forensic Medicine. She is a Fellow of both the American College and International College of Dentists. Dr. Gonzales’s diverse professional background includes tours as staff assigned to Oral Surgery, Hanau, Germany, Force Dental Surgeon, Multinational Peace Keeping Force in El Gorah, Egypt as well as Chief, of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, William Beaumont Army Hospital and Darnall Army Hospital.
Dr. Gonzales has authored over fifty scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and was the recipient of the International College of Dentists Award for Excellence in Research. She has received the Order of Military Medical Merit and the Surgeon General’s A designator for clinical excellence. She graduated with distinction from the United States Army War College. Currently, she is a Professor of Oral Pathology and the Director of Orofacial Pain Management at the Medical University of South Carolina- James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine.
