Dr. Frank Lovely (DDS’59) at a recent event in his honour. (Bruce Bottomley photos)
With a 50+ year career as a surgeon and educator, Dr. Frank Lovely (DDS’59) has some pretty good advice for a new generation of oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) graduates. He says they should maintain a strong family unit with a shared pastime, continue their education to enable them to provide high quality care, and give back to their alma mater so that it “continues to provide good professors and good quality teaching facilities.”
Dr. Lovely has followed his own advice throughout his life and continues to do so as a professor emeritus. He has a 45-year history of giving to his alma mater, including to athletics, medicine, engineering, and the Faculty of Dentistry – particularly the oral surgery clinic. He has also included a legacy gift to the Faculty of Dentistry in his estate plans.
There are no elaborate reasons for Dr. Lovely’s strong belief in giving back to his alma mater. “My university experience has been rich,” he says, and giving back is something he committed to doing long ago.
Dr. Lovely knows first-hand how support can make a difference. He grew up in East Florenceville, New Brunswick, in the shadow of the Second World War, which kept his father away from home for nearly six years. A scholarship helped cover the cost of two years at Mount Allison University, where Dr. Lovely gained the 15 pre-med credits required for dentistry school. He had been inspired to go into the profession by his family’s dentist who was a “real community guy.”
Tuition for the Dalhousie dentistry program was expensive even in 1955, and Dr. Lovely admits he “ran out of cash” at the end of his first year of dental school. To help offset the costs, he joined the army through the Regular Officer Training Program, which covered tuition and provided a small monthly stipend for the remaining three years of his dentistry degree.
The path to oral surgery
It was during Dr. Lovely’s three years of military service at CFB Stadacona in Halifax that his interest in oral surgery began. He recounts that the young seamen in the barracks liked to go out on the town on weekends, and he often found himself repairing jaw fractures and other oral and facial injuries.
Dr Lovely was quick to accept when the military offered to send him to England for four months to learn from oral and maxillofacial surgeons at the Royal College of Surgeons. Upon the conclusion of his three years at Stadacona, Dr. J. D. McLean (dean of Dalhousie’s Faculty of Dentistry), called to offer him a job. It was not just to teach, but also to establish a new Master of OMFS degree program, the Faculty’s first graduate program. “It was a timely call,” says Dr. Lovely, “and it changed my life forever.”
The task was huge and involved supervising the building and equipping of the OMFS clinic in the newly built Centennial wing of the Victoria General Hospital. It also involved creating the new degree program and lining up faculty to teach the material. But Dr. Lovely says that his time in Michigan, where he studied for his masters in oral surgery, “gave me the knowledge I needed to plan the 18 credit hours” required for the new degree.
More than 50 years later, the OMFS program continues to accept one resident each year and a steady stream of recently qualified fellows receive additional and specialized training before taking up positions across Canada and beyond. As Dr. Lovely says, Dalhousie’s OMFS program may be a “small puddle, but it has a national and international presence.”
Building a brighter future
Over the years, Dr. Lovely’s pioneering work has been recognized with several awards. They include the Dalhousie Golden Eagle Achievement Award, which was presented to him in May 2024 in recognition of his professional accomplishments and profound commitment to the Faculty of Dentistry.
Looking back over his career, Dr. Lovely has had leading roles in professional OMFS bodies and at Dalhousie, including the board of governors and alumni association. He has also volunteered extensively in the community. But Dr. Lovely says he is most proud of the “structure we set up in oral and maxillofacial surgery and the philosophy we developed that has continued to this day.”
Now professor emeritus, Dr. Lovely continues to stay involved with the Faculty and the OMFS team. To honour his achievements, Dr. Lovely’s OMFS colleagues at University OMF Surgery Associates have created the Dr. Frank Lovely OMFS Education Fund, which was announced during a celebration event in October 2024. It will provide an annual oral surgery award to a graduating Doctor of Dental Surgery student. It will also support OMFS research and attendance at conferences, fund a lecture on topics of special interest to OMFS professionals, and sustain the participation and leadership of OMFS faculty members in organized dentistry.
With the launch of the new fund in his name, Dr. Lovely’s legacy of giving back to his alma mater will endure for years to come as future students, OMFS residents, and faculty members enrich their knowledge and expertise.
Dean Ben Davis and Dr. Lovely share a moment together during the event in October.