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Charles A. McCallum Jr.

The following biographical sketch was compiled at the time of induction into the Academy in 1975.



Dr. Charles A. McCallum, Jr., born in 1925 in North Adams, Massachusetts, has enjoyed a distinguished career as an oral surgeon in his adopted state of Alabama. After beginning his undergraduate career at Dartmouth and serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Dr. McCallum went to Tufts University College Dental School and graduated with his D.M.D. degree in 1951. The University of Alabama beckoned in 1953; he came south, earned his M.D. degree, and in 1956, became an instructor on the faculty of the University of Alabama School of Dentistry.

Advancing rapidly through the academic ranks, he became the chairman of the department of oral surgery in 1958, a full professor in 1959, and the dean of the Dental School just three years later.

Since 1965, he has also been a professor of surgery in the School of Medicine, and since 1973, the deputy vice president for dentistry at the University Medical Center Besides achieving quick academic preferment, he has published more an twenty articles in learned journals and texts during the past ten years and has been twice honored by his own university -- when he received the Fuller Award from the Dental Alumni Association in 1969, and when he was given the Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award by the University in 1972. Nor are his honors only local. A member of a long list of national scientific and professional associations, he has served since 1965 as the president of three of them: The American Association of Dental Schools, the American Board of Oral Surgery, and at present the American Society of Oral Surgeons.

Since 1960, he has undertaken a variety of special assignments at the national, and even the international, levels; these have included serving as consultant to the Surgeon General of the Army and to the American Dental Association's Council on Dental Education. In 1973, because of his reputation as a dental educator, he was one of three American dentists chosen as consultants on dental education to the University of Saigon. He has also traveled to Iraq at the University of Baghdad School of Dentistry as a visiting professor.

At present, Dr. McCallum is affiliated with six hospitals in Birmingham and is a consultant to the Martin Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia. He is a fellow of the American College of Dentists and is a member of his county, state, and national medical and dental societies. In addition, he belongs to such professional organizations as the Federation Dentaire Internationale, the International Association of Oral Surgeons, the American Association of Dental Schools, and Omicron Kappa Upsilon, the honorary dental fraternity.

In 1955 he married a graduate of the University Hospital School of Nursing, the former Alice Rebecca Lasseter of Albertville. They had four sons and live in Birmingham.

Dr. McCallum passed away on January 17, 2021.

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