Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Summer 2023 - 52

People in Orthodontics
In Memoriam
Remembering Dr. Donald L. Tuverson,
an Orthodontic Icon
Dr. Donald L. Tuverson
Dr. Donald L. Tuverson
passed away quietly at
his home in San Diego,
California, in early 2023.
Professionally, we have
missed him for several
decades because he retired
from active private
orthodontic practice at
the end of 1999, but he
will be remembered for
many years to come for his contributions to our
specialty and our orthodontic culture.
Although Dr. Tuverson spent the first six years of his
life in Nebraska, he moved to Pasadena, California,
with his mother, brother, and sister after his father
passed away. Strongly influenced by his mother,
Dr. Tuverson was raised to value integrity, honesty,
and quality. At age 17, he enlisted in the Marine
Corps at the conclusion of World War II, so he never
saw the horrors of active combat. However, during
that time, although he won Pacific fleet boxing
awards for his weight class, he once recalled that
his job in the Marine Corps was to help remove the
machine gun nests and barbed wire from Waikiki
Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. At that time he learned
that there were two kinds of people in the military
world-officers and enlisted men-and he did
not want to go through life as an enlisted man.
After his military service, he began using his GI
Bill benefits to fund an education, starting at Muir
Junior College in Pasadena, California. He eventually
became a triple graduate at the University of
Southern California (USC) and a lifetime USC Trojan
football fan along with his dear wife Judy, son,
three daughters, and
six grandchildren.
Dr. Tuverson graduated from the USC School of
Dentistry in 1956, started a pedo-ortho practice in
Pasadena, and began teaching restorative dentistry
under Drs. Rex Ingrahm and Guy Ho. Dr. Tuverson
had wanted to specialize in orthodontics, but the
orthodontic program under Dr. Spencer Atkinson
(teaching the Universal Technique-Unitek) closed
for the next four years before it was resurrected
by Drs. Cecil Steiner, Harry Dougherty, and Keith
Tanaka in 1960 as an Edgewise program.
Dr. Tuverson was one of ten in the famous first
graduating class of 1962. Upon graduating, he
started an orthodontic practice in Pasadena,
California, and rose to professional prominence
rubbing shoulders with the likes of Dr. Robert
Ricketts, Howard Lang, Roscoe Keady, Wayne
Watson, and Lee Logan in the Southern California
Component of the Edward H. Angle Society.
Dr. Tuverson's rise to prominence had many professional
influences as a member of the Edward H.
Angle Society, the American Board of Orthodontics,
the Pierre Fauchard Academy, Omicron Kappa Upsilon
Dental Honor Society, the American Academy
of Dentists, and the Tweed Society and the more
common memberships in the AAO, PCSO, California
Association of Orthodontists, and San Gabriel
Valley Dental Society (for which he served as ortho
peer review chair for several decades). During that
time, Dr. Tuverson taught at USC for more than 50
years in addition to regular orthodontic lecturing
invitations at the two other Southern California
orthodontic programs at UCLA and Loma Linda.
Perhaps his rise to lecturing prominence nationally
and internationally was triggered by his personal
energy and attention to the details needed for excellence
in his orthodontic practice. Dr. Tuverson is
most famous for his contributions to the development
and lectures on canine substitution for small,
missing, or damaged lateral incisors. Although
this was not his only published article, in the 1970
American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial
Orthopedics, he documented his now famous cases
and technique on reshaping canines and closing of
the lateral incisor spaces. His other contributions
included articles and respected presentations on
gnathological finishing of orthodontic cases, adult
orthodontics, unusual extraction patterns, indirect
bonding, equilibration, and mesiodistal reduction
of teeth to improve esthetics and periodontal
health. He was also asked to lecture on practice
management and clinical efficiency. He started by
52
PCSO Bulletin Summer 2023
Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Summer 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists Bulletin Summer 2023
