Tulare's Tale of Two Drillings

Tulare - When Dr. Patty Drilling opened her practice 18 years ago in her hometown, the new dentist did not have to look far for a role model. After all, her father, Dr. Tom Drilling, had practiced dentistry for four decades.

Although Tom Drilling retired in 1984 and dentistry has seen many changes, that in no way has diminished his influence on his daughter.

“I try to model myself on how he treated patients,” Patty Drilling said of her 88-year-old father. “It's more about knowing how to deal with people. He's a person of integrity whom I can look up to.”

Father and daughter sat recently in Patty Drilling’s new office at 877 East Merritt Ave., to talk about their careers and the changes in dentistry.

When Tom Drilling attended the University of Southern California's dental school in the early 1940s, it was operated by the Army and he would go to school during the week and “play war games on the weekend,” he said.

But when he graduated from USC in 1944 as a private first class, the Army didn't need him and so he applied to the Navy, where he served two years as a dentist at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Wash. and at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii after the end of World War II.

“I was Admiral Nimitz' dentist for awhile,” he said, referring to Chester Nimitz, who was the Navy's commander-in-chief in the Pacific during the war and headquartered near Pearl Harbor.

The 1938 Tulare Union High School graduate returned here in 1946, setting up practice at 202 South N St. with Dr. Oscar Finch. (Drs. Dennis and Jocelyn Buhler have their dental practice at that location today.)

The conditions initially were not ideal, but “I didn't have any money and I had to go somewhere,” he said.

He had one treatment room and no light, except for a corner light with a chain, and getting new lights was difficult because of government rationing.

“I don't want to see the first fillings I put in,” Drilling said.

Drilling was elected to the Tulare City Council in about 1948 and served as mayor two years until he was called back to active duty in 1952 - this time with the Marine Corps. Again he worked as a dentist, this time with a Marine unit stationed in the desert near Barstow.

“He said he never shot anything except Novocain,” his wife, Pat, said.
After that stint was over, he returned to Tulare and to his practice, which he continued until he retired.

Patty Drilling, a 1982 graduate of Tulare Union, studied biology and chemistry at California State University, Fresno, with thoughts of becoming a doctor.

But by time she graduated, she had met her future husband and decided dentistry might be a better career choice if they were to have a family.

“And I'm really not very good at awaking up in the middle of the night,” she said.
From CSUF, it was on to the University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry. She loves a challenge and dental school was just that, she said.

“Nobody coddles you because you're a woman,” she said, adding that at times the challenges almost seemed like “hazing.”

When she returned here in 1991 to start her practice she “was considered an oddity,” even though women comprised about half of her class at UCSF, she said.
She recalled a dental society meeting in Visalia at which she was asked “What office do you work in?” Her reply: “My own.”

When she started practicing dentistry it was at the same location where her father once practiced – 202 South N St. –- and she stayed there working in association with Dr. Dennis Buhler until the beginning of 1999, when she moved to Dr. Robert Elston's office at 970 North Cherry St.

Changing Times

When he looks around his daughter's office, Tom Drilling sees high speed drills and different materials that were not available when he started practice, although hand tools “are about the same,” he said.

At the time of the interview, Patty Drilling was awaiting the arrival of digital X-ray equipment, another tool unavailable to her father when he practiced.

One of the biggest changes has been in bonding agents, which allow dentists to do porcelain crowns, not just gold, she said.

Ironically, while most people prefer the porcelain crowns for appearance sake, Patty Drilling said “gold is actually the kindest material you can put in a mouth. From the old school perspective, gold is top of the line.”

When Tom Drilling began practicing, Tulare had no oral surgeons, so he had to learn on the job.

“I must have done a million extractions,” he said, adding he was called many times in the middle of the night to the hospital for surgery.

In one case, a soldier who had been in an accident and “his jaw was pushed into the middle of his throat” and there was concern he might not survive. “But he made it,” he said.

“One time Dr. [William] Clinite was working on a woman's foot, I was working on her teeth and Dr. [Cyril] Johnson was doing the anesthesia,” he said.

Dentist in general practice don't do many extractions today, Patty Drilling said.
“I do, but again you're more selective,” she said. “If it's complicated or you think roots are to break, you make a referral.”

Pat Drilling said her husband use to make house calls too, “usually on older fellows who couldn't get into the office.”

New Office

Patty Drilling's new office is part of a 2,400 square-foot building that she had constructed on a home site where her parents had lived for five years before they decided to downsize.

She occupies 1,600-square-feet of space and wants to rent out the remaining area, she said. The property also has room for another building and the city has provided four street addresses for what is called Mission Plaza.

The office is warmly decorated inside with artwork, including a tapestry by her friend Colleen Mitchell-Venya, who has painted many murals in Tulare and plans to do one inside Drilling's office in the future.

A glass door leading from the waiting room into the inner office has her initials – PJD – etched on it and a waterfall greets patients as they enter. The office has four treatment rooms, a laboratory, laundry room, a staff lounge, and lots of cabinet space.

Drilling credits her “very fine staff” for her success.

“In addition to being very talented and professional, they have been extremely loyal throughout the years,” she said.

Her two chairside assistants have worked with her off and on since she began her career. “That continuity is irreplaceable,” she said.

Her receptionist and one of the hygienists each have worked for her for 10 years.
She also enjoys the support of her husband, David Phelps, an eighth grade science teacher for the Tulare City School District. They live in Tulare with their two children, Drew, a sophomore at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, and Caitlin, a St. Aloysius School sixth grader.

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