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Robert N. Arm, D.M.D., has been an activist for community health since his days at the Martin Van Buren High School in New York. He developed an interest in health care while volunteering at the Red Cross and working with local hematologists and oncologists. While attending Queens College in Flushing, New York, he worked for a few months as a VISTA volunteer in Chicago's inner city neighborhoods. Upon graduation in 1968, he was awarded scholarships by the New York State Board of Regents to study both medicine and dentistry at a New York school, but instead chose to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his degree in dental medicine in 1972. He completed a rotating dental internship with emphasis on oral surgery and oral medicine at the Philadelphia General Hospital (1973) and pursued additional training in hospital dentistry and certification in oral medicine and oral pathology, at Philadelphia General and at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (1973-1976).

…Dr. Arm became an educator in earnest when he joined the faculty of the University of Louisville as an assistant professor of Oral Medicine (1976-1980). After four years at Louisville, Dr. Arm returned to the Philadelphia area to Wilmington at the then Wilmington Medical Center. He became a member of the dental staff at the Medical Center of Delaware (now Christiana Care) and has served as the Dentistry Department chairman and residency program director since 1979. He was later asked to join the Temple University School of Dentistry as a clinical professor in the Department of Oral Medicine/Oral Diagnosis. He is also currently a consultant and coordinator of Dental Education and the Dental Clinic at the Delaware Psychiatric Center. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine and the American Academy of Pain Management. He is a fellow of the American Association of Hospital Dentists, the American College of Dentists and the Academy of Dentistry for Persons with Disabilities, and an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Oral Medicine.

Throughout his career, Dr. Arm has made service to his community a priority. While in Kentucky, he participated in several community cancer screening programs and in children's dental screenings for the Delaware State Dental Society. In June 2000, Dr. Arm joined a group of students, residents, attendings and faculty from several universities who traveled to Hanoi, Vietnam, to treat patients and to address students at the Hanoi Medical-Dental School.

"Since that time, we've continued to work with Operation Smile to provide dental care to migrant workers and their families in Delaware through Christiana Care and the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children," he said. "These types of foreign and domestic outreach programs serve to enrich our residents' educational experience while, at the same time, help people who might otherwise have little or no access to dental care."

Dr. Arm has been honored twice for service in the field of Oral Medicine by the American Academy of Oral Medicine (1987, 1999), and most recently for service to the community by the Wilmington City Council which selected him as Doctor of the Millennium, 2000.

Dr. Arm has lectured worldwide on a broad range of dental topics including treating medical emergencies, dental diagnosis and head and neck pain management, an area in which he is a recognized expert. While at the University of Louisville, he helped to start an interdisciplinary clinic for managing pain. He became a founding member of the American Pain Society of the International Association for the Study of Pain and a member of the first board of directors of the American Pain Society and Northeast Craniomandibular Society.

"I think dentistry signifies fear and pain to most patients," he said. "Helping to relieve someone's pain really gives me a good feeling. As dentists, we need to treat facial or dental pain similar to the way physicians treat any other type of medical pain. We must consider the total patient, symptoms, posture and behavior. We may even make referrals out